Some who survive the pumpkina** virus don't always recover completely. 15% of survivors have lingering HEART DAMAGE. Didja know?

Yes - this is now being published but because the disease is so new to humans, these long-term effects are only just showing themselves.

What originally seemed to be a variety of pneumonia at worst, or more like influenza in mild cases, is showing itself as a much more complicated and unpredictable disease that is particularly dangerous to people with weak immune systems or existing conditions like diabetes.

Some call it "Short" and "Long" COVID - either something you recover from fairly quickly, or something that creates that long-lasting damage to organs other than the lungs, which usually appear quite good ate mending themselves.


A friend of mine says he and his fellow players in their local pub darts team, may have had COVID early on, back in January or February when its behaviour was still poorly understood and all the bras, restaurants etc. were fully open without any distancing. He said they all had very bad coughs and they naturally assumed they'd simply all caught one of the sort of coughs and colds that do the rounds in Winter when people congregate indoors much more.  

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I went for my Influenza vaccination this morning, all very "socially distanced" and one-way route through the Health Centre,  and so rapid and efficient I wondered later if they were using this as an exercise for when Covid vaccines become proven and widespread. The first thing that happened was having my temperature measured by non-contact. infra-red detector - I recall that technique was a topic of conversation on another of your threads a couple of weeks or so ago.

Heat is energy that can be transferred in three ways: convection (of part of a fluid hotter than that surrounding it), conduction (such as through the base of a saucepan) and radiation (like light and indeed radio / radar).

In fact it is very much like light: infra-red, slightly "too" red in the spectrum for our eyes to detect; and it is that infra-red radiation that the remote-reading thermometer reads. Such devices have been around for years, used for example by the emergency-services searching for people trapped in a collapsed building, but it is only recently that versions compact enough and sensitive enough for medical use have appeared.


I believe there are about 10 potential COVID-19 vaccines under development around the world, but although those involved are working very hard to bring them to a reasonably safe and reliable level, I hate to think when any will be in widespread use.

Also of course, the Corona-virus group is good at adapting, which is why we cannot cure or vaccinate against the Common Cold, and find it difficult to do so for Influenza We've to hope the COVID species is not as adaptable as some of its relatives.

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I don't know if it's been reported in your services, but we are now fearing in Britain a large rise in cases after working so hard to reduce it to a level we thought would allow a slow return to normal life.

The big problem here is people flouting the numbers and mask rules, but the Police have been given the authority to levy massive fines on those who really and wilfully do so. I am not sure if the £10 000 is a fixed penalty or the maximum, but a teenager has just been fined that for holding a party at home with 50 guests - I think he was given the chance to disperse everyone but did not do so. The Police found out when neighbours reported him. More famously, Piers Corbyn (brother of the Labour Party's previous leader, Jeremy) was also fined £10 000 for organising an anti-mask rally.