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I went along with the lockdowns because there was simply nothing else at that time. No vaccines, no specific treatments developed. The first wave also carried a big unknown as to how covid would affect people. It did seem that I would probably be fine if I caught it, but there was that we just don't know element behind it as it was new. We are now in the situation where a large percentage of the over 12 population has been double vaccinated, and the percentage of those boostered is also increasing quickly. Indeed, I got mine today. This was badged as the way out (goalpost shifting on how many were needed notwithstanding) and look where we are now: drip drip drip threats of more restrictions or circuit breakers every day, outright demands for money for restrictions to be implemented and gormless TV addresses about boosters with a threatening undercurrent attached. Watching similarly highly vaccinated populations in Ireland and the Netherlands being forced into harsher lockdowns is frankly depressing. People are fed up with restrictions, that much is clear. There is no choice but to comply with some measures (cinemas being shut, restaurants being forced to takeaway only etc.) but where there is discretion, support is vanishing. Possibly aided by revelations that the government was more than happy to file those in the bin out of arrogant entitlement whilst the plebs dutifully undertook them, but breaking point was being reached. We're nearly at two whole years of this and the cataclysmic messaging and models being produced are like having us all back in March 2020 just before we were locked down. Enough is enough, frankly. The vaccines are still effective against serious disease, we have treatments with high rates of success and have very high vaccine coverage innthe population. This is not March 2020 and it is an insult to us all that some seem to be treating it as such. Covid is not going away; we are stuck with it. The answer cannot be perennial short notice shutdowns of businesses and arbitrary restructions of people's fundamental rights. What happened to that adult conversation? Maybe we could start there. It is pleasing to see patience running out here and more opposition to lockdown measures appearing. We have been misled and indeed outrightly lied to during the last two years and it is about time serious political consequences were dished out for this. Most people did what they were told: followed the frankly at times inhumane restructions, made sacrifices and got vaccinated. Seemingly, this is now not enough and more is demanded. I think that they have taken quite enough already, frankly. Of course, measures to follow will be badged as essential to "protect our NHS" just as previous measures have been. Would this be the NHS that is in perennial crisis every winter and which has been at times during the last two years the National Covid-19 Service? There's been nearly two years now for the politicians to work this one out and what have they done? "Here's some more money, now piss off" Nothing on trying to build better capacity, nothing on how the system can more effectively manage covid. It is not really acceptable to impose restrictions on society due to the healthcare system being under pressure; it is certainly not acceptable to do so when said pressures are occurring on your watch when you are also responsible for the healthcare system. Every government in the UK at the moment has been in power for at least a decade and they've done f**k all to stop the standard NHS winter problems It's high time they owned their failures, which are now culpable for the dragging out of this ongoing shit show.

I sucked up two lockdowns because I believed (and still do) that it was the right thing to do. I worked 60+ hour weeks at all times of the day and night while trying to look after a newborn and two disabled kids while staying in the house for 23 hours a day to protect folk that were vulnerable. I (or my wife) went to the shops ourselves. I didn't see my Gran for the last months of her life and had a socially distanced funeral with a small number of my family. My mum (a widow) sat in the hoose herself for months on end before the bubble families were made a thing. My mental health has went to pot and I've put on five and a half stone in weight. I cannot bring myself to do anything but work and eat. Not any more. I've had three jabs, pretty much everyone at risk has had three jabs. What the hell are we supposed to do?

I generally have to work over christmas and new year, the mrs does except the public holidays and her place is working with 1/4 of the staff it actually needs, my mums a nurse and has to work it too, with shift work I dont get a great deal of time with my wee boy, so we thought the best way to mark us not having a proper christmas would be to get to Florida and have a bit of sunshine in late january, all booked, disney tickets sorted and the wee man talking about it every day how excited he is. To be honest im also under an incredible amount of stress at work with absences and people still expecting no impact on service, to the point I spent the weekend at work with an infected broken tooth, sitting in absolute agony because I didnt want to let anyone down with other people being off. Its compounded by quite a lot of other public services also experiencing strain papping off their issues over here. The one thing getting me through was the thought of getting to f**k next month and leaving it all behind. To read that they are proposing to halt travel again ‘just for that month’ is yet another boot in the balls. I genuinely think im going to explode with stress and the prospect of no time off until May (ie 8 months with no real break) is absolutely killing me to the point I think i’ll need to go and speak to someone. They still cant tell us what their end game is, they still cant tell us what the justification is, im done with it. Completely done. Apologies for the rant im just scunnered.

Reporting Scotland trying to shift the goalposts there from 'tsunami of Omicron cases, doubling every two days!!!111!!!' (last week's lie) to 'we could still be several weeks away from the peak' just there. When the data doesn't fit the media's scaremongering, lockdown-obsessed narrative, they literally just make it up as they go along now.

I genuinely think another lockdown will lead to the death of more people than it will save. I've spoken to two friends in the last week who are on the brink of mental breakdown and I really worry about what happens if they become isolated again. People are ready to give up. I sincerely hope sense finally prevails for once and the info/data from South Africa coupled with the complete lack of worrying hospitalisation or death numbers here will see society opened again to it's fullest. And please, no more fucking threats to my liberty - you were handed emergency powers to deal with this but those powers are now held above the population like a guillotine. Was there a time period set on these powers and if not, how do we (as in your average Joe Public) get these powers removed?

As has been said, it's utterly shambolic to introduce restrictions in a week's time. Either the variant is so transmissible that we see hospitalisations at a level that would overwhelm our health system, notwithstanding its lesser virulence, in which case something needs to be done now, or it isn't. In which case nothing needs to be done. This preoccupation of grown fucking adults with a religious holiday is laughable.

Well played @Finlay21

Narrator: Ayr would lose their next match 4-0 and Duffy would be sacked 82 days later.

While this thread in the main is clearly dominanted by Covid outliers, I think some of the posts above are representative of how people feel now. People don't want to spread Covid, they accept having to do things like wear a mask in supermarkets etc and doing LFTs when appropriate but the idea that we are going to limit all household mixing or close large parts of the economy doesn't have much support at all. The fact that we have high vaccine uptake and boosters is changing the way people feel. I also think that during the first wave people were probably quite fearful of catching Covid and that has gone for the vast majority of the public, either due to more people having had it and recovered or people just being more sick of restrictions than fearful of getting Covid.

So there’s me Broony and Lennon. We’re in this bar in Bangkok. Next thing you know this Ladyboy comes in with a leash. Ken what’s on the end of the leash? A fucking Goat! So me and Scott got right out there.

"Did ye aye ?"

This is unreasonable and unrealistic. Regardless of their job they have the right to reasonably defined working hours and the right to go on holiday. Asking people to work non-stop, even in times of crisis, is not conducive to good decision making.

Nah. He should be the first to go

Superb mate , I am going to match your donation as I am so happy he is away

I'll be honest, my initial reaction to any further lockdown will be to patch the vaccination. Which, I accept, is a bit of cutting off my nose to spite my face. But it's my natural lashing out instinct. I reckon I won't be alone in that. Especially amongst people who are vaccine hesitant. Which I'm not. If it doesn't stop me getting it, doesn't stop me passing it on and (assuming the data is accurate) is a fairly mild illness then I'm really not sure what the advantage is. I was buzzing for my first dose because I felt like it was me playing my part in helping us get out of lockdown. Now that couldn't feel further from the case.

Exactly how I see it. The political pish can get in the sea along with Duffy & Hopkin. This is for Ayr United chat and the politics can get to the political forum.

You sound like the worst sort of person.

Bring back the looking in people's trolleys and judging them while you're in the same shop discourse

Had to say goodbye to my little buddies today as their owners are moving back to California ( they didn't really want to but they both have really good jobs working for Netflix so they had to if they wanted to continue working for them ) They were my first walk in the morning and I had a brilliant time with them, also built up a good relationship with the owners and hung out with them many times, as usual in situations like this I was an emotional wreck, really hate saying goodbye but I'm happy I got to spend so much time with them plus I have a place to stay anytime I'm in LA. Bow wow Team Teckel bow wow.

That weird feeling when Motherwell get to Christmas with no huge form slump to complain about. Steelmen online at the moment:

Knew 9, scored...

10 out of 10. At least three MONSTA guesses in there. Today would be a great day if I didn't have to go and buy book tokens today.

Has taken him a while to get up to speed but has been class last few weeks. Hope he does well wherever he’s playing second half of the season

If any journalist feels up to it, there's maybe one blindingly obvious question to ask. How about "if every workplace in the country, every day, did exactly what was shown in the photo, would the Government be happy that everyone was doing everything they could to help stop the virus spreading?" If similar photos had come out about the Labour, LibDem or SNP workplaces would Raab have been quite so content? If it has been at Bute House, the Tories in Holyrood would have been calling in the tanks.

There seems to be a LOT of data available to the layman that points towards omicron being less severe. One migbt assume that the decision makers have even more than us with more qualified people to interpret it. So its pretty concerning to me that we are at a level of politicking where the vaccines not only dont buy us "lets ride this out". They dont even buy us "lets just wait and see" before leaping in. The UK population is pretty much at the most immune it can ever really hope to be. Theres always going to be peaks and troughs on that particular graph, but by and large we must be in as good a place as you could ever hope to be, since we have great uptake on initial and boosters, plus been ravaged by several big waves. You probably cant hope for as high uptake on jag 4 and beyond. I think (and it may be more hope than expectation) that Sturgeon has overplayed her hand on this one. But on a higher level, it concerns me that we can expect this sort of bullshit for the next few months as they slowly roll back towards normality rather than admit they overreacted.

Wee update on the finished article.

I handed my notice in at the start of this month and have now entered my last 3 and a half days of "work". I have spent the morning playing Football Manager and I am now asking myself the question if 11:30am is too early for a can.

What a state to get yourself in over a wee boy wearing a scarf FFS.

^Alan Lithgow^

So is anything going to happen today or are we in for yet another day of “we can’t rule anything out”? I try and not let myself get too bothered by all the noise around things but I am getting more and more seething at the limbo people and businesses are being put in by being told we’re all doomed yet doing nothing. 5 days before Christmas and folk are being drip fed thinly veiled threats of lockdown, guilted/shamed for social activity and businesses fucked over by people being told the chances are they’ll miss Xmas if they go out. This has been one of the worst chapters of covid to date, I certainly don’t remember being as angered by it before.

10 for Monday.

ANNOUNCEMENT There will no Christmas or New Year shutdown!!! Keep on playing and enjoy yourself, is the words from the commitee. If you don't play no problem....you just get relegated as normal.

Fucking hell. Is this what the Coronavirus thread is like these days?

Higher than a pilots piece boax

One things for certain, whether you are North or South of the border, we are all being taken for absolute fucking mugs now with the "will they wont they" BS.

The norm for you m9.

I doubt anything will come of them too, but that's largely because the UK is a nation of craven, tug-your-forelock lickspittles.

Did you read my post at all? Both o f the points you raise above were directly addresed. It would be foolish criticising people for not taking the flu vaccine given that it wasn't universally available, indeed it was considered selfish to be a healthy person taking it from someone who needed given there was usually limited supplies. So this is not at all similar to the COVID vaccine. I also don't want others to inject against their wishes (whatever that means), if people don't want to take it that's their perogative. I would rather they did, given it's better for their health and the health of others but I certainly wouldn't advocate making them take it. This is one of the few areas where the moral highground is quite obvious, it really is black and white. By refusing a vaccine you are increasing the risk of harm to yourself and uncessearily putting others at risk. You are increasing the chances of your hospitalisation (and that of others) which will further consume scarce resources. These are both facts, whether it sounds fake or not to you is irrelevant. But you will never convince an anti vaxxer, they should keep doing what they are doing (and keep telling people about it). It will instantly identify them as a selfish and ignorant c**t which is useful info for those around them.

Tbf I'd have punted Stillie after his wee Tory love in photo with Douglas Ross, while in his Ayr tracksuit. But that's just me. Would prefer to see the back of all the coaching team if possible.

Brazen Head isn't anything close to a rough boozer. It's Disneyland for pound shop provos - everything about it is high camp theatre.

Sex Pistols - Holidays In The Sun

The overwhelming majority of people in ICU due to Covid are unvaccinated. Selfish idiots placing a huge strain on the NHS.

Said this already, but there are people who are not prepared to move on to the post pandemic phase because they do not yet feel they have made the political capital they think they deserve. Sturgeon is too busy trying to make political points to even be aware of the anguish she is currently causing. We know this because she had the sheer fucking audacity to call out a newspaper for doing same.

Anti vaxxers have been around for as long as vaccines, the modern day anti vaxxers would have been appaled at the small pox vaccine and surely refused to take it. It was far riskier than any COVID vaccine, with the concepts of testing and quality control virtually non existent. People should of course be allowed to refuse to take a vaccine, and spout publicly whatever nonsense they so desire. Unfortunately, their choice not only affects them but others - namely those whose immune systems are compromised and cannot take the vaccine (and of course the additional health care resources their decision leads to). Businesses should be free to refuse admission to those who are not vaccinated (and have no clincal exceptions). Their views should be exposed as nonsensical and selfish when raised. But they are always going to exist, a world without vaccines would be a desperately worse place - anti vaxxers will be a vocal but small minority.

What a beautiful pair! Dolly Parton And Kenny Rogers : Islands In The Stream

It’s ok to form opinions about the behaviour of others. Of course people have the right to refuse to be vaccinated. I have the right to consider them arsehole morons. With all the obvious caveats.