Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Bairnardo]

Just now, TheJTS98 said:

 

We can bin monitoring the effectiveness of a vaccine for sure, at least in any real terms. However, I think we can all interpret a potential situation where case loads remain high and hospital cases plummet, whilst costly restrictions remain in place, as a serious overstep of power. 

[Guest TheJTS98]

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

All the furlough, poor government decisions and not following simple guidelines will come at a cost at some time. How much and how long will be the only question.

Yeah. It's going to be a challenge for governments to get across a good public message here.

The Malaysian government has extended unprecedented levels of financial support to low earners here. At some point that will stop. But now the message that the public has is that the government can simply pull money out its arse to look after everyone. Stopping that and explaining how and why will get messy.

[Guest TheJTS98]

1 minute ago, Bairnardo said:

We can bin monitoring the effectiveness of a vaccine for sure, at least in any real terms. However, I think we can all interpret a potential situation where case loads remain high and hospital cases plummet, whilst costly restrictions remain in place, as a serious overstep of power. 

Possibly. But it depends why the hospitilisations (that doesn't look right as a word to me) are slowing and how long-term that is.

I think the point is that we're at a dangerous point where people might be about to see some really good news and read too much into it too soon.

[ICTChris]

Did the Malaysian PM not get caught with a billion dollars in his bank account that he said he knew nothing about because he never checked his balance? They could just use that.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

7 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Well I can only speak for myself, but the reasons for a declining number of hospitilisations is something that a myriad of experts will have to decipher, certainly in terms of vaccine efficacy. I am sure this is already being heavily monitored.

But I am not prepared to tell my family they cant come into my home due to laws brought in for a state of emergency, whilst scientists have nice wee discussion about what might be the overriding reason behind declining hospital numbers.

Now for the bit that can be perceived as a bit crass. I am not interested in the hand wringing zero covid bullshit. I am not prepared to accept everyone living under restrictions to prevent the spread of a disease for which we have multiple effective vaccines. When this was new, and we had nothing, no vaccine and no treatment.... Aye. Lockdown was the price we had to pay, but as Don's 1988 already said above, these EMERGENCY powers are now being banded about for use as a comfort blanket.

Covid is quite simply a pathogen that exists from which some people have a chance of becoming seriously ill. Against this, these people(and everyone else) will be vaccinated. This is an unprecedented level of protection on top of already unprecedented measures to protect for almost a year now.

Enough is enough. It has already been said on here by other posters, but if signs of vaccine effectiveness are not met with rolling back of restrictions at a pace commensurate with sturgeons "no restrictions a minute longer than neccessary" then I will be taking the rules into my own hands as far as I can. Clearly I cant make a pub or restaurant open, but I wont think twice about having folk into my house et cetera.

Also, I am aware we are looking into the future here and I hope this is all just pessimism, but I am applying the form guide here again.

if this country becomes an outlier in terms of post vaccine restrictions vs countries with similar % of population vaccinated and levels of hospitalisations and deaths then you would think that the public would for instance see football crowds ands pubs in Europe and begin to demand the same be permitted here? surely tae f**k right?

[Guest TheJTS98]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

Did the Malaysian PM not get caught with a billion dollars in his bank account that he said he knew nothing about because he never checked his balance? They could just use that.

Wise up!

A completely legitimate gift from the Saudi Royal family, I'll have you know! Nothing to see here.

He's in court just now. Got a row last week for trying to get at witnesses. Fun and games.

[Todd_is_God]

3 hours ago, hk blues said:

OK, but doesn't that provide a huge hurdle for us to overcome in the current pandemic?  I suppose stores can simply state that no-one not wearing a mask can enter regardless on public health grounds.  They  could then leave the door open for those with exemptions to prove their exemption.  Not living in the UK, I don't know how big the problem is - where I am compliance is 100% and there are no exemptions.  

The government are the issue here. They have allowed for a myriad of exemptions, and made it so that if you say you are exempt you can't be challenged because of confidentiality etc.

I said a few pages back that it was a symptom of the snowflake generation. On one hand we have the Government telling us how deadly covid is, and that we must wear masks to try to prevent its spread, whilst on the other we have a long list of exemptions with no proof requirement to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

[peasy23]

Did the Malaysian PM not get caught with a billion dollars in his bank account that he said he knew nothing about because he never checked his balance? They could just use that.

[Bairnardo]

2 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

if this country becomes an outlier in terms of post vaccine restrictions vs countries with similar % of population vaccinated and levels of hospitalisations and deaths then you would think that the public would for instance see football crowds ands pubs in Europe and begin to demand the same be permitted here? surely tae f**k right?

I dont have huge confidence in the public of this country to demand anything. Getting to point of sounding like Confederate flag waving, constitution wanking redneck going on about government intervention but the "mood music" is heading towards nanny state of never before seen levels.

[Todd_is_God]

6 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

We can bin monitoring the effectiveness of a vaccine for sure, at least in any real terms. However, I think we can all interpret a potential situation where case loads remain high and hospital cases plummet, whilst costly restrictions remain in place, as a serious overstep of power. 

"Case loads" will drop like a stone as soon as we stop testing every Tom, Dick and Harry.

[amidst-tundra]

8 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Enough is enough. It has already been said on here by other posters, but if signs of vaccine effectiveness are not met with rolling back of restrictions at a pace commensurate with sturgeons "no restrictions a minute longer than neccessary" then I will be taking the rules into my own hands as far as I can. Clearly I cant make a pub or restaurant open, but I wont think twice about having folk into my house et cetera.
 

Unfortunately I think many people are and have been doing this for quite a while now. In the flats I live in one person constantly has the stoners from downstairs in his flat or goes down to theirs, while next door have had a number of house parties and as far as I can see these sorts of ambivalence are prolonging these lockdowns.
I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but I'm not of the belief that lockdown measures are being used as some sort of population control and we've seen every time a lockdown has been lifted, hospital admissions have gone back up and as long as the weather stays cold I think that will continue if restrictions are rolled back too early.

[Guest TheJTS98]

9 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

if this country becomes an outlier in terms of post vaccine restrictions vs countries with similar % of population vaccinated and levels of hospitalisations and deaths then you would think that the public would for instance see football crowds ands pubs in Europe and begin to demand the same be permitted here? surely tae f**k right?

The point being made here is that the confluence of different factors we're going to see in 2021 (vaccine timetable leading to the cold months, lockdown and distancing effects) make it hard to know at what point those hospitalisation and death numbers are reliable, stable, and long-term.

As we've seen repeatedly, taking the foot off a bit too soon can lead right back to the start. I'd rather wait a bit and get out of the mess than go too soon and end up with restrictions lasting even longer.

Edited January 13, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

10 hours ago, HibsFan said:

Cheers Bob, but just for future reference, I get a notification when you give me a greeny, you don't need to inform me in writing.

I have an overwhelming need for you to like me.

[hk blues]

1 minute ago, Todd_is_God said:

The government are the issue here. They have allowed for a myriad of exemptions, and made it so that if you say you are exempt you can't be challenged because of confidentiality etc.

I said a few pages back that it was a symptom of the snowflake generation. On one hand we have the Government telling us how deadly covid is, and that we must wear masks to try to prevent its spread, whilst on the other we have a long list of exemptions with no proof requirement to avoid hurting someone's feelings.

There is certainly a different mentality/attitude here compared to there.  Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes not - probably a good think at this time.  The simple approach taken here is easy to administer as exceptions don't exist and if you cannot comply you cannot enter the place.  Every week I see older people (above 60s not allowed into stores) being turned away - same with kids under 18.  

That said, on another post I mentioned that outside of the heavily populated areas the situation is not the same and compliance is less than 10%.  

[Todd_is_God]

6 minutes ago, amidst-tundra said:

Unfortunately I think many people are and have been doing this for quite a while now. In the flats I live in one person constantly has the stoners from downstairs in his flat or goes down to theirs, while next door have had a number of house parties and as far as I can see these sorts of ambivalence are prolonging these lockdowns.
I'm a bleeding heart liberal, but I'm not of the belief that lockdown measures are being used as some sort of population control and we've seen every time a lockdown has been lifted, hospital admissions have gone back up and as long as the weather stays cold I think that will continue if restrictions are rolled back too early.

That's absolute nonsense. They continued to fall all through the  spring and summer despite all the gatherings / Sturgeon tears etc that we would be in trouble in two weeks time.

They only started to rise in autumn.

At what point do we maybe look at accepting seasonality plays a much bigger part than going to get your nails done or, heaven forbid, collecting a take away?

Are the experts too stubborn to open this line of conversation, as the want to be seen to be somehow in control?

Edited January 13, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[vikingTON]

6 hours ago, madwullie said:

So like I said, at least 63% of that study had a noticeable long term effect from covid. In studies they tend to take a smaller population and extrapolate results out to larger populations through this. Just like opinion polls don't ask every single person in the franchise who they'd vote for. That's usually called "an election"

So of course the study doesn't cover everyone who had covid - it literally states its a sample of those who were hospitalised. Hospitalisation is a pretty broad stroke though, which is explained in the study, ranging from in a ward for a day or two, all the way through to required ventilation in icu/hdu. 

I get the eencest, weenciest, feeling that you just argue for the sake of it sometimes. 

Do 63% of people who suffer from other viruses get long term effects as these? Even just looking at those who are hospitalised? Do people who get more serious cases of viruses get long term effects such as damage to organs at the levels and numbers they have seen in this study?

I don't even have a strong opinion one way or the other on this - but 63% seems quite high (as I said in my op) , and I've never heard of significant numbers of people having long term kidney / lung damage from other viruses.  Odd cases, yes. Significant numbers showing significant disease, no. That's what I'm asking. These cases seem to be rare exceptions with other viruses, this study would suggest to me they're more regular with covid. Does that mean the world has to end because of this? Of course not, but I think it merits more discussion and analysis than simply waving it away as hysterical panic about a covid bogeyman.

I mean ~300k people have been admitted to hospital so far, say 60k of them died (pulled that out of my arse) 63% of 240k people is a fairly hefty number of people suffering 6 months later. This is obviously an extra burden on the nhs and shouldn't just be brushed away as unimportant, or normal stuff, or something that shouldn't be accounted for. Not to mention it doesn't even look at those who weren't hospitalised yet still suffer from after effects months later. 

Even anecdotally on here, a fair number of people who had the virus (or those known to those on here) report symptoms many months down the line. Is this usual for other viruses? I've had flu a ciuple of times and didn't have any kind of post viral fatigue, but others have said they did. Certainly, plenty who know of someone, or had covid themselves, report on here that it has affected them for a long while afterwards. For me, my MiL was admitted to icu, still buggered 6+ months later - breathless, can't climb stairs without stopping, stuff like that - she had no such issues before catching CV. But only anecdotal. 

You seem to already have taken a position and are happy to argue blind that position is correct. That's fine, but I'm more interested in finding out if this pattern is unusually strong, relatively speaking, when looking at covid than I am in arguing for a position I've already decided 

Prob won't read anything else you write about this given the above. 

If you're genuinely interested in the topic rather than just wanting to get an internet win, this looks like a good place to start, looking at longer term effects of previous pandemics, the passage below being of particular interest. These only discuss fatigue and sleeping Issues tho- they don't look at seeming long term damage to various organs though. Does that make covid different, or was that just outside the scope of the study? Is it to do with it being a vascular disease in some respects? I dunno. Think it bears looking at rather than just being ignored as theatre tho

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21641846.2020.1778227?scroll=top&needAccess=true&#:~:text=Fatigue was one of the,virus causing an epidemic SARS.

Too long; didn't read.

[Bairnardo]

Another utterly predictable thing that can GTF, while we are here, is the UK and Scotgov doing sweet f**k all about hospital capacity and staffing levels throughout 2021 and then coming with pre emptive restrictions come autumn time to "protect our NHS this winter"

[amidst-tundra]

6 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

That's absolute nonsense. They continued to fall all through the summer despite all the gatherings / Sturgeon tears etc that we would be in trouble in two weeks time.

You mean when the weather was warmer? Because yeah, they fell and then began to rise again when students went back to university, kids to school and then the seasons changed.
Hopefully the vaccine will get rolled out to most vulnerable people by summer, when the weather is warmer again, and then by next winter we won't need the crutch of restrictions. Believe me, I'm not a fan of restrictions, but the anti-authoritarian stance is empowering the types of shoppers getting violent with staff because they're asked to wear a mask which is pretty unacceptable and shoddy human behaviour.

Sorry, didn't see your edit.

Edited January 13, 2021 by amidst-tundra

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

8 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

I've just clocked that the shielding letter sent out last week is valid for any time shielding is in place up until the 31st March.

I can't imagine now a scenario where shielding is eased and re-implemented so, given it only applies to areas in level 4, and the constant reference to the increased transmissibility of this new variant, I think at least some areas of Scotland are going to be in Level 4 for a disappointingly long period of time.

We're all going to be in level 4 until the beginning of March at least. There's little chance I suggest of restrictions easing at all in the next 6 weeks or so.

At that point, I think you'll see some areas being allowed an easing. Probably more rural areas of the country....the islands, Highlands, D&G, The Borders etc. But for those in urban areas, it would surprise me to see level 4 restrictions last until April. 

[Les Cabbage]

17 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Did the Malaysian PM not get caught with a billion dollars in his bank account that he said he knew nothing about because he never checked his balance? They could just use that.

I heard some of the money came from Hamilton Accies, something about a   ̶N̶i̶g̶e̶r̶i̶a̶n̶ Malasyian Prince.