Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Jacksgranda]

When this all kicked off I got a letter telling me to shield. I got another letter today specifically saying it wasn't a shielding letter and was actually aimed at folk in the "vulnerable" category working from home as far as possible. If unable to work from home show this letter to your employer (to enable him to furlough you, presumably or apply for whatever benefits are applicable) .I must admit I just skimmed over it as I am retired so working from home doesn't apply to me and I'm going to carry on shielding anyway.

[Billy Jean King]

How long can deaths and hospitalizations realistically keep rising ? It's over 2 weeks from NY and over 3 weeks since Christmas. Schools have been closed for 4 weeks almost and the country has been in this higher restrictions state for 3 weeks. New cases have levelled off too so surely the numbers cannot keep rising beyond the next 7 days tops. If they do it requires serious resource thrown at establishing accurately what is still driving it.

The media seem to be driving a line that there are a lot more younger (not necessarily young) people seriously I'll plus more without underlying health issues. Whether this is true or it's manipulation to encourage compliance also needs looked at.

Schools and Christmas were the big "dangers" but they can't carry the can for much longer !

[Wee Bully]

2 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

How long can deaths and hospitalizations realistically keep rising ? It's over 2 weeks from NY and over 3 weeks since Christmas. Schools have been closed for 4 weeks almost and the country has been in this higher restrictions state for 3 weeks. New cases have levelled off too so surely the numbers cannot keep rising beyond the next 7 days tops. If they do it requires serious resource thrown at establishing accurately what is still driving it.

The media seem to be driving a line that there are a lot more younger (not necessarily young) people seriously I'll plus more without underlying health issues. Whether this is true or it's manipulation to encourage compliance also needs looked at.

Schools and Christmas were the big "dangers" but they can't carry the can for much longer !

According to Travelling Tabby, deaths are already dropping. 

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

Over 80s shouldn’t bother getting vaccinated?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-16/norway-vaccine-fatalities-among-people-75-and-older-rise-to-29

Only the very frail ones at death's door anyway. 

[madwullie]

5 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

How long can deaths and hospitalizations realistically keep rising ? It's over 2 weeks from NY and over 3 weeks since Christmas. Schools have been closed for 4 weeks almost and the country has been in this higher restrictions state for 3 weeks. New cases have levelled off too so surely the numbers cannot keep rising beyond the next 7 days tops. If they do it requires serious resource thrown at establishing accurately what is still driving it.

The media seem to be driving a line that there are a lot more younger (not necessarily young) people seriously I'll plus more without underlying health issues. Whether this is true or it's manipulation to encourage compliance also needs looked at.

Schools and Christmas were the big "dangers" but they can't carry the can for much longer !

Purely anecdotal, but hairmyres is currently seeing a wider spread of covid patients across the age groups. 55-65 especially seems to have a noticeably larger cohort than the first wave. Not as markedly, but noticeable is the 30-40 age group. Whether that's because all the extremely old are already dead, or vaccinations starting to kick in or whatever reason I don't know. 

[MuckleMoo]

How long can deaths and hospitalizations realistically keep rising ? It's over 2 weeks from NY and over 3 weeks since Christmas. Schools have been closed for 4 weeks almost and the country has been in this higher restrictions state for 3 weeks. New cases have levelled off too so surely the numbers cannot keep rising beyond the next 7 days tops. If they do it requires serious resource thrown at establishing accurately what is still driving it.

The media seem to be driving a line that there are a lot more younger (not necessarily young) people seriously I'll plus more without underlying health issues. Whether this is true or it's manipulation to encourage compliance also needs looked at.

Schools and Christmas were the big "dangers" but they can't carry the can for much longer !

It takes several weeks for people to become seriously ill or die from Covid. People dying now probably caught it some time in early December, possibly longer. Although infection rates are going down the next couple of weeks will continue to be grim in regards to deaths

[Billy Jean King]

According to Travelling Tabby, deaths are already dropping. 

Possibly in the last few days but the constant NHS about to be overwhelmed narrative continues unabated. Difficult to maintain that if deaths and admissions continue to fall.

Also should see significantly less new cases very shortly or something else is driving infections that needs identifying quickly. They are levelling but not really falling that much.

[parsforlife]

9 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

No wai

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/16/low-paid-shun-covid-tests-cost-of-self-isolating-too-high

 

This pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of many, and it’s shown how failing to protect the vulnerable the rest of society suffers.

Will that change anything, probably not, c***s will continue to vote Tory and torries will continue to favour themselves and their pals over the rest.

Edited January 17, 2021 by parsforlife

[strichener]

3 hours ago, superbigal said:

The majority of people vaccinated in Scotland currently are under 50.  So the good news is every NHS manager, records keeper and the Janny have been done.

Only 2% of over 80s in the community vaccinated.

Aberdeenshire council employees "volunteering" to work in the care sector to get vaccinated.

[SoapMactavish]

39 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Possibly in the last few days but the constant NHS about to be overwhelmed narrative continues unabated. Difficult to maintain that if deaths and admissions continue to fall.

Also should see significantly less new cases very shortly or something else is driving infections that needs identifying quickly. They are levelling but not really falling that much.

Admissions aren’t falling though, they are pretty much continuing unabated so far. We’ve had 3 covid admissions in the last hour alone. 
 

Admissions aren’t going to peak until the end of the month. 
 

The scot.gov figures from today say there is only 3 admissions across the country which is utter nonsense, I have no idea where that comes from. 
 

edited to add a side note that we are getting significantly more younger people admitted. Not kids but 30-50 year olds. Of all our ITU patients currently, something like 2/3rds of them are under 60. Very few people at the age of 80 or so are fit for ITU. 

Edited January 16, 2021 by SoapMactavish

[charlie king mvp]

2 minutes ago, SoapMactavish said:

Admissions aren’t falling though, they are pretty much continuing unabated so far. We’ve had 3 covid admissions in the last hour alone. 
 

Admissions aren’t going to peak until the end of the month. 
 

The scot.gov figures from today say there is only 3 admissions across the country which is utter nonsense, I have no idea where that comes from. 

Do their figures not say there are three more people in hospital than yesterday? Presumably some people have been discharged and some people will sadly have died.

[101]

2 hours ago, virginton said:

The big issue with easing restrictions in the short term is that the government's rush to send schools back at the first plausible opportunity would mean literally weeks if not months of pointless restrictions for everything else, because it would just send the R rate right back up again towards 1 - if not higher if they jump the gun. Whereas an extra few weeks of studying from home would allow for things to be opened up at a more sustainable level and wrap things up much more quickly.

I have absolutely zero confidence in any UK government taking the correct course of action given their handling of the issue so far.

I'm still hopeful that peached will be vaccinated before the full school system is returned which would hopefully mean any transmission is kept to a minimum. 

[101]

5 minutes ago, SoapMactavish said:

Admissions aren’t falling though, they are pretty much continuing unabated so far. We’ve had 3 covid admissions in the last hour alone. 
 

Admissions aren’t going to peak until the end of the month. 
 

The scot.gov figures from today say there is only 3 admissions across the country which is utter nonsense, I have no idea where that comes from. 
 

edited to add a side note that we are getting significantly more younger people admitted. Not kids but 30-50 year olds. Of all our ITU patients currently, something like 2/3rds of them are under 60. Very few people at the age of 80 or so are fit for ITU. 

Their stats will obviously come from NHS boards it wouldn't be surprising if the people who feed those stats in regionally aren't working or make a call at like 9am for them to pull the national figures together. 

[SoapMactavish]

1 minute ago, charlie king mvp said:

Do their figures not say there are three more people in hospital than yesterday? Presumably some people have been discharged and some people will sadly have died.

Yeah of course but there is a lag at weekends for whatever reason. The net number each day across the country is between 60 and 100 admissions. 

[vikingTON]

6 minutes ago, 101 said:

I'm still hopeful that peached will be vaccinated before the full school system is returned which would hopefully mean any transmission is kept to a minimum. 

The teachers are not the cause of the majority of transmissions in that setting and never have been.

It was interesting to see our clownshoe colleagues south of the border indicate that they might bump teachers up the vaccine list, as being among key workers who are regularly exposed to risk. Here was me thinking that 'schools were safe' and have been magically repelling the virus since August!

[Wee Bully]

The teachers are not the cause of the majority of transmissions in that setting and never have been.
It was interesting to see our clownshoe colleagues south of the border indicate that they might bump teachers up the vaccine list, as being among key workers who are regularly exposed to risk. Here was me thinking that 'schools were safe' and have been magically repelling the virus since August!

Are they as “Clownshoes” as someone who suggested the Highlands shouldn’t be put in lockdown, despite the new variant?

[vikingTON]

On 11/01/2021 at 10:51, Bairnardo said:

Precisely. What's been mandated by Scotgov is that employers make the workplace covid secure, pretty sure they are required to demonstrate this to the regulator and most employers are being pushed to make their covid RA public. Deliberately open ended though as all employers and work settings are different. The havent been prescriptive about very much throughout this. If an employee feels that the measures taken by the employer are inadequate, then they should absolutely report the employer and action would be taken by the HSE.

Then theres also raising mask wearing as a safety suggestion... Or just choosing to wear a mask.

(Among others, quoting to recap the general argument)

v

On 11/01/2021 at 11:12, virginton said:

 

A 'leave it to the employer to work it out' strategy that helps explain why we are where we are now.

The claim that the onus should be on the employee to contact union officials/philpy them to HSE is utterly ridiculous. This is a pandemic impacting every part of life, it is not a top shelf stacked too heavily. Unions have insufficient power to make changes (even the teachers failed to secure a credible working environment) and the HSE is not equipped to swoop on every workplace in the middle of a pandemic.

New evidence shows that - surprise! - the HSE is completely and utterly unfit to handle Covid-related safety issues in the workplace:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/16/bosses-accused-putting-workers-lives-risk-bending-lockdown-trading-rules

Quote

Analysis by the Observer shows that no enforcement notices have been served on companies by Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors for Covid safety breaches since the country went into the latest lockdown, despite being contacted 2,945 times about workplace safety issues between 6 and 14 January. Overall, just 0.1% of the nearly 97,000 Covid safety cases dealt with by the agency during the pandemic appear to have resulted in an improvement or prohibition safety notice, with not a single company prosecuted for Covid-related breaches of safety laws.

 

Edited January 16, 2021 by vikingTON

[Bairnardo]

12 minutes ago, virginton said:

(Among others, quoting to recap the general argument)

v

New evidence shows that - surprise! - the HSE is completely and utterly unfit to handle Covid-related safety issues in the workplace:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jan/16/bosses-accused-putting-workers-lives-risk-bending-lockdown-trading-rules

 

Perhaps more of those workers reporting issues should unionise and take action as deemed neccessary for their own safety then  

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, Bairnardo said:

Perhaps more of those workers reporting issues should unionise and take action as deemed neccessary for their own safety then  

Unionise like the teachers who couldn't secure the safety of their environment? 

Changes need to be made prescriptive because employers can never be trusted to maintain a safe working environment without the real and current threat of sanctions. The HSE and 'talk to your union rep' does not cut it in the UK and certainly not in the event of a pandemic.

Edited January 16, 2021 by vikingTON

[Billy Jean King]

Admissions aren’t falling though, they are pretty much continuing unabated so far. We’ve had 3 covid admissions in the last hour alone. 
 
Admissions aren’t going to peak until the end of the month. 
 
The scot.gov figures from today say there is only 3 admissions across the country which is utter nonsense, I have no idea where that comes from. 
 
edited to add a side note that we are getting significantly more younger people admitted. Not kids but 30-50 year olds. Of all our ITU patients currently, something like 2/3rds of them are under 60. Very few people at the age of 80 or so are fit for ITU. 

That's a big concern that if prolonged will not help the lifting of measures as quickly as some seem to think as that can only happen when serious illness and death greatly reduce. If the trend is for more u50s to be suffering in this way then that will definitely delay any significant release of measures.