Everyone is ill as fuck

JonQPublik

Just out of curiousity, why testing if you don’t feel sick?

NasserAlazzawi

So anyways, no - it’s a lot of people, but literally not everyone. As you allude to, there is a load of coughs, sore throats, everlasting runny noses/eyes around, not least with us for weeks this winter.

I should save this for the tabloids but my daughter was obviously not well Wednesday, just whiny/moaning a bit more than usual and had a slight temperature.

Next day, no temperature but obvious scarlet fever rash. Friday, same. Ring the GP surgery and register the details first thing. Turns out there aren’t any GPs at the surgery…after chasing twice. I get a call early evening from an 0161 number from some random doctor. Confirms a few things, eventually he asks for photos of the rash sent to his mobile. I tell him it’s not secure, NHS has a secure dropbox type thing. He says he has no other option. Too much of a coincedence if it was a random hacker/nonce (and he was on Whatsapp). Photos of rash sent. Doctor is back on my phone 20 minuntes saying it’s nothing serious and prescribes generic emollient cream and Piriton. His actual words ’it’s nothing serious’ and ‘gone by Monday’. I went and got the prescription.

Saturday, same - no temperature but still obvious scarlet fever rash. Emollient/Piriton lol. What to do?

Sunday, ring 111 or whatever for hours, no-one is picking up. Take the pained decision to go to a walk-in with a probably highly contagious kid.

Walk-in is rammed with a lot of sort of rough and/or slightly down trodden folk who seem to be doing it as just a thing they do most weekends.

Get triaged 1 hour later, get moved into a side room because of the rash and then left pretty much for 4 hours…

Doctor sees my kid, checks the rash on her torso, tonsils are swollen etc (still no temperature) - yup it’s strep A - scarlet fever and throat.

Why couldn’t the first nurse say that? Why did it take 4 hours in the meantime.

Did she have a swab that confirmed it?
Just asking coz about a month ago had exactly the same with my 6 year old. Both of us got sore throat and raging temp, went to emergency as boy came out in rash all over and temp of 39.
Got diagnosed as scarlet fever/strep A/acute tonsillitis. Got given antibiotics. 3 days later swab result comes back as negative and it was viral. Both our swabs.
In short strep a is being misdiagnosed and subsequently mistreated. But better the devil.

They did say my son’s was scarlet fever no doubt too. He was head to toe rash mimicking exactly scarlet fever along with the other symptoms .
Tbh the thing that pissed me the most was they knew on day 3 it wasn’t bacterial but had given him ten days of antibiotics on day 1. So he would been talking broad spectrum antibiotics for 7 days for no reason and there was no follow up to let us know to discontinue them. I only found out because my Dr rang me about something else by chance on day 5 and found out for me when I asked.
Better safe and sorry on day one of course but just think that was poor form giving a kid, or anyone for that matter, antibiotics when they are trying to stop handing them out like sweets and everything becoming strain resistant.

rhouses with China going nuts at the moment

Well, what’s happening here is basically the same as I remember the early days of it spreading massively in the UK (I arrived in the UK for an extended break 2 days before the first ever death in Beijing from COVID).

No-one going out, mass hysteria, hospitals overburdened, people talking about ‘flattening the curve’.

It’s just the numbers here are going to be absolutely massive in comparison because it’s China. A city of 1 million people doesn’t even register as a significant/important city. Beijing has 20 million, Shanghai about 25. It’s a massive scale that probably only someone who has lived here, or an Indian could comprehend, actually.

And, of course, the vaccination isn’t supposed to be particularly effective. An added problem.

There are actually many reasons for the Chinese to restrict mainlanders from easily going to Hong Kong, but as I understand it one of the main ones is the lower sales taxes in Hong Kong would allow ample opportunities for arbitrage/resale of goods that could be bought in Hong Kong and then easily driven/walked back over the border.

Also, the Brits in Hong Kong don’t generally make a pain in the arse of themselves (unlike the EasyJet hordes around Europe or on all-inclusives in the “Dom Rep”) so there’s no practical reason to repeal that particular status, other than pointless spite of course.