Worst cold ever

you're very welcome to this talk it's Friday evening the 24th of September now lots of people around the world are saying they've got the worst cold they've ever had and they're wondering if there's some sort of really bad cold virus going around well in the UK at least the news is that there is not a really bad cold virus going around it's just the usual cold viruses that are going around but people's immunity have waned over the past 18 months because they haven't been exposed very much to Common colds so last winter influenza and common cold should an all-time record low now these are just a routine part of life really we want to prevent them of course if we can especially in vulnerable people because they can lead to complications in people that are prone to for example chronic obstructive Airways disease but there's a fairly strong argument to say that getting these intercurrent infections actually boosts the immune system generally and might protect other immunosurveillance activities as well and one of those may be cancer because some people uh some cancers are caused by lack of immunity um so these are just part of life they're unpleasant but they're all part of life but they all boost the immune system but let's look at this briefly now so this is um this is the UK government data syndromic surveillance A syndrome is just a clinical condition with many different features many different signs and symptoms and this is the weekly summaries for 2021 and it goes down and you can download the latest one there and I think that's the week ending the uh 19th of September and there you go it tells you everything you'd uh like to know all at the click well at the click of a mouse and of course I always include all of the uh all of the references so you can just click away to your heart's content I always include those in the uh references immediately below now lots of people are saying they've had the worst cold ever so as of the week ending the 19th of September 111 in the UK is where you call just to sort of about common medical problems coming from play just to get a bit of online not online not on call Advice it's not the emergency line it's just where where if you're not feeling very well and you can talk it over with someone and they can refer you on to uh to a professional if needed so one-on-one calls for Respiratory type indicators increased nationally in the UK and it's also increased in New Zealand and in um Hong Kong and in Singapore I think and I assume it's increased in the states and as well this is basically everywhere but in the UK particularly one to 14 year olds are complaining more of respiratory type features and respiratory viruses because of course they've returned to school and they're mixing again combine that with the fact that many have been isolating over a long period of time and their immunity has waned to these common viruses and they are common viruses also um potential covid-19 assessments have increased in 5 to 14 year olds so this brings us on to what we call the differential diagnosis is it covered or it is a common cold more on that in a minute but first of all common colds are caused by now there's about 100 different types of rhino now Rhino medically just means um the nose so like uh Ria means runny so Rhino real would be a runny runny nose or diarrhea will be a runny runny fecal material so um rhinoviruses there's at least a hundred different rhinoviruses this is why you can get two colds um quite quite quickly you can get one at Rhino Vise and you get another rhinovirus now there is some cross immunity between rhinovirus as well so if you get one rhinovirus other rhinoviruses which are similar to it you're less likely to get immunity you're less likely to get infected with or severely infected with because we have this phenomenon of cross immunity but of course none of them have been circulating lately and that's what's caused this uh large outbreak so it's not caused by a new cold virus it's not caused by a more severe cold virus in the in the UK at least we know it's caused by the reduction in immunity rather than anything else there's also RSV respiratory sincere Sin City or virus can cause common cold type symptoms this can also cause more common conditions more severe conditions rather in children especially adenovirus is a common um and we know we know about these of course because of the adenovirus vector vaccines that use these common uh viruses and of course there's four types of coronavirus that are none covered that can cause a common cold as well and also common cold symptoms can be caused by influenza and power influenza although these can cause a more full-blown influenza as well depending on where the virus goes and your level of immunity so you could have a cold caused by our rhinovirus and then you get another cold a couple of weeks later and you think I've just had one but that one could be caused by a Coronavirus or it could be caused by an adenovirus so there's plenty to choose from so a degree of cross immunity between the different coronaviruses and rhinoviruses but all these different viruses means that you can get between about three and six common colds per year is the average in the UK so um and it can be really quite debilitating a bad cold is really quite an inconvenience and as I say for people with who are predisposed to other medical conditions it can be a risk and the need monitored so uh Dr Gary house and vice chair of the Royal College of GPS says this we're starting to see major Resurgence of illnesses like common colds flu and stomach bugs so the common sort of uh diarrhea type upset stomach bugs upset stomach and upset colon type bugs like norovirus for example I've had norovirus you get really we're we're working in hospitals you get this kind of thing about I got it a couple of years ago and it was I was really quite ill for about a week you can get really really watery really watery diarrhea really quite unpleasant and you feel I felt really wiped out for about a week afterwards I must say um so alongside the covid-19 virus in the community so we've got all these viruses and we've got covered circulating now and that's going to be more so in Autumn as Autumn comes to us in the northern hemisphere now of course Autumn means that we tend to shut the window stay inside mix inside breathe each other's air and it also means we get less Sunshine which means we get less vitamin D so personally I've started taking my vitamin D again because I haven't seen much sun actually up in the north of England for a few weeks now really so well a couple of weeks now so I've started taking some vitamin D again and I'll carry on taking that all winter because I've looked at the evidence and I'm convinced that good levitamin D levels are important for immunity look at the previous videos we've done on that make your own mind up but I'm convinced by the evidence and I take it myself and advice family and friends to take it you'll have to make your own mind up on it I can't advise you because I don't know you but uh I'm taking it the guidelines of course in the UK are still inadequate uh we don't recommend enough in the Republic of Ireland I think they're now recommending 25 micrograms a day which is a thousand international units which is much better than the 400 international units which uh is about 10 micrograms a day which is recommended in in England Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland so uh um the Irish leading the way on vitamin D advice there in the U in the United States I think it's been increased a bit as well but it's still lower than I would have thought is appropriate but because we just don't get the sun in Winter we just don't get it symptoms of covid-19 can often be similar to symptoms of illness such as the common cold of course so it's important that if a patient does experience symptoms of covid-19 such as now this is this doctor speaking and he says symptoms such as a high temperature a new continuous cough uh and a loss of the change of uh smell now this is the classic Triad one uh one temperature cough muscle smell one two three that's that's the common Triad the three most common symptoms that's still on the government website but we know that this is out of date essentially and it's still not updated and I'm a bit surprised to see that the vice chair of the Royal College of general practitioners is not more slightly up to date than this especially as you're speaking publicly uh and anyways anyway says um if this happens that they get a PCR test immediately and on receiving a positive result self-isolate for the required period of time interesting so we're saying you get the symptoms get the test and then if the test is positive yourself isolate now this is not the same as the coverage symptom tracker advice which says self-isolate first then get the test so uh but here here we have the uh the vice chair of the Royal College of general practitioner saying if you get this if you get the classic Triad doesn't mention any of your other symptoms we now know are there but if you get this classic Triad then um get a test and if you test positive then self-isolate um this is part of the problem in this pandemic isn't it you know we get these people that we look up to as the um as like the aficionados of official knowledge but there's there's two things there that are open to question and we're going to question them now uh but just before we do that um this is uh Dr Yvonne Doyle medical director of Public Health England hand washing ventilation and mask wearing aren't only important for covid-19 but they keep the other bugs at Bay as well so ventilate when we can no mention of vitamin D of course but I've mentioned it so there you go why don't they talk about this the evidence seems overwhelming to me but they don't right do I have covered or a common cold now this is from Tim Spector Zoe uh symptom tracker data study now vaccinated or not whether you're vaccinated or not this data is showing and osmia that's the loss of smell is one of the most common important predictors testing of testing positive recovery 19 rather than a regular cold so in the early stages of a regular cold that you can lose the sense of smell but it tends to be later on but when your nose is all clogged up with mucus but in the early stages of a common cold typically you do not lose your sense of smell in the early stages of covered it's much more common to lose your sense of smell so whenever I get cold features before I test I just smell the coffee and if I could smell the coffee I think oh that's good I can smell coffee just straight out the jar or whatever you like smelling really get something you like smelling give it a good Sniff and if you can smell it as normal that's it that's a good sign so anosomi is one of the differential diagnosis if you get common cold symptoms and lose your sense of smell that makes covered much more likely as a diagnosis now um if fully vaccinated as of the 21st of September data this is data that Tim spector's team Zoe team has been collecting for a long time now um most common feature runny nose second most common feature headache this is people fully vaccinated who get covered remember fully vaccinated with get covered thermos common sneezing fourth most common sauthora and fifth most common and nosmia no mention of um the classic Triad apart from the animals may have no mention of fever no mention of um new continuous cough as mentioned by the Vice chair of the Royal College of general practitioners so they are that's what the data is showing from the Zoe study if a vaccinated then it's in this order headache most common running no second most common sore throat third most common fever fourth most common so that comes in there in the unvaccinated fever and then persistent cough as the fifth so the features that uh that um Dr Gary halson from the vice chair of the Royal College of general practitioners is talking about is more those that are unvaccinated which of course is the vast minority of people now at least in the UK and nosmia comes about sixth or seventh actually in the in the um in the unvaccinated now other symptoms briefly have covered chills or fevers now chills or fevers you know we know when you're getting sick you feel cold you chill and you can shiver a bit that's because your body temperature is trying to go up it's trying to raise your body temperature because the immune system works better at pyrexial temperatures when you have a fever the immune system's working better than when you're at normal temperatures so it makes sense that the body tries to increase your body temperature that's why you get these if it's really bad we call that a rigor when you're shaking to try and increase your body temperature um loss of uh loss or change of taste as well as smell undue fatigue is a covered feature delirium not really in young people delirium really means an acute confusional state so lots of orientation for time place and uh person usually in that order would indicate some more severe delirium but it's older people that tend to suffer from this um skin rashes we know about um changes in the mouth or tongue so-called covered tongue red and inflamed very often red and sore fingers and toes is a covered feature shortness of breath as a covered feature chest pain is a covered feature but bear in mind chest pain can be a sign of heart disease as well so severe chest pain should well any chest pain should be checked out muscle pain these aches to get all over the place horse voice diarrhea the gastrointestinal features are covered anorexia means loss of appetite skipping meals abdominal pains so they're all additional features of covered that have been identified by the cover symptom tracker right now the the the common symptom tracker people say this if you feel newly unwell especially if you're suffering from any of the common cold symptoms stay at home and get a covered test even if you've been vaccinated so they're saying stay at home first so you don't spread it around and then get a covered test quite an important difference and I would have thought that is probably the more expedient way to go because hospitalizations although they're going down in the UK and indeed in the states are still higher than we would like so we would still like to smooth this out quite a bit for the next few months before things start improving I think quite dramatically in the early New Year so lateral flow tests which we all know about so we've all got these at home I'm sure we've all we've all done these they're free to pick up from any pharmacist or various outlets in the UK so lateral flow test now the thing about the lateral flow tests um specificity specificity is 99.9 and maybe as high as it's getting over 100 99.97 in other words you've got a very low false positive rate in other words if you test positive it basically means you've got it so a positive test is is basically a confirmation you might want to get a PCR as well but if you test positive it basically means you have got the virus these work best when the viral load is very high in the day or so day or two before you become symptomatic and in the first few days after symptoms develop after about five or six days these are very unlikely to test positive because by five or six days the immune system will have reduced the viral load in the vast majority of people so you know like the test no longer like to test positive on these but you will on a PCR right a negative result from lateral flow tests is not totally reliable in other words there's a high false negative rate so if you test yourself for the lateral flow test and you're negative it means you may or may not be negative so um 72 picked up from those with symptoms only 58 picked up from those without symptoms so in other words to put that the other way around 28 didn't uh 28 is that right 28 percent yeah that's right it missed 28 and with here here it missed uh uh work it out and work it out work it out 50 is it 50 anyway whatever that is and the black brain's gone blank anyway as you can see there's a lot there's a lot there that are going to be missed um 42 isn't it 42 are gonna be are going to be missed there so pretty high rate of false uh negatives um so testing finding you don't have the virus 28 chance the test has simply missed it if you have symptoms and 42 percent the test has simply missed it if you don't have symptoms so if your symptoms persist it's best to go to PCR test which of course is is completely reliable the risk with PCR of course is if it's got a high high concentration number you could get false uh false positive of the PCR test rather than the risk of a false negative but we've done all that before right I think we'll leave that there for today um I was going to do a bit of a Roundup but I think that's gone on for long enough so um we'll look at some we'll look at some other facts and figures probably uh tomorrow so um that's also today um thank you for watching and what I'm going to do is if I get the symptoms I'm going to self-isolate then get the test and then put myself out of isolation if I'm negative if I'm positive on the PCR then then fine and remember if you do test positive on this that means you are almost certainly actually positive on the lateral flow tests so thank you for watching

Channel: Dr. John Campbell

Views: 396,522

Keywords: physiology, nursing, NCLEX, health, disease, biology, medicine, nurse education, medical education, pathophysiology, campbell, human biology, human body

Id: 7Vsp5DJtsXM

Length: 18min 1sec (1081 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 24 2021