I don't know how to relate to people who have watched their loved ones die horribly, or attend funerals via zoom.
My uncle died during Covidtide (not from Covid), and so he had a funeral service on zoom. Ironically, that meant I was able to attend, whereas I probably wouldn't have managed to fly back to the UK for it if we were in person. Similarly, our families were able to virtually "attend" child #1's covidtide Confirmation. They certainly wouldn't have all been able to travel in a normal year.
I had covid in early March 2020 and have long covid, or more correctly a post viral syndrome called postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
When the pandemic hit last spring I was teaching a module on death and dying to frontline health care workers and residential care workers; a key theme being the concept of a good death. It was very upsetting for them.
That sounds incredibly distressing for them. My uni (and indeed department) has a specialism in Death Studies which I know is often done by people in hospital/hospice chaplaincy or nursing/caring professions. I hadn't thought about how much more complex studying that gets in these circumstances.
Studying the subject is difficult enough in normal times; there’s a reason why their first assignment (my marking last week) asks them to reflect on how they will overcome the challenges of studying death, dying and bereavement.
The online public health module I teach also needed a bit of a re-write as in spring 2020 we were discussing how causes of death in the last 100 years had moved from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases…
Well, I don't have a gallbladder any more, thanks to Covid. Fortunately, surgery was blessedly uncomplicated, and my ability to digest cheese appears undiminished. So at least I know I won't get gallstones again, even if I do catch Covid for a second time.
Well, I don't have a gallbladder any more, thanks to Covid. Fortunately, surgery was blessedly uncomplicated, and my ability to digest cheese appears undiminished. So at least I know I won't get gallstones again, even if I do catch Covid for a second time.
Alas, according to my wife who was de-galled some years ago, it is still possible to get the stones, they just can lodge in the same place.
“ People with a history of gallstones or gallbladder disease are at risk for bile duct stones. Even people who have had their gallbladders removed can experience this condition.
The following increase your chances of developing gallstones:
obesity
low-fibre, high-calorie, high-fat diet
pregnancy
prolonged fasting
rapid weight loss
lack of physical activity
Some of these risk factors for gallstones can be improved through lifestyle changes.”
I had mine removed ten years ago. So far so good. 😊
Pretty certain that pregnancy isn't going to be a problem... And honestly, neither is the rest of that list, but it was true before I ended up with the Mother of All Gallstones, so who knows. But they can fuck right off, all the same.
My uncle died during Covidtide (not from Covid), and so he had a funeral service on zoom.
One of our priests died during Covidtide as well, (also not of Covid itself). She knew it was coming well in advance, so took the opportunity offered by it being a Zoom service to preach the sermon at her own funeral.
Marvin, I admit I'm having difficulty even imaging that, which is probably due to a lack of imagination on my part. I find the idea intriguing, but I'm not sure how I would react to seeing a video of a person at their funeral, especially if it was someone I was very close to.
We recently (physically) attended the funeral of a dearly loved priest. Because the service was Zoomed, and there are now also screens in church, the "bulletin" was illustrated in some cases with photographs of him, and others. It was a joyous occasion and we felt the pictures helped draw a continuity between life on earth and in heaven. It also helped that for many of us it was the first time in 18 months that we had lustily sung favourite hymns together!
Yes, somehow for me pictures would be OK, but I would find a video with the person talking much more difficult. This isn't a criticism of it having ben done and probably says more about my own limitations than anything else.
At my gran's funeral, a short video was shown of her sitting up in bed and telling some stories about her life. We cried, but it was also a good thing that some of her stories were preserved.
Since Tesco featured a visitor from the North Pole showing his vaccine status to gain entry to the UK in their Christmas ad, the anti-vax idiots have decided to boycott the store. So, it should be safer for the rest of us to shop there.
Oh, I am angry with my unlucky anti-vax mate. This seems to be the thread, but he is in a coma and what's the point. You couldn't make this up - if you did you'd be a sick fucker, and even talking about it feels like attention seeking instead of lamenting his absence (and wondering about its permanence). When it's some stranger you can think it serves the fucker right for putting who knows who else at risk, instead of worrying about the fucker's kids and unstable wife, and how much you miss him. If he survives with fucked lungs (which is about the best outcome) I'll never hear the end of how the health service failed him, him sitting on the end of the tube of a fucking oxygen concentrator. Even his fucking wife is still unvaccinated. In tears, and unvaccinated.
Maybe we could have adverts like they do on fag packets.
'As your blood oxygen falls due to viral inflammation of the lungs, the only way to stop you asphyxiating is to place you in a hood, in an oxygen rich atmosphere. As your involuntary coughing starts to tear up what is left of the fantastically-fractal, high-surface-area lining of your lungs and your blood oxygen falls further, we will have to anaesthetise you and possibly use drugs to induce muscle paralysis. Since your diaphragm will then not work, we will put a tube deep into your lungs and blow gas in, to prevent your immediate death - and when we do, ubiquitous fungal spores will get it and breed inside you since your natural means of suppressing this will have collapsed under the strain of the damage already inflicted. The oxygen concentration in the gas you are breathing will need to go up and up as the efficiency of your lungs goes down, and this makes the gas itself toxic over the days, and days, we will have to do it for, causing further lung abnormalities. No-one knows how long this will go on for, but more than half of patients will get switched off because it will become clear we are flogging a dead horse. Those who live will have large areas of lung tissue which will not recover, and the life you recover to will not in any way resemble the one you thought you had.'
That still won't work, because they believe I am making it up.
I can't see it, the wiser bit. I think he'd prefer to die a martyr to socialised medicine and government misinformation. I'm not joking. People who grew up in some bits of the world have (or had) Reasons to hate The State. I don't suppose his kids will see it like that.
I have sympathy with Black and other minority vaccine-hesitant people, who undoubtedly have things like the Tuskegee Syphillis Experiment on their mind, and other ways in which their government experimented on minority groups.
In addition to the things you mention some work has been done that shows that vaccine hesitancy is often highest among the time poor and those who don't necessarily have the ability to take even a short time off work should they or their children suffer from side effects.
Because if you don't have sick pay from Day 1, and at a decent rate, for low paid workers, they will absolutely turn up even if they're dying because they can't afford not to.
Well before Covid, of course, but I recall days when the ambulance station at which I was based echoed to the sound of operational front-line staff coughing and sneezing...mostly due to the increasingly draconian rules imposed by management as regards sick leave, rather than economic necessity.
You've forgotten zero hours and the sort of agency arrangement I used to be on that means no work, no pay, sick pay doesn't exist at all (says the person who worked through shingles, swearing as I covered someone on a contract and "off sick" and tried to do my own work at the same time.)
The Ambulance Service didn't have any zero hours contracts IIRC (at least, back in my day pre-2014), but I do know of care home staff who suffer this form of modern slavery.
Indeed, I've been fired because of taking too much sick leave (when on a zero hours contract) when I had a gall bladder infection that had been initially not correctly diagnosed. I had just two weeks off. And I was working for a well-known UK charity (which I won't name and shame because they are the only charity doing a particular disability service, and their clients don't deserve a boycott). Most workers were agency workers and there was a very high turnover.
If people don't have the possibility of paid sick leave, what are they supposed to do?
Yeah right, when you're getting paid next to nothing so that even when you work every hour available you need to choose between buying food or paying the electric bill you're going to fork out on insurance.
I have to legally stay off until 48 hours after a bout of sickness/diarrhoea. This does automatically count to my sick days though my manager has the power to override it. I to have seen people come in ill.
- They don't have paid sick time.
- They're working overtime. Paid sick days will compensate for regular time, but not OT.
- They've got work to do, and don't want to let the backlog build higher
- There aren't enough people to do the work, and they don't want to put more pressure on their cow-orkers
- There's some important bit of work / presentation / whatever that only they can do, and they don't want to let people down.
- Misplaced masculinity - the idea that taking sick time is somehow not manly.
I've seen people work sick for all of these reasons.
Also utter pride and selfishness. Fundamentally it's still anti social behaviour and something we need to be a whole lot less accepting of. Also of the need to do of course.
It does no freaking good to PUNISH people for what you imagine are their evil motives (utter pride and selfishness). Chances are good it's a whole lot more mixed than that, unless they're independently wealthy and have no families to support. And even if they are, you'd be better off attacking the problem on its weaker side and lowering the barriers to staying home, rather than punishing the people who do what seems natural to them at present, and come in sick. That will just set their backs up and make them feel martyred.
I think there's a bit of a pond difference here; the UK has the NHS, non time-limited unemployment benefit payments, employment protection laws and paid sick leave which while often inadequate are completely lacking in some US contexts, especially in "right to work" (read "right to be fired on a whim") States, so the situations are not directly comparable.
I think there's a bit of a pond difference here; the UK has the NHS, non time-limited unemployment benefit payments, employment protection laws and paid sick leave which while often inadequate are completely lacking in some US contexts, especially in "right to work" (read "right to be fired on a whim") States, so the situations are not directly comparable.
If SSP is all you've got it's a pittance and you'll be unpaid until it kicks in. The folk we're talking about in the UK are often agency staff and have not dissimilar rights to those in the US.
Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that Austria goes into lockdown on Monday (and is to introduce compulsory vaccination), and also that Germany is not ruling out further lockdowns.
What's more, all Christmas markets in Bavaria have been cancelled, which will be a huge blow to traders, I should think.
Are we here in England looking at a possible Christmas lockdown? Beloved Leader says no, but when did He last speak the truth? If we do go into lockdown, it will be on Christmas Eve, with about 10 minutes' notice...
If SSP is all you've got it's a pittance and you'll be unpaid until it kicks in. The folk we're talking about in the UK are often agency staff and have not dissimilar rights to those in the US.
Or the self-employed. If you're a self-employed taxi driver, tradesman, or whatever, you're on your own.
That's how employment is set up in England for many agency staff, as self-employment, through a shell company that the agency staff member supposedly controls, but pays for the administration of the shell company as deductions from their not wonderful pay (10%!). Agency contracts mean no pay if not working, holiday and sick pay optional, should the agency staff member be in a position to allow additional deductions from their already reduced pay packet for repayment when sick or to cover (usually required) holidays.
The employer also avoids paying Employers National Insurance payments, as well as sick pay and holiday pay. Neat dodge, for the employers.
If SSP is all you've got it's a pittance and you'll be unpaid until it kicks in. The folk we're talking about in the UK are often agency staff and have not dissimilar rights to those in the US.
Or the self-employed. If you're a self-employed taxi driver, tradesman, or whatever, you're on your own.
Yes, I appreciate that, but I wonder if some of the lack of understanding may come from people who've not had to depend indefinitely in that sort of precarious work situation.
My point is that no-one has a right to make money at the expense of other people's health.
No-one.
If we haven't learned that over the last 18 months, then we are even more dedicatedly stupid as a society than I thought. And I thought I was a pessimist.
The so-called exceptions people have been all to ready to justify simply have to be ironed out, so that people can afford to live without putting other people's health in danger. I have an unpleasant suspicion that some people would rather kill their fellow workers or customers than rely on support, but that just has to be tough shit.
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"The Woo Gauntlet" is a quite wonderful phrase. I may have to steal it.
My uncle died during Covidtide (not from Covid), and so he had a funeral service on zoom. Ironically, that meant I was able to attend, whereas I probably wouldn't have managed to fly back to the UK for it if we were in person. Similarly, our families were able to virtually "attend" child #1's covidtide Confirmation. They certainly wouldn't have all been able to travel in a normal year.
That sounds incredibly distressing for them. My uni (and indeed department) has a specialism in Death Studies which I know is often done by people in hospital/hospice chaplaincy or nursing/caring professions. I hadn't thought about how much more complex studying that gets in these circumstances.
The online public health module I teach also needed a bit of a re-write as in spring 2020 we were discussing how causes of death in the last 100 years had moved from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases…
Alas, according to my wife who was de-galled some years ago, it is still possible to get the stones, they just can lodge in the same place.
The following increase your chances of developing gallstones:
obesity
low-fibre, high-calorie, high-fat diet
pregnancy
prolonged fasting
rapid weight loss
lack of physical activity
Some of these risk factors for gallstones can be improved through lifestyle changes.”
I had mine removed ten years ago. So far so good. 😊
One of our priests died during Covidtide as well, (also not of Covid itself). She knew it was coming well in advance, so took the opportunity offered by it being a Zoom service to preach the sermon at her own funeral.
It was certainly an interesting experience.
One very small ray of hope - having seen what's happening, his wife may decide on vaccination for herself...
Maybe we could have adverts like they do on fag packets.
'As your blood oxygen falls due to viral inflammation of the lungs, the only way to stop you asphyxiating is to place you in a hood, in an oxygen rich atmosphere. As your involuntary coughing starts to tear up what is left of the fantastically-fractal, high-surface-area lining of your lungs and your blood oxygen falls further, we will have to anaesthetise you and possibly use drugs to induce muscle paralysis. Since your diaphragm will then not work, we will put a tube deep into your lungs and blow gas in, to prevent your immediate death - and when we do, ubiquitous fungal spores will get it and breed inside you since your natural means of suppressing this will have collapsed under the strain of the damage already inflicted. The oxygen concentration in the gas you are breathing will need to go up and up as the efficiency of your lungs goes down, and this makes the gas itself toxic over the days, and days, we will have to do it for, causing further lung abnormalities. No-one knows how long this will go on for, but more than half of patients will get switched off because it will become clear we are flogging a dead horse. Those who live will have large areas of lung tissue which will not recover, and the life you recover to will not in any way resemble the one you thought you had.'
That still won't work, because they believe I am making it up.
One feels like saying that death is possibly preferable to struggling with fucked-up lungs for a few short and doubtless miserable years.
🕯🕯
In addition to the things you mention some work has been done that shows that vaccine hesitancy is often highest among the time poor and those who don't necessarily have the ability to take even a short time off work should they or their children suffer from side effects.
Been there. Done that.
Yes, that's the one...
If people don't have the possibility of paid sick leave, what are they supposed to do?
( Six weeks off sick after contracting a hospital-acquired-infection whilst on a night shift)
( if I could’ve dragged myself away from the bathroom that is)
I m retired now, but Really feel for the current batch of hospital workers. It was bad then. Must be appalling now.
Sure. People come in ill for multiple reasons:
- They don't have paid sick time.
- They're working overtime. Paid sick days will compensate for regular time, but not OT.
- They've got work to do, and don't want to let the backlog build higher
- There aren't enough people to do the work, and they don't want to put more pressure on their cow-orkers
- There's some important bit of work / presentation / whatever that only they can do, and they don't want to let people down.
- Misplaced masculinity - the idea that taking sick time is somehow not manly.
I've seen people work sick for all of these reasons.
If SSP is all you've got it's a pittance and you'll be unpaid until it kicks in. The folk we're talking about in the UK are often agency staff and have not dissimilar rights to those in the US.
What's more, all Christmas markets in Bavaria have been cancelled, which will be a huge blow to traders, I should think.
Are we here in England looking at a possible Christmas lockdown? Beloved Leader says no, but when did He last speak the truth? If we do go into lockdown, it will be on Christmas Eve, with about 10 minutes' notice...
Or the self-employed. If you're a self-employed taxi driver, tradesman, or whatever, you're on your own.
The employer also avoids paying Employers National Insurance payments, as well as sick pay and holiday pay. Neat dodge, for the employers.
Yep, been there, got the t-shirt.
Yes, I appreciate that, but I wonder if some of the lack of understanding may come from people who've not had to depend indefinitely in that sort of precarious work situation.
No-one.
If we haven't learned that over the last 18 months, then we are even more dedicatedly stupid as a society than I thought. And I thought I was a pessimist.
The so-called exceptions people have been all to ready to justify simply have to be ironed out, so that people can afford to live without putting other people's health in danger. I have an unpleasant suspicion that some people would rather kill their fellow workers or customers than rely on support, but that just has to be tough shit.