Tens of thousands of protesters marched across France Saturday to denounce a security bill critics say would restrict the filming of police and posting images to social media, notably to document cases of police brutality Comments || Link
People are less willing to share information that contradicts their pre-existing political beliefs and attitudes, even if they believe the information to be true. The phenomenon, selective communication, could be reinforcing political echo chambers. Comments || Link
Offshore Wind: Things are Getting Bigger "WER expects more than 77GW of new offshore wind capacity to come on stream between now and 2025, requiring the installation on average of over 1,400 turbines annually." Comments || Link
Employees at home are being photographed every 5 minutes by an always-on video service to ensure they're actually working — and the service is seeing a rapid expansion since the coronavirus outbreak Comments || Link
Stephen Covey said “Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.” What are your thoughts on this? Comments || Link
TIL Eddie Murphy recorded "Party All The Time" following a $1 million bet with Richard Pryor that he couldn't sing. The album it appears on is dedicated to Pryor, with the liner notes reading "To Richard Pryor, my idol with whom I have a $1,000,000 bet. No Mother Fucker, I didn't forget." Comments || Link
TIL MF DOOM’s tour doubled as a food drive where he encouraged audience members to bring cans of food, leading to over 1000 pounds of food donated to various shelters. Comments || Link
TIL Composer Franz Liszt's hotness is a matter of historical record. Such was his beauty, talent and benevolence, the Hungarian pianist was said to bring about states of 'mystical ecstasy' and 'asphyxiating hysteria' in his fans. Many doctors felt he posed a public health risk. Comments || Link
Here are all of the rivers and waterways in Africa, coloured according to the major hydrological basins they are part of. Zoom in! [OC] Comments || Link
The prevention is worse than the disease, and more permanent.
In English speaking countries, we show our faces to those we're interacting with. It is one of the cornerstones of our relatively high-trust societies that people take for granted and so do not realise what we will be giving up. I know how much we rely on cues from other peoples' facial expressions in order to get along relatively harmoniously. This permeates every single kind of face-to-face - the clue is in the name - interaction we have, big and small. From understanding that their faces may be remembered dissuading some who might otherwise commit criminal acts on the spur of the moment, to smiling to show that a potentially nasty comment is meant in fun and avoid a falling out, we need to see and show our faces to get by in the kind of societies that we have. If we give that up our societies will be infinitely the worse off. Yes you can communicate without the lower face, and without words. Communication is resilient in sapient species. We can adapt to many impediments. Communication involves tone, cadence, breathing, facial expression, eye contact, eye movement and pupil dilation, the way someone is leaning and their angle relative to you, gestures, distance between participants, frequency of hesitation markers, detection of whether any of these things are being affected in the other person and many more besides. We can absolutely cut off some of these things, leaving few or just one, and often still communicate. That doesn't mean that communication is not clearer, more optimised, and therefore objectively better when we don't. Almost everyone is aware of all of these small elements of communication on some level, and it's why in interactions where some are cut off such as over text, misunderstandings occur with much greater frequency. In an extreme and probably untrue but interesting and favourite example of mine, since you mentioned Japan: it is the source of one of the more famous (alleged by the Japanese) disasters leading from a misunderstanding. The short version is that when the Allies demanded in no uncertain terms Japan's unconditional surrender, the Japanese response included a word I've borrowed from them quite frequently, "mokusatsu", which is a short and mellifluous word for refusing to deign to address something in an attempt to kill it by ostentatious, contemptuous, condescending starving it of attention. Some Japanese have since claimed that what was meant by PM Suzuki was that he withheld comment on the threat of the new weapon, and that lazy or poor translating by the Allies' translators is to blame for the woes of Hiroshima. It's a probably untrue story, but like all myths, it still contains lessons. For example, I bring it up because it's an example of how the possibly most stripped down method of communication humans have (translated text) is infinitely less preferable than a method with more potential for conveying meaning. So no. I'm not wearing the mask and don't want anyone else to. Aside from the cultural damage (which I want to stress is not restricted to "optimal communication" - that is a digression from the intangible moral norm that in this country we show our faces), it's more hassle for everyone to get a clear and positive read on mask-wearers, and more hassle to make others see what I want them to see if I put one on, so it's not happening. They're also a shifting of the burden of responsibility for one's health too far on to the collective than the individual. I believe in collectivization of healthcare - more than a lot of British people, even. You get people who want to see smokers or the obese paying extra for healthcare; I don't. There's a difference though between all of us paying into a system which is there to prevent unspeakable ugliness like occurs in the USA but which doesn't demand anything of us in our daily lives, and incorporating an inconvenient, uncomfortable, and socially detrimental shibboleth into our lives just to give an illusion of safety to people who aren't yet adjusted to life with a new kind of flu as a constant. Managing your own risk of most illness is your own responsibility, as it always has been. Nobody thin wants to see sugar banned to help address the obesity epidemic, for that precise reason. In exactly the same way that managing your weight is your own responsibility and no one else is required to change to help you diet, managing your coronavirus risk is your problem. If we are allowed to normalise shaming and legislating people into massive lifestyle changes so that public healthcare can afford to continue, I would rather public healthcare not continue - it's there to increase freedoms and life choices, not remove them, and if that relationship turns on its head then public healthcare is unfit for purpose. Let's not forget how many opportunities to be out and about, in public, outside of our own bubbles and property, are permanently gone due to the lockdowns too. Businesses which have saved fortunes (which won't be passed on to either employee or consumer, by the way) by moving everyone out of offices aren't going to embrace rent and utility bills and OSHA compliant rest facilities and liability insurance again. Gathering around the water cooler, knowing your colleagues, a pool of potential friends or at least drinking buddies, meeting your future spouse at the office - that's all gone for good, in a lot of cases. Liaising with your boss - that's now impersonal, done via a screen, and you're a fungible electronic resource to him now, not a human colleague with a face and a personality outside of contributions which make the spreadsheet figures go up. Let's not pretend that it's temporary, either. Mask culture is already here to stay among certain sorts of people - at least until we ban them in public after some high-profile crime ends up not caught because the facial recognition tech doesn't agree with masks. The longer this "temporary" demand - which is being driven by a movement of people like you selling the mask as a socially responsible obligation, which is particularly difficult to undo once it is done - continues the more people will incorporate mask-wearing into their lives on a long term basis, forcing a horrible change to our society which involves treating everyone else as a biohazard, as evil for not wearing a mask, and being at a disadvantage in sharing jokes, detecting lies or sincerity or sympathy, or asserting yourself. We've already been primed quite thoroughly to expect this plague or similar ones to be factors in our lives going forward, too. Covid-19 hasn't been given a proper name for a reason. There's been a lot of talk about it perhaps being seasonal, or mutating beyond the power of a single vaccine to exterminate. So that's another reason not to expect mask culture to go away any time soon. That's why we have to fight it. The economic harms are bad enough, but walkthepattern has talked about them at length in here. The places of business you may have frequented since childhood, shuttered. The year of disrupted, crucial early education for your children. Your own livelihoods decimated or completely gone - therefore your grandchildrens' chances too. These are nightmares, but I would rather have poor great-grandchildren than great-grandchildren who were raised never knowing that once we used to smile at strangers in our neighbourhoods.
Smokers seems underrepresented in covid hospitalisations/deaths relative to their percentage in population. If we don't encourage people to start smoking we shouldn't continue these lockdowns.
Only 4.4 per cent of the hospital patients and 5.3 per cent of those at home were daily smokers. Yet daily smokers account for 25.4 per cent of the French population.
[...] underrepresentation of smokers in SARS-CoV-2 diagnosed patients, relative to the smoking populations in China, Korea, and United States.5 Although there are many possible explanations for these findings, together these results nevertheless suggest a protective effect of smoking on susceptibility to infection with SARS-CoV-2.
These findings add support to the finding of an inverse relationship between current smoking and seriously symptomatic COVID-19.
Do we encourage people to start smoking? Fuck no. Because we know that its negative long term consequences would be much more worse. Why it is different in lockdowns? Lockdowns which aren't based on Focused Protection are exactly like this, we know that long term developmental, economic, social and cultural effects of lockdowns will be awful. Yet politicians insist on them anyway. Edit: Just to clarify, it’s still being researched and there is conflicting reports in this situation (tbf just like lockdowns). Smoking is obviously very bad for you. And also check this comment https://www.reddit.com/LockdownSkepticism/comments/kuwd3h/smokers_seems_underrepresented_in_covid/giup7wu/
Disclaimer I am posting this here because I got a message from the mods asking me to. I'm not from London so links aren't London centric (but hopefully still of help) and the main post is here so any updates will likely be there (I will try here but it's hard to keep up with the amount of suggestions) Thanks. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. Anime If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Sign LanguageBSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesizehere is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though) _riotingpacifist wanted this links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen. Office suit software A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
LibreOfficeThis has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software. Games development D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
DisclaimerI want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. Anime If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Sign LanguageBSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesizehere is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though) _riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen. Office suit software A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
LibreOfficeThis has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software. Games development D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
gaming subscription Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music" Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions. apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with. There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tescp have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
Lockdown: Some things for you to do and Help/support
Disclaimer: I posted this in UK forum but it got autoremoved. It's not completely politics related though it is linked, so I hope it can stay but I understand if it's removed: Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
gaming subscription Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music" Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions. apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with. There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
gaming subscription Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music" Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions. apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with. There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: Togtogtog [Gives a lot of links for Spanish] Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
oops i forgot the demo information, sorry! Female 25 5'0 / 140 lbs non-smoker but i live in a smoking home lower back + knee + hip pain my whole life but worse since corona a month ago So um, let me preface this by saying that my family never really had a lot of money to take me to the doctor growing up, so i haven't had a pcp in. Ever. I made an appointment with one recommended by my fiance, but she's booked until late January and being the anxious person I am, I'm a little concerned. So I was born with "severe" (doctor's words, not mine) femoral anteversion of the hip, knee, and ankle. Made me super clumsy as a kid and I had to see a physical therapist to learn to walk straight, but whatever. Also had the super fun side effect of my knees "creaking" whenever I extended or bent them, but that was painless at the time. Over the past few years, I've been dealing with a lot of super awful lower back pain. Willing to chalk that up to horrible posture, I don't know if it's related but I thought I'd add it. My knees and hips however, hardly ever hurt, unless I strain them in some way. At least, that was the case until I got coronavirus about a month ago. I was just constantly aching, specifically in my back, knees, and hips. Corona passed, and I figured it was back to life as usual. However my knee and back pain haven't subsided in the slightest. My knees are constantly so achy that it hurts to stand, sit, or basically do anything but lay around. I've tried tylenol and bengay but I might get maybe ten minutes of relief before it comes back. I know when I was a kid they mentioned I was at a higher risk for arthritis because of my condition, but I sort of figured I'd have a while longer before that was an issue. Sorry this is kind of a mess, I just woke up. Basically I guess I'm just wondering if I should be concerned about my knees / back or any sort of developing arthritis, and if there's anything I can do to help until I can finally see that pcp? Thanks for reading and sorry again for the incoherent nature of this post.
Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update August 13, 2020
Notes and Highlights of Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear’s Live Update August 13, 2020 Notes bymr_tyler_durdenand Daily Update Team Note: We may need to paraphrase, but the notes are accurate Watch here:
New deaths by county: 82 F Jefferson, 74 M Taylor, 89 F Jefferson, 56 M Carter, 80 F Fayette, 92 M Jefferson
Dr. Stack: If we go to the next slide this plays into schools. GA, again, is one of the first states to go forward with opening a bunch of schools and what you see here on the left, is “District announces plans to bring back students to North Paulding High School after temporary closure”. So North Paulding High School had 9 cases of COVID-19 confirmed within the first week back to school and that number of confirmed cases had risen to 35 according to a letter sent to parents on August 12th. They had a rapid escalation from 9 to 35 in just the first week of school. The other news articles there, those are also from GA, the one in the top is from Cherokee HS and they said there last Monday there have been 59 positive cases reported in the district and that the cases have resulted in a 2 week quarantine for 925 students and staff. So think about that, 925 people who are quarantined for 2 weeks because of their exposure at school. Just think about the impact that would have on you if you had to do that. And then they closed a 2nd school in Cherokee county when nearly 300 students and staff were quarantined after they confirmed more than a dozen cases of COVID-19.
Dr. Stack: Please get your flu shot. Let’s put this in context. Though it’s never a good time to get sick and if you get the flu you can feel quite miserable, it’s particularly not a good time to get influenza in the middle of a global pandemic when the symptoms for influenza look very much like the symptoms for COVID-19. Please get your flu shot. We need everybody to do this. We have to keep Influenza as suppressed as we possibly can. In a bad year with Influenza our hospitals are strained with just keeping up with Influenza patients. That alone puts hospitals at risk of being beyond capacity. Please get the flu shot and all these other things we are doing: Wearing your mask, keeping your distance, washing your hands, and of course getting tested if you have symptoms for COVID-19. Those other things we are doing for public health are the exact same things that lower the risk of other respiratory infections. So if we do this well we should be able to suppress all sorts of infections for this year and everybody can be healthier but we’ve got to follow this guidance and these recommendations.
In rural Appalachia, there are a lot of parents that are concerned right now because the idea of teaching virtually is not an option to them. There’s also a concern that some parents may not be committed enough to helping their child learn virtually. There’s not wifi everywhere in Appalachia, of course. Are you fearful at all that any child is going to be left behind? Is there any expectation that some will be? --- Absolutely. But children, I believe are going to be in a worse situation if we expose them to very significant health risks that are here right now, that they are subjected to quarantine or the potential problems that can come with getting this virus. Especially in Appalachia but all over Kentucky, we have more grandparents raising their grandkids than ever before, then the potential loss in a caregiver, especially with a situation where you’ve already lost so much when this virus is so aggressive, especially to people over a certain age. Now we are working on plans to try to boost internet access all over KY and potentially provide individual help to specific students. That’s a duty we have to have in this instance. Oh yes, all of our plans for internet access are going to be aimed where there is not internet access, specifically rural Kentucky, or if there are parts of urban Kentucky where there is a desert for internet access.
Comments regarding Post office funding, mail in voting? --- I haven’t seen the president’s direct comments on the Postal Service, but we can’t defund the post office. We can’t do it in the midst of an election and certainly can look like it’s because of the election so hopefully that’s just comments being made. But ultimately, I think it was something that was just said, and hopefully won't go any further than that.
Alright everybody it is Thursday at 4 o’clock and like we had been doing on other days, we are showing some school spirit to start today. This mask is from Marion County HS, home of the knights, they are working to create a safe atmosphere for a return to school as their principal says: “The Knight way is the safe way”. Wearing a facial covering is absolutely critical to what we want to be able to do in the commonwealth moving forward. Protect lives, protect people's health, protect our economy, and ultimately get all of our kids back to some in-person classes. We need people to wear it and we need people to want to wear a mask. You can do a lot with it. Today, I’m showing a little school spirit, today I’m also getting to celebrate my faith. I’ve been wearing this one at other parts of the day, this is Disciples of Christ, the denomination I belong in. So there are so many different things that you can do with these facial coverings, have a little fun with them, but remember, by wearing them you protect other people and you help us meet objectives that I think all of us share
Gonna start today with a little bit of good news. Earlier today we were able to announce the completion of 4 projects in Eastern KY was about $14M and jobs in Perry county, a new tourist opportunity in Prestonsburg, and really great economic opportunities, an industrial part that we were able to stabilize which will help create jobs in its area.
But we have more good news today for our Eastern KY counties. So, today, we’re highlighting our local governments in what they’re doing each and every day. We can’t say thank you enough for everything you are doing to keep families safe. And we know you’re hurting. That's why we put aside $300M in CARES Act funding for local government expenses related to COVID that’s administered by our Department of Local Government. Today I’m excited to announce the final approval of over $3.8 million to local governments in Eastern KY. 15 Total: Clay, Greenup, Jackson, Johnson, Knox, Lewis, Magoffin, Martin and the communities/cities of Beattyville, Campton, Catalyst, Corbin, Jackson, and Morehead.
This funding is going to help our county budgets that are already stretched so much, and again, this is a program we have put aside significant dollars to. We see applications coming in, but I will say there’s almost 40 counties that haven’t yet applied. We need to make sure that those dollars that can help you in your budget are applied for so that we can ultimately process that, and those dollars can go to help.
And I jumped the gun a bit by talking about the importance of wearing a mask by wearing a mask showing the school spirit, and we’ve got a video today of one of those students. Who is, wanting to make sure she’s speaking the message that so many need to hear. That wearing a facial covering is the right thing.
You know a lot of what we do, and what we see on a regular basis, is our young people, get it. And while we need with our college aged students and others to make sure we continue with the right types of behaviors, the willingness to wear a mask, especially in our students is so important and we’re seeing such a positive response, and everyday a better response around KY.
Another piece of good news, and that’s with Serve KY, a group that promotes volunteerism in so many different areas throughout KY. Obviously when people volunteer and volunteer for good causes, good things happen. We support good organizations and we provide help for so many Kentuckians. So our Cabinet for Health and Family Services is known as our Helping Agency because of the assistance that it provides, especially through this pandemic. So some more good news from this agency, as it’s had a lot of other awards won or dollars that have come in because of their good work, the Serve KY Office of the cabinet is now allowing free access for volunteer-based organizations to the state’s recruitment and management website Volunteer KY. This platform helps volunteer programs recruit new and manage current volunteers, increase engagement, track involvement, produce reports, a necessity for grant funding. It's a resource for those that might have a little bit more time, right now, and are looking for that opportunity to truly help people or even as we come out of this pandemic, that want to make sure they are giving back and by giving back you can find a whole lot of purpose, happiness, and satisfaction. This website is going to help connect you to so many good organizations. The site is available to 501c3 non-profits, government agencies, schools, faith-based organizations, and neighborhood associations, recognized as such by the applicable city and county. Bottom line: it gives Team KY’s philanthropic community another tool to help more people at a time where we see more desire to help more people. This is going to help connect us a little more at a time where we can’t always necessarily feel that close connection. And we know it is more important now than ever. So we are very excited about this new way to put people together and to do positive things.
So today’s report continues- you know, significantly high numbers, though nothing like yesterday.
Positive cases today: 785
Probable cases: 2,650
Total confirmed cases: 37,686 (44 duplicates removed)
Children Under 5: 12. Remember we don’t have a lot of people that age being tested, it’s concerning, and it’s what we are seeing nationwide. We had 100K kids test positive in just the last 2 weeks of July, we are seeing an explosion of positive tests among our youth and young people. Let’s make sure the decisions we make set us up for actual success and don’t set us back as a state. As I’ve said before, let’s not experiment with the health of our children.
Warren County specifics: I know there are going to be some decisions going to be made. We had six school-aged children just in today’s report that tested positive. 18-year-old, 16 year-old, 12 year-old, 14 year-old. That’s really concerning, given that typically these aged kids aren’t tested as often as everybody else. To have 6 just today. I had asked yesterday for the number in the last few weeks in Warren County. It was 86 kids 18 and under in three weeks that tested positive. That is incredibly concerning, and I hope that in making decisions, we would see that county, which is the second hottest county in KY, by the White House in uncontrolled spread in the red zone, with over 10% positivity rate, that we will ultimately reach good decisions where we are patient enough to make those good plans to reopen our schools work at a time when they can work.
Total tests conducted: 730,362 (PCR: 684,970, Serology: 44,808)
Positivity Rate: 5.67% - We need to see a significant reduction in this. Other entities have us at a higher percent than that. We believe our calculation is the most accurate, but regardless of which one you take, we know we have a lot of work to do to create the kind of safe environments that we would need to. The good news even with yesterday’s numbers and today’s, I still believe by the end of the week, we’re going to see that we’re not in that exponential increase that we were seeing a couple of weeks ago. That means that wearing a facial covering is working. Other steps are working, and we need you to stick with it, and we cannot make decisions that are ultimately going to cause a spike right now because that is going to make everything we want to do that much harder.
Total hospitalized: 4,116
Currently hospitalized: 658
Total in ICU: 1,291
Currently in ICU: 140
Currently on a Ventilator: 97 - We need to be praying for them
Total recovered: 8,965 - Again we think it’s a lot more than that but this is a really hard
New deaths today: 6
Total Deaths: 796
New deaths by county: 82 F Jefferson, 74 M Taylor, 89 F Jefferson, 56 M Carter, 80 F Fayette, 92 M Jefferson
There are those that want to say that this is only harming people of a certain age- 56 isn’t old. At least I hope not. But even on this, that 74 year old can easily be that grandparent caring for that grandchild. Having been in that situation where a kid asked “who would take care of me?” let’s remember that it’s not ok to lose someone early just because they are older. Let’s never be that callous.
All losses are a loss for Kentucky. Let’s light those houses up green and let’s ring those bells at 10am. This is a reminder that we are thinking of the Kentuckians we’ve lost, their families, and their communities. It’s the color of compassion and renewal as their souls move from their bodies to a better place.
Racial breakdown of all cases: 79.00% Caucasian, 12.31% Black or African-American, 2.19% Asian, 5.91% Multiracial
Ethnicity breakdown of all cases: 86.72% non-Hispanic and 13.28% Hispanic
Racial breakdown of all deaths: 81.47% Caucasian, 14.44% Black or African-American, 1.50% Asian, 2.59% Multiracial
Ethnicity breakdown of all deaths: 96.15% non-Hispanic and 3.85% Hispanic
Long Term Care Facilities: 41 new residents and 46 new staff positive from yesterday, and 1 more death, 1 new facility.
Total facilities: 282
Total deaths: 496
Total recovered: 3,336
Active cases: 420 residents, 280 staff
Total cases: 2,869 residents, 1,663 staff
Day Care Facilities: 7 new facilities, 5 new staff, 5 new children. 131 facilities, 102 staff, 87 children
We’re gonna have Dr. Stack come up to talk about the trends that he is seeing and also his reasoning and support behind the recommendation we made on Monday:
Dr. Stack takes over:
Thank you Gov. Do you have my slides James? I’m going to talk a little bit about where we are and how that plays into the school decision we made on Monday. If you look on the left, you should be familiar with these graphs if you’ve watched me before, this is from the https://91-divoc.com website, it’s data, I got these images from their website this morning for data up to yesterday. So the orange lines are GA, the blue lines are KY, it was random but the colors are appropriate. The blue line shows KY’s numbers on the left over time and if you see GA and KY we were kinda parallel with each other for a period of time there after that initial spike that GA had. About 70 days ago, you see that GA had that exponential climb which we really want to avoid in KY because that’s when you start having a lot of cascading problems. KY managed to defer that climb, and I think what was happening there was when some of these states were barrelling forward and opened up much more quickly and much more aggressively, you saw their case count start to surge very quickly. So I’ve said before, in KY we had a measured phased approach and we tried to go just a little more slowly and see what happened in these places that changed forward and we saw what happened and then we intervened. On July 10th we put in place the mask mandate, and we subsequently restricted gatherings to 10 or less, and added other restrictions for bars and restaurants. I think what we see is that the mask mandate is what has impacted and hopefully flattened that curve. We’ll see this weekend where the totals fall. The graph on the right side, I’m sensitive to the fact that I don’t want to just use death statistics, this is just hospitalizations. Now this is cumulative hospitalizations but what you can see is how GA started to quickly diverge from KY and started having a lot more hospitalizations. So on a per-capita basis GA has about twice as many hospitalizations as KY does. Now when we add the mortality chart, it’s more than 4x as many fatalities in GA given that line diverged much more widely. So the point I’m making is when we lift these restrictions and we do it without care and thoughts, and there has been a lot of dispute about masks in GA which I won’t go into, I think they're seeing the consequences of not following that simple public health guidance to use these masks. If we go to the next slide this plays into schools. GA, again, is one of the first states to go forward with opening a bunch of schools and what you see here on the left, is “District announces plans to bring back students to North Paulding High School after temporary closure”. So North Paulding High School had 9 cases of COVID-19 confirmed within the first week back to school and that number of confirmed cases had risen to 35 according to a letter sent to parents on August 12th. They had a rapid escalation from 9 to 35 in just the first week of school. The other news articles there, those are also from GA, the one in the top is from Cherokee HS and they said there last Monday there have been 59 positive cases reported in the district and that the cases have resulted in a 2 week quarantine for 925 students and staff. So think about that, 925 people who are quarantined for 2 weeks because of their exposure at school. Just think about the impact that would have on you if you had to do that. And then they closed a 2nd school in Cherokee county when nearly 300 students and staff were quarantined after they confirmed more than a dozen cases of COVID-19. Well some will say “well you just looked at GA”. Let’s look at the next slide James. So the new slide shows 2 other articles. I’m not going to be exhaustive about this but I think these are enough to be representative. So you have on the left Kenner Discovery in Louisiana, this is a charter school. The entire 1st grade of Kenner was quarantined after a positive COVID-19 test. Then if you look to the right, we have Muncie IN, they have quarantined, within days of kicking off the school year, a whole slew of folks and so the problem spreads very quickly and it’s across multiple states. So just to avoid any lack of certainty, I very much support the decision that the Governor made and I respect it was a very difficult decision. I am also cognizant of the many trade-offs that there are with delaying schools. We need to get kids back to school, but we need to do it safely. We are at the all-time high, even though we hope we are plateauing, our disease burden, in KY, is at its all time high. When the folks from the WH came in and talked about this with us they were very clear that when things are escalating, like they were in KY, we needed to take aggressive action to do those things that reduce the risk of transmission. Unfortunately school is a high risk of transmission for a number of reasons. So I’m hopeful, as we have done along this journey, that we will learn lessons from these other places that have done this earlier than us. We will be able to help refine our guidance and recommendations in the Commonwealth. And we will be able to give good guidance to the students, teachers, to the parents, to try to do this as safely as we possibly can. It appears we have learned lessons that will help make that possible and I have one more slide James. I have to urge you, it’s getting to this time now. Please get your flu shot. Let’s put this in context. Though it’s never a good time to get sick and if you get the flu you can feel quite miserable, it’s particularly not a good time to get influenza in the middle of a global pandemic when the symptoms for influenza look very much like the symptoms for COVID-19. If you get COVID-19, it's not just “stay at home and have chicken noodle soup”. If you get COVID-19 you get quarantine, you have to stay home for a period of time, and if you get COVID-19 and you are in a high-risk category, it’s not just the flu, the statistics for your outcome are much worse than for influenza. Please get your flu shot. We need everybody to do this. We have to keep Influenza as suppressed as we possibly can. In a bad year with Influenza our hospitals are strained with just keeping up with Influenza patients. That alone puts hospitals at risk of being beyond capacity. As an emergency physician we have times where we couldn’t get transfers into the big academic centers because they were hit so hard with Influenza. If you take that and you add it on top of COVID-19 you run into a really bad recipe with the hospitals not having enough capacity to take care of folks and a lot of added difficulties for both patients and healthcare providers trying to sort who has the flu, or the cold, or the Influenza. You can’t prevent the common cold with a vaccine but you can prevent a lot of Influenza, even though it doesn’t protect everyone, it protects a lot of people. Please get the flu shot and all these other things we are doing: Wearing your mask, keeping your distance, washing your hands, and of course getting tested if you have symptoms for COVID-19. Those other things we are doing for public health are the exact same things that lower the risk of other respiratory infections. So if we do this well we should be able to suppress all sorts of infections for this year and everybody can be healthier but we’ve got to follow this guidance and these recommendations. Thank you very much Governor, I appreciate the opportunity.
Gov Takes over:
I think that the approach where we make sure that we are not first, that we are the smartest, not the fastest, that we learn from other’s mistakes and make sure we are not making them with our own kids. I think we’re already seeing lessons. One lesson is that masks have to be mandatory and enforced in every school. Because that 900 people were quarantined in GA, there’s not, in my understanding, a full-on requirement that was enforced, and look at where it went.
I’ll tell you another one, and we’ve got to really think about these lessons and what it means to have the support that is needed ahead of time. So when this last Tuesday, when we were waiting in isolation on my results. But given how I was feeling, the belief that they had come back differently than they did, I saw the impact, just in a short period of time, based on my wife talking about it, on my kids. The first question is, “are you and Dad going to die?” Their second question is, “are we going to die?” And the third question is, “who is going to take care of us?”. And while that was mainly just personally difficult, I know it’s a lot more difficult, especially for families to go into quarantine. So if we’re going to do something at a time when we know there are going to be a lot of families and a lot of kids going into quarantine, let’s make sure that we recognize how traumatic that can be on those children. Let’s make sure that we have already set up the mental health counseling that we will need for kids to go through that. I mean, telling a child that was otherwise in school just a day before that they’re going to be two weeks in their house and there’s uncertainty about what this disease does and who else might have it. Whoo. Let’s make sure we are putting them first, and we are prepared for that trauma that will come along with it and that has been the rest of our calculation.
QUESTIONS
Is there anything in state law in terms of enforcement that would allow businesses to not accept money from people who don't wear masks? -- I believe under the Executive Order, businesses are required to ensure people wear masks. I believe that those who refuse to wear masks and refuse to leave and insist on being checked out would fall within potentially criminal trespass. I believe our law enforcement has agreed with that. So I believe between the Executive Order and ultimately that other authority that we have what we need. But our businesses just need to have a “no shoes, noshirt, no mask, no service”. It can be that simple. (From the reporter - “so what I’m hearing is, if you don’t have a mask, we can’t take your money.”) Governor - Yes, absolutely. We can’t check you out, unless you’re wearing a mask, and that makes it a whole lot easier on them. They can just blame me. I’m used to it by now.
In rural Appalachia, there are a lot of parents that are concerned right now because the idea of teaching virtually is not an option to them. There’s also a concern that some parents may not be committed enough to helping their child learn virtually. There’s not wifi everywhere in Appalachia, of course. Are you fearful at all that any child is going to be left behind? Is there any expectation that some will be? --- Absolutely. But children, I believe are going to be in a worse situation if we expose them to very significant health risks that are here right now, that they are subjected to quarantine or the potential problems that can come with getting this virus. Especially in Appalachia but all over Kentucky, we have more grandparents raising their grandkids than ever before, then the potential loss in a caregiver, especially with a situation where you’ve already lost so much when this virus is so aggressive, especially to people over a certain age. Now we are working on plans to try to boost internet access all over KY and potentially provide individual help to specific students. That’s a duty we have to have in this instance. It tells you how important rural broadband hotspots and the rest are. We think we will have some more announcements on that. I know there is some significant funding that has come in that we are reading all of the fine print on, that we are ready to deploy. But yes, I desperately want to get our kids back to in person learning. (Inaudible follow-up question.) Oh yes, all of our plans for internet access are going to be aimed where there is not internet access, specifically rural Kentucky, or if there are parts of urban Kentucky where there is a desert for internet access.
this fall in the midst of the Breonna Taylor investigation. Do you feel insensitive to move forward with the event? -- The question is whether it is insensitive to hold the Derby in the midst of the Breonna Taylor investigation. Surely, I think it’s been 150 days, surely there will be a resolution by that point. I believe that we got a little information on the process, I think it was last week that was very helpful for people. Again, I think that if we can get more information, not on specific details that people don’t think they can divulge but exactly where it is and what’s going on and what the next steps are. I think that will help people process. I don’t think this should extend another month unless we understand some other compelling reason.
Today Ashland Independent Schools voted to follow the recommendation, despite discussing their disapproval of the word recommendation and what they deem threats from the Kentucky Department of Education. Parents at the meeting called me a dictator and bully. What’s my reaction? -- I'm just trying to make the best recommendation I can for the safety of your children. It means my children aren’t going to be back in school as early as I would like them to. We look at the numbers every day. Our Department for Public Health works on this virus every day. I’m seeing huge numbers of schools struggle with that. I’m worried about the health and safety of your kids, of their teachers, and of their caregivers. I ran on being an “education first” Governor and I’m trying to make a safety decision. That’s what I have to say about that.
Comments regarding Post office funding, mail in voting? --- I haven’t seen the president’s direct comments on the Postal Service, but we can’t defund the post office. We can’t do it in the midst of an election and certainly can look like it’s because of the election so hopefully that’s just comments being made. We need our postal service, we were just talking about rural KY and how critical it is for some parts of KY. We need a strong post office. It has to be funded during this election. Being able to cast a ballot by mail if you are concerned about the coronavirus is absolutely critical to conducting a safe election. I don’t /just/ think it would just be silly to start defunding the post office right now. I think it would be dangerous. But ultimately, I think it was something that was just said, and hopefully won't go any further than that.
In what circumstances are rapid results administered in the state and how likely is it going to be expanded so that more of the general public can get access to those tests? -- We have a number of rapid results tests throughout the state in different places. The federal government is going to provide more. They are going to prioritize our LTC facilities so that visitors and especially employees, as they come, can get those tests. As always we are going to look at different testing platforms, at their accuracy, and we’re going to make sure that everyone knows, at least to the best of our knowledge, what type of test they are getting and what those limitations are or are not.
Smokers are at a higher risk of contracting COVID or having worse complications? --- Dr. Stack: I’m going to thank you Stu to talk about public health that’s not COVID-19. I don’t know right now if smokers are having worse outcomes but nobody should be smoking, smoking is bad for your health. It’s bad for your lungs, it causes cancer, it causes you to have lung disease as you go on in life, COPD, emphysema, and things like that. So, all things being equal, people who have structural lung disease caused by long-term tobacco use probably do have worse outcomes because their lungs are in worse shape going into this, but you shouldn’t be smoking. I encourage everyone, don't ever start. Governor takes over: And that is the commissioner for public health.
Published: 15:28 EST, 25 March 2020 | Updated: 12:04 EST, 26 March 2020. Smokers face a greater risk of suffering severe complications from the coronavirus, according to research. Chinese The researchers determined that far fewer smokers appear to have contracted the virus or, if they have, their symptoms are less serious." The study examined 480 coronavirus patients. Studies that said smokers were at lower risk for coronavirus were likely wrong. Here's why Recent studies suggested smokers were not apt to get coronavirus infections. The survey found that smokers and vegetarians have lower seropositivity -- indicating that they may be at a lower risk of getting infected by the novel coronavirus. The survey was conducted across nearly 40 institutes of CSIR. "Use of private transport, lower-exposure occupations, smoking, vegetarianism, and 'A' or 'O' blood groups appeared to Smoking ‘may lower your risk of coronavirus’, a controversial new study has claimed. “Our cross sectional study in both COVID-19 out- and inpatients strongly suggests that daily smokers have Now, in a new survey conducted by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in its nearly 40 institutes, smokers and vegetarians were found to have lower seropositivity indicating that they may be at a lesser risk of getting infected by coronavirus. Vegetarians and smokers were found to have lower seropositivity indicating that they may be at a lesser risk of getting infected by Covid-19, according to a pan-India serosurvey conducted by the We have seen headlines in the news such as ‘Smokers four times less likely to contract Covid-19’ and ‘MORE evidence smoking may cut the risk of coronavirus’. It would be easy to think that smoking is suddenly a good thing for your health - but it still isn’t. The evidence is still emerging on the link between smoking and Covid-19. Doctors in France think that smoking can be both good and bad for people who are at risk of contracting the novel coronavirus infection. Smoking is a risk factor for COVID-19 patients, but one part… Background. The harms of tobacco use are well-established. Tobacco causes 8 million deaths every year from cardiovascular diseases, lung disorders, cancers, diabetes, and hypertension.1 Smoking tobacco is also a known risk factor for severe disease and death from many respiratory infections.2-4 In the COVID-19 pandemic, questions have been asked about clinical outcomes for smokers, and whether
