Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Billy Jean King]

Only 16 of today's new infections were in the under 15s and of those 5 were pre school age. 15-19yo all lumped in together but it looks like schools are seeing very low levels and even those testing positive won't all be caught at school.

 

 

 

 

[Robin.Hood]

31 minutes ago, philpy said:

Right.... So, my work colleague will now have to sit on a packed bus full of strangers, but he can't get a lift in from me now?? 

Just pick him up ffs. 

If you think he is a c**t and partying etc then you probably shouldn't of been picking him up anyway eh.

 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

34 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Get him to sit in the back and wear a mask and keep a window open. Unless your looking for an excuse not to pick him up.

The most worrying thing about this whole episode is that Philpy has a pal.

Spoiler

Allegedly.

 

[Szamo's_Ammo]

43 minutes ago, philpy said:

Right.... So, my work colleague will now have to sit on a packed bus full of strangers, but he can't get a lift in from me now?? 

Social distancing guidelines haven't changed so, unless you have been able to stay 2 metres away from someone whilst in the car, you've been breaking the rules for 6 months anyway.

Enjoy the jail.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Szamo's_Ammo

[Have some faith in Magic]

In today's least surprising news:

Outbreak in Glasgow university student accommodation. 

 

[Michael W]

36 minutes ago, pandarilla said:

I don't think it's conspiracy theorists that's bigger than we think.

I think more and more people have looked at the data and have decided that the restrictions are too severe - and that we have to get on and live with this. People understand risk, and don't want their lives to be curtailed indefinitely (which is what it seems, as there's no end point anytime soon).

A blanket ban on visiting houses just seems too far for me, and when i look about I'm seeing more and more people starting to do what they want. There was always going to come a tipping point where the public were not with the government - and i can see that coming soon.


 

Fatigue/boredom. It was always going to happen and in a lot of ways I can understand it - the restrictions are shit and people miss their friends/family. However, it is counterproductive and harmful in the long run and just means everyone gets punished as we've seen today,thereby prolonging the shitness. 

The inconsistencies have likely also angered a lot of people, even if we leave aside the social media fury chimps seething about grouse shooting. 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Michael W

[anotherchance]

Fatigue/boredom. It was always going to happen and in a lot of ways I can understand it - the restrictions are shit and people miss their friends/family. However, it is counterproductive and harmful in the long run and just means everyone gets punished as we've seen today,thereby prolonging the shitness. 
The inconsistencies have likely also angered a lot of people, even if we leave aside the social media fury chimps seething about grouse shooting. 

I guess there’s a difference psychologically between going into a hard lockdown with all the panic that came in March and April, and going back the way slightly after months of steady progress in terms of restrictions being lifted.

Good news on the vaccine front before year end sounds relatively likely (Vallance especially has been quick to downplay it until now), so if there’s an end in sight by the time we get into the arse end of winter then hopefully you’d get more people happy to comply?

[Jacksgranda]

3 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

 

I guess there’s a difference psychologically between going into a hard lockdown with all the panic that came in March and April, and going back the way slightly after months of steady progress in terms of restrictions being lifted.

Good news on the vaccine front before year end sounds relatively likely (Vallance especially has been quick to downplay it until now), so if there’s an end in sight by the time we get into the arse end of winter then hopefully you’d get more people happy to comply?

 

Maybe he's just playing up the chance of a vaccine to get people to accept the new clampdown.

By the time it's announced that the vaccine isn't quite ready the restrictions might have been in place long enough to have had an effect.

[Dee Man]

9 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

 

I guess there’s a difference psychologically between going into a hard lockdown with all the panic that came in March and April, and going back the way slightly after months of steady progress in terms of restrictions being lifted.

Good news on the vaccine front before year end sounds relatively likely (Vallance especially has been quick to downplay it until now), so if there’s an end in sight by the time we get into the arse end of winter then hopefully you’d get more people happy to comply?

 

What's this?

[Melanius Mullarkey]

2 minutes ago, Dee Man said:

What's this?

It’s included in the next Windows 10 upgrade. You need a usb port in the top of your nut though.

[parsforlife]

Ok so looking at the changes they don’t seem nearly as significant as what was being hyped over the weekend.  Nothing being shut,  minor change to hospitality,  so only really no visiting other households.  So if your wanting to meet your mates you’re going to need to choose one of the several other options to do so.    This is nothing more than the local restrictions that were implemented with not nearly as much of fanfare.

Are their more restrictions to come?  Or was the recent few days press overkill?  

[ICTChris]

I saw a tweet somewhere saying that a lot of the response to restrictions seems to have taken the form of people looking at what they perceive to the moral worth of the activity, rather than the level of risk. The exemplar for this is grouse shooting, which is very very bad because it’s toffs killing things. The other example in the tweet I saw was choir practice because that nice people singing together is obviously very very good, lovely choir, sweet music. But choirs have caused dozens of super spreader events - indoors, relatively close proximity, lots of loud voices, aerosol transmission and therefore significant risk, even for lovely choirs. Nasty shooting, is outside, generally you are a distance from each other, low voices etc.

You saw it even with gyms reopening. I think that they kept gyms shut in Scotland for far longer than they needed to on, what sounds like, pretty spurious evidence, but the way it was argued was always in relation to pubs - People can sit about boozing but I can’t go and work out? It was an emotive argument used to provide a moral high ground for the specific activity, rather than a rational look at the relative risk.

[Jacksgranda]

2 hours ago, keithgy said:

That's the wee one had her test,it was awful for her.

Aye, the poor wee soul,  it's not pleasant. Hopefully she gets the all clear.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Well, I'm not convinced it's that simple. All the demographic evidence suggests that school age children are not showing the kind of increase in prevelance that other groups: Particularly the 25-44 age group are.
If you look at the UK tracker it appears like they were rising on the shallow part of the exponential curve before September when their schools went back.
The uneven effect in changed prevelance in the West vs The rest of the country needs to be examined as well. I get that those Western authorities started with a higher prevelance, but then Schools, like care homes should be ideal environments for the virus. Even with small background prevelance you would expect that once it got into a school it would be riddled, and you would see that effect across all authorities.
I dunno, maybe all kids are asymptomatic, just passing it between themselves and firing it back out to their parents. Then again, the tracing teams would surely see that trend, it'd be obvious.
I gebuinely don't think there is an organised conspiracy to downplay the direct contribution of schools here. It'd be obvious in other nations if the effect was major, the trends in infections here would surely be so obvious someone would have remarked on it by now.
I do think the schools are contributing, but in a more non direct way.
1. They are probably responsible for the broken testing system as every child's cough gets tested. Its insane that the UK Government didn't see that coming.
2. White collar workers with kids were probably not furloughed and already working from home. So the return of child care and schools may have lightened their burden but not increased their exposure at work. What about kids who's parents worked in manufacturing, hospitality, retail or other people facing tasks? Did the return of schools allow them to return to work from furlough? Was there a step change in workplace attendance associated with the schools going back that increased the risk of vectors in a given environment?
Beyond that, is it simply that People became more lax with precautions as time went on. That we hit a critical point of mixing with a non zero prevelance that kicked the whole thing off again?

You are right in that there is not one main factor driving this - it's a combination of different factors.

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

For the very first time, I've heard and read friends and family talking about how down they are. If you're asking people to negatively change their life, for possibly up to a year, then you had better be ready to deal with the mental, emotional, physical and economic consequences of it all. 

You're looking at a population that is heading towards being traumatised. Mental illness rates are already shooting up, people with life threatening illnesses  have been pushed aside and ignored, a generation of students are being effectively cast aside, and even if they get good qualifications the job market has contracted to the size of a pinhead as millions are about to become unemployed.

My old man, who is in his late 80's and in bad health, talked today about giving up and my mum is in tears as he sinks further into a depression that he may never come out of.

The government says that the measures being brought in are 'essential'. Fair enough....but FFS you had better have a plan that is capable of dealing with the aftermath of this.

Given that there's absolutely no sign of an exit strategy after all these months, I'm not holding my breath. 

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by Bob Mahelp

[Donathan]

4 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

For the very first time, I've heard and read friends and family talking about how down they are. If you're asking people to negatively change their life, for possibly up to a year, then you had better be ready to deal with the mental, emotional, physical and economic consequences of it all. 

You're looking at a population that is heading towards being traumatised. Mental illness rates are already shooting up, people with life threatening illnesses  have been pushed aside and ignored, a generation of students are being effectively cast aside, and even if they get good qualifications the job market has contracted to the size of a pinhead as millions are about to become unemployed.

My old man, who is in his late 80's and in bad health, talked today about giving up and my mum is in tears as he sinks further into a depression that he may never come out of.

The government says that the measures being brought in are 'essential'. Fair enough....but FFS you had better have a plan that is capable of dealing with the aftermath of this.

Given that there's absolutely no sign of an exit strategy after all these months, I'm not holding my breath. 

 

Spot on. All this fuss for a virus that 249 out of every 250 carriers will survive from as well.

[Hedgecutter]

6 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

People can sit about boozing but I can’t go and work out? It was an emotive argument used to provide a moral high ground for the specific activity, rather than a rational look at the relative risk.

From what I see, the majority of people seem to be understanding of new rules... until it directly affects them.  All of a sudden it's some sort of outrage and the bigger picture goes right out of the window.  "Right, so..." is the key.

Tbh, this sort of behaviour is ingrained in society as you see with things like fundraising, e.g. folk who have never donated to a charity in their lives dropping everything for marathon training and asking all their friends for money as soon as somebody they care about gets given the bad diagnosis (as if cancer was discovered that day).

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Why can this not be achieved via blended learning?

Some courses are virtually impossible to teach remotely or have significant elements that are impossible to teach.

 

N5 Admin & IT is almost 85% practical skills - at Higher it is 58% practical skills - trying to teach those skills remotely or on reduced contact time is almost impossible. Apart from the whole issue of pupils having regular access to a computer (often sharing with siblings) there is the reality that even during contact time this may not be with a specialist due to the nature of blended timetables.

 

Even in subjects that are more theory-based there is only so much that can be done - covering problem-solving and research skills will be difficult.

 

No real easy solution - as it stands I am inclined to stick with things as they are and only have blended learning as an absolute last resort.

 

[Snobot]

Anyone got any idea what the following actually means in practice? There is no further explanation, although the link to the new rules  on the SG only says very limited exemptions apply to childcare:- 

“The rules will also not apply to couples who do not live together, or to tradespeople or for the provision of informal childcare - such as by grandparents.“

Could you therefore have close relations such as nephews / nieces in your house if you had to provide “informal” ie unpaid childcare from time to time?

[Fullerene]

3 hours ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

 

 

You’re highly unlikely to get shopped or caught having a cup of tea and a gab than you are having the music up full blast and 30 steamin c***s in your house. Theres no interpretation it’s just a case of “ och i know we’re no supposed to but let’s have a quick cuppa no one will know “.
Also bubbles are impossible to police

 

 

"Hello.  Is that the police?  This is Morag at number 32.  That's some bubble they've got at number 38. Think you better send in one of your zeppelin spotters there."