Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[madwullie]

6 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Certainly less dangerous than not wearing one in that example...

Who is claiming masks are dangerous?

If you type are face masks dangerous into Google, its basically a page of fact checks debunking the many claims that face masks are dangerous. 

Maybe those people who shouted that push have realised that it's bullshit and changed their view since then, but something tells me they are probably quite entrenched and still using those debunked arguments. 

[Tight minge]

Certainly less dangerous than not wearing one in that example...
Who is claiming masks are dangerous?

Utter nonsense

[madwullie]

5 minutes ago, Jedi said:

The point, Wullie, surely is that the media narrative has spun Nicola as having managed the whole Covid situation 'magnificently'. As Health has been a Devolved matter since 1999, any decisions taken on Care Homes, the call to pause Cancer treatments etc has been Scottish govt policy. It doesn't matter if the rest of the world got it 'wrong' as well....the fact remains that NS has been touted as head and shoulders above the other administrations. Education which is also of course a Devolved matter, again doesn't matter if England chooses to return schools to full capacity, (which the rights and wrongs which that decision entails), ...Scotland was the first to do so, within the UK context.

The hard questions won't be asked, and the media will continue to laud NS, but ultimately, both Westminster and Holyrood have not had a 'good' Covid record.

You seem to be exposed to a different media to me. Are you reading the national or something? 

It is entirely relevant imo how other countries have dealt with the same issues, firstly to learn from mistakes, but mainly because its one of the ways to gauge how successfully your leaders have dealt with the pandemic, given that its nature is that it causes similar problems everywhere as the virus and to an extent human societies are broadly the same. So it does matter that the rest of the world got it wrong as well I think. 

[Szamo's_Ammo]

Going around to a friend's for drinks tomorrow night. Six of us will be there in total.

What should I do if more people turn up?

[Mark Connolly]

Just now, Szamo's_Ammo said:

Going around to a friend's for drinks tomorrow night. Six of us will be there in total.

What should I do if more people turn up?

Grass up philpy's colleague to get the heat off

[Todd_is_God]

4 minutes ago, Jedi said:

The hard questions won't be asked, and the media will continue to laud NS, but ultimately, both Westminster and Holyrood have not had a 'good' Covid record.

I still can't tell if this is because our journalists are just poor / lazy, or whether it's because they want to generate a specific headline to go along with the piece they want to write.

I know I chuck a lot of things on here, some of which turns out to be shite, some of which is valid questions, but I can't understand why the journos don't ask at least some of them.

Maybe i'm being harsh by expecting them to know and find every corner to look in to ask about, but at the same time, that's their job. It's been the main / only news story now for over 6 months.

[Szamo's_Ammo]

3 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

Grass up philpy's colleague to get the heat off

That would be on the premise that this work colleague exists though.

I'd rather deal in reality.

[Todd_is_God]

9 minutes ago, Tight John McVeigh is a tit said:

Utter nonsense

 

You're right. I take it back.

[Todd_is_God]

8 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

Going around to a friend's for drinks tomorrow night. Six of us will be there in total.

What should I do if more people turn up?

 

[Todd_is_God]

11 minutes ago, madwullie said:

You seem to be exposed to a different media to me. Are you reading the national or something? 

It is entirely relevant imo how other countries have dealt with the same issues, firstly to learn from mistakes, but mainly because its one of the ways to gauge how successfully your leaders have dealt with the pandemic, given that its nature is that it causes similar problems everywhere as the virus and to an extent human societies are broadly the same. So it does matter that the rest of the world got it wrong as well I think. 

Do you think the Scottish Government have done a good job with coronavirus overall?

[Guest Jedi]

19 minutes ago, madwullie said:

You seem to be exposed to a different media to me. Are you reading the national or something? 

Can only imagine what the National take on it all is...I still dont see NS being asked hard questions in her daily briefings or in general terms.

The narrative remains...Westminster bad (which it has been), but Scot govt...good....The 'comparisons' which are made with other countries always seem to focus on how bad England has handled the situation...we don't hear much about the 'rest' of the world.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Jedi said:

Can only imagine what the National take on it all is...I still dont see NS being asked hard questions in her daily briefings or in general terms.

What sort of questions would you like to see her asked?

The only really difficult question i've seen her asked (repeatedly) is when did she first become aware that covid positive patients had been moved in to care homes, which she hasn't answered yet.

A bit like Hancock avoiding revealing the specificity of the PCR tests, it's a fairly straightforward question.

[welshbairn]

9 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

What sort of questions would you like to see her asked?

I've asked you before what question you'd ask if it was in the form of "Why don't you do X instead", and you said you weren't qualified, it's not your job to offer solutions. Have you changed?

Edited September 18, 2020 by welshbairn

[Michael W]

3 hours ago, Jambomo said:

Oh yeah, I’m not saying things couldn’t be done better in a lot of ways.

I just don’t get the comments (similar on social media as to the one I quoted) that come across as “This is all the governments fault and if they had just done things properly then it would all be over by now” kind of thing.  

It's a fair point. I don't envy anyone having to make decisions on this, because whatever you do could prove disastrous and you'll have to carry that forever. 

However... It is not unreasonable to expect our leaders to step up to the plate and take responsibility. They also should not be afraid to make difficult decisions or to hold an honest conversation about how we live with covid. As it currently stands we are not living with the virus; we are trying to hide whilst hoping it gets bored and goes away. 

There's no way of getting away from it - these decisions are shit. People will continue to die of the virus regardless of what you do, short of essentially locking the entire population away for a couple of months. The restrictions, even as they stand now, are ruining people's livelihoods and the nation's health is suffering both mentally and also physically whilst the NHS clears its covid backlog. Another lockdown will be utterly catestrophic and cause more ruin. 

As I've said before there is an inherent unfairness with the restrictions as they predominately affect young people who have the least to worry from the virus but are badly exposed to the consequences of the economy going into the doldrums. The elderly, meanwhile, are at higher risk of death but don't have to worry about losing theit income and by association the roof over their heads. I'm not advocating that we just remove everything and let it kill everyone it'll kill, but we are simultaneously destroying a lot of young lives at the moment in the pursuit to keep deaths down. I don't expect Johnson to stand up in Parliament and say that as long as we aren't seeing more than 200 deaths a day then it's all fine or anything, but the balance seems too one-sided at the moment. The government owes it to protect jobs as well, and prolonged extensions of furlough other than on a targeted basis is just deffering the problem. They need to keep as much of the economy open as possible and if this perhaps meaning restricting some sections of the population(shielders etc.) on a risk-assessed basis, then perhaps that's the approach that should be taken instead - at least have the debate rather than the blanket approach. 

We need to live with the virus in the absence of a vaccine, but far as I can tell the government has no answers other than more restrictions, which in time will lead to a national lockdown. This is not acceptable - it ruins lives and the cases eventually return anyway. There needs to be a plan B and there just isn't. 

The failure to be honest with us has also caused great damage. We were told this was all necessary, temporary and vital to stop the NHS being overwhelmed. There are still lots of restrictions in place, many of them illogical, and they're being tightened. Sturgeon promised a "Grown up conversation" that never materialised and, indeed, looks like a massive porky in light of her update today. Johnson borrowed some marketing bumf right out the Accenture manual talking about a "world beating" track and trace and testing system, which has collapsed in the last few weeks. Two days ago he was in front of a Committee saying there would be no second lockdown, and now look where we are - it's looking like another big lie. 

Edited September 18, 2020 by Michael W

[Todd_is_God]

10 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I've asked you before what question you'd ask if it was in the form of "Why don't you do X instead", and you said you weren't qualified, it's not your job to offer solutions. Have you changed?

Depending on what you want to ask you might have something like that as a follow up question, but if you have a "tough" question to ask you want to hear the answer before giving something to take focus away.

For example, I've been fairly consistent in wanting to know what's been done to verify positive samples, particularly in asymptomatic people and / or those that require a high number of cycles.

But i'd let them answer the question first before asking why not retest / lower the cycle threshold primarily because they may actually have an answer, but also because I'd want them to focus on the real question i'd asked rather than avoid it, and just talk about why they don't / can't do either of those "solutions" instead.

[pawpar]

1 hour ago, Jedi said:

 

The hard questions won't be asked, and the media will continue to laud NS.

What media supports NS ????. Without sounding like VT be very specific.

Edited September 18, 2020 by pawpar

[vikingTON]

8 hours ago, Michael W said:

It's a fair point. I don't envy anyone having to make decisions on this, because whatever you do could prove disastrous and you'll have to carry that forever. 

However... It is not unreasonable to expect our leaders to step up to the plate and take responsibility. They also should not be afraid to make difficult decisions or to hold an honest conversation about how we live with covid. As it currently stands we are not living with the virus; we are trying to hide whilst hoping it gets bored and goes away. 

There's no way of getting away from it - these decisions are shit. People will continue to die of the virus regardless of what you do, short of essentially locking the entire population away for a couple of months. The restrictions, even as they stand now, are ruining people's livelihoods and the nation's health is suffering both mentally and also physically whilst the NHS clears its covid backlog. Another lockdown will be utterly catestrophic and cause more ruin. 

As I've said before there is an inherent unfairness with the restrictions as they predominately affect young people who have the least to worry from the virus but are badly exposed to the consequences of the economy going into the doldrums. The elderly, meanwhile, are at higher risk of death but don't have to worry about losing theit income and by association the roof over their heads. I'm not advocating that we just remove everything and let it kill everyone it'll kill, but we are simultaneously destroying a lot of young lives at the moment in the pursuit to keep deaths down. I don't expect Johnson to stand up in Parliament and say that as long as we aren't seeing more than 200 deaths a day then it's all fine or anything, but the balance seems too one-sided at the moment. The government owes it to protect jobs as well, and prolonged extensions of furlough other than on a targeted basis is just deffering the problem. They need to keep as much of the economy open as possible and if this perhaps meaning restricting some sections of the population(shielders etc.) on a risk-assessed basis, then perhaps that's the approach that should be taken instead - at least have the debate rather than the blanket approach. 

We need to live with the virus in the absence of a vaccine, but far as I can tell the government has no answers other than more restrictions, which in time will lead to a national lockdown. This is not acceptable - it ruins lives and the cases eventually return anyway. There needs to be a plan B and there just isn't. 

The failure to be honest with us has also caused great damage. We were told this was all necessary, temporary and vital to stop the NHS being overwhelmed. There are still lots of restrictions in place, many of them illogical, and they're being tightened. Sturgeon promised a "Grown up conversation" that never materialised and, indeed, looks like a massive porky in light of her update today. Johnson borrowed some marketing bumf right out the Accenture manual talking about a "world beating" track and trace and testing system, which has collapsed in the last few weeks. Two days ago he was in front of a Committee saying there would be no second lockdown, and now look where we are.

The problem isn't that the government's only solution is lockdowns but rather what they choose to restrict will have a negligible effect. The pubs that they're desperate to pin the blame on for a second wave now were opened at the start of July in England with no significant change. The new group size rules they created last week are already on their way to the bin as well. As a local public health official in Lancashire noted in a BBC interview this morning, the big surge has occurred in the past two weeks - coinciding with a certain 'reopening' measure in England that has overwhelmed all testing capacity - and yet this misstep won't get rolled back for purely political reasons. There can be no valid case for stating that governments are taking a evidence-based approach until they recognise that their beloved full-time schools are in fact the cause of this current problem and start restrictions from that basis.

The idea that people should accept being locked into their homes in autumn/winter for all reasons except for specific government approved activities like the school run/the office/Pret lunch deals is utterly risible.

Edited September 19, 2020 by vikingTON

[Todd_is_God]

17 minutes ago, Michael W said:

I don't expect Johnson to stand up in Parliament and say that as long as we aren't seeing more than 200 deaths a day then it's all fine or anything

Me neither, but the message that any number that isn't zero is both utopian and unrealistic. It isn't helpful either.

When NS promised an adult conversation I thought this would be along the lines of "people will die" and "we will put measures in place if the number starts getting too high" but that was a mile off.

What's essentially happening now is that NS is approaching this in the way that she wants, with the electorate having no say or influence.

You can argue that was necessary, unavoidable and acceptable in March. I'm not convinced it's still all three 6 months later.

Edited September 18, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[welshbairn]

12 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Depending on what you want to ask you might have something like that as a follow up question, but if you have a "tough" question to ask you want to hear the answer before giving something to take focus away.

For example, I've been fairly consistent in wanting to know what's been done to verify positive samples, particularly in asymptomatic people and / or those that require a high number of cycles.

But i'd let them answer the question first before asking why not retest / lower the cycle threshold primarily because they may actually have an answer, but also because I'd want them to focus on the real question i'd asked rather than avoid it, and just talk about why they don't / can't do either of those "solutions" instead.

Given that asymptomatic people aren't getting tested unless they work in care homes you might not get far with that one. And the answer to why don't they retest would be that they're beyond capacity already. If you offered them a solution you would force them either to accept it, say why it wouldn't work, or say that they'd look into it.

[Bert Raccoon]

2 hours ago, Jedi said:

'Nicola is doing a wonderful job, though, showing leadership throughout, in contrast to Westminster, if only she was on the telly more'

Despite Scotland having the third highest rates in Europe, the care home situation, the pause on cancer treatments, the decision to go for full capacity on schools rather than the blended model, (to appease the Us for Them campaign), Catherine Calderwood (not sacked, but enabled to 'resign'), Scotand using a furlough scheme which is funded by the UK Treasury...

 

2 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

Aye but she done better than England...

 

2 hours ago, Jedi said:

Quite....the reality being that she hasn't.

 

2 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

You must be mistaken.

We had a longer lockdown which means the prevelance is five times lower here.

We are being rewarded for our patience and following the guidance by getting more normality back quicker.