Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Granny Danger]

12 minutes ago, Aladdin said:

All legislation of the Scottish Parliament can be attacked as ultra vires if it can be shown to be incompatible with the ECHR.

Given lockdown restrictions are some of the clearest breaches of convention rights imaginable, albeit justifiable as necessary and proportionate to date, it would be expected that you would start to see some challenges later in the year depending on how they are relaxed.

So you agree with the point I made in my post “If there were any challenges to any restrictions in Scotland or rUK it would need to be shown that the governments had acted beyond their powers.”?

[craigkillie]

So you agree with the point I made in my post “If there were any challenges to any restrictions in Scotland or rUK it would need to be shown that the governments had acted beyond their powers.”?

I'm pretty confident any proceedings that requires them to present their evidence for the ongoing restrictions would leave them on very shaky ground.

[Michael W]

50 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

Sigh....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-56082573?__twitter_impression=true

33 identified cases in nearly 3 months. Isn't this also basically the same as the "Bristol variant" that Hancock was talking about last week? 

Anything to keep driving fear. 

[101]

16 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

 

£5 for a Covid test before 11 £10 for after 11

[RH33]

Genuine question virginton, are you on the asd spectrum?

[Frankie S]

6 hours ago, ayrmad said:

It will mean some going bust and ruining the lives of some associated with those venues, that doesn't mean the sector will be fucked, it will just be different and some others will happily take up some of the slack. 

We've been adapting in a shipshod manner due to the shite messages our overlords have dished out, that won't be the case going forward in the medium to longterm. 

There's certainly a fair chance of it being a different experience from 2019 but that difference offers big opportunities for entrepreneurs to come up with solutions to allow hospitality to get the best bang for their buck. 

So social distancing being rolled on well behind its sell-by date after not only the vulnerable but the whole adult population have been vaccinated will result in ‘big opportunities for entrepreneurs’ in the hospitality industry? I’ve heard it all now. No it f***ing won’t, it’ll completely decimate the industry, trashing the entire independent sectors in the pub, restaurant, events and live music industries, sending all but the behemoths like Weatherspoons to the wall.

I’m an entrepreneur in the aforementioned industries, and here’s what social distancing means to me - my live music venue in Edinburgh has a 200 capacity, this will be reduced to approx 28 max, depending on seating configurations determined by group size bookings. That might even be reduced further due to social distancing required amongst musicians necessitating a larger stage, and more than 2m social distancing being required between vocalists and brass instrument players due to greater droplet dispersion from those musicians. Our 90 capacity room downstairs might seat 16 socially distanced, if it’s lucky. My live music venue in Dumfries has a 350 capacity and could prob accommodate 60 socially distanced. So, I wonder what touring bands venues can afford to book on those capacities? None is the short answer. We could maybe put on a local pub band for free, if they agreed to get paid in beers.

Scale up and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh is a 2000 capacity venue and its socially-distanced capacity is approx 350. So The Usher Hall can now afford to put on bands that would normally play a small club venue, with hugely greater running costs. It just doesn’t work,  no matter how you try to present it as an ‘opportunity. ‘ An opportunity to lose huge piles of money and fold almost immediately without extensive government support. ‘Ah, but streaming’ people might say, as if charging for a virtual ticket for streamed content (when so much music is already available for free on the internet) is the panacea for all the industries’ ills. It’s not, and it never will be.

With social distancing you can file live music, festivals, and other large scale events in the bin, you can also forget the Edinburgh Festival and Fringe, other than a few stage-managed heavily-subsidised (mainly outdoor) PR events (which seems to be the plan this year). It’s just not going to happen, and the Fringe’s whole raison d’etre is to promote small scale independent venues and small scale events. Many pubs have function suites that rely on gigs, birthday parties, weddings and other social events. This vital source of revenue will be decimated by social  distancing, and the last thing pubs that have already been closed for most of the last 12 months need to survive as we get back to ‘normal’ is disappearing revenue streams.

As ever social distancing will have a disproportionately disastrous effect on smaller independent venues and pubs, and favour larger chains with larger premises. If you have barn-sized outlets like Wetherspoons, you might just survive, given most of the competition is going to go under with SD and you’re already bulk buying stock for your nationwide chain at next to nothing and enjoying vast economies of scale.

To get any return from a socially-distanced future, you’ll need cavernous aircraft hangar-style pubs or huge beer gardens, which by their nature are at a premium in city centres and attract far higher rates and commercial rents. The rates freezes won’t last forever, and while commercial rents will probably adjust downwards, city centre rents are hugely onerous and that allied to other overheads result in minimal margins for pubs and restaurants (most city centre hospitality outlets make their profit in the last 10% of their turnover, and that’s without social distancing).

I half-joked back in March 2020 that people would crawl out of their bunkers once this was all over to find in our dystopian not so brave new world that the only pubs left standing are ****ing Wetherspoons, but it’s no longer a joke, it’s an ever-increasing possibility.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Frankie S

[TheScarf]

19 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

 

Mr Kill.

[Gaz]

7 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Mr Kill.

First name Buzz?

[Detournement]

"Under the supervision of a professional over a video call"

And I thought having to buy a ticket in advance for the Subby was borderline fascism.

 

 

 

[dirty dingus]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

While I highly doubt any festivals will be happening this summer anyway - even in the unlikely event that the governments allow live music to be back in the form of normal gigs with no distancing by June, I don't think they're going to allow tens of thousands of mostly younger people to pile into fields and camp for days in generally unhygienic conditions before they've had two doses - Glastonbury don't really have a choice with the sheer size of their site.

While they all may have other reasons for cancelling much further in advance, in terms of site infrastructure alone a big festival like Reading & Leeds could probably make the decision whether to go ahead or not a month in advance, and something much smaller in capacity or non-camping like TRNSMT could be even shorter notice because they don't need to start building the site up until so close to the start of the festival.

Obviously they'd all make the decision much earlier than that anyway because of the impact on ticket sales, contracts with suppliers etc, but Glastonbury takes so long to build the site that even if they wanted to they don't have the option to wait until May to see what the state of restrictions is before deciding.

Mind this absolute shit show last year, pitching a tent on the scaffolding is the new normal.

[Distant Doonhamer]

Hospital numbers continuing to fall.

Number in hospital 1383, down from 1428 yesterday. Highest in this wave was 2053 on 22nd January.

ICU 100, down from 102 yesterday. Highest in this wave was 161on 22nd January.

Long stay ICU patients 36 , up from 35 yesterday.

[Burnieman]

19 minutes ago, Michael W said:

33 identified cases in nearly 3 months. Isn't this also basically the same as the "Bristol variant" that Hancock was talking about last week? 

Anything to keep driving fear. 

There's no evidence that it is any more harmful.  It's reckless reporting.

[NotThePars]

A 1-2 punch of “probably didn’t happen” and “good for them if they did”

[D.V.T.]

An extra 1.7 million asked to shield from Covid in England and they will get priority access to vaccines

[superbigal]

23 hours ago, superbigal said:

 

Todays summary     Back to the daily grind as I post alongside the Scotgov statement.  EDIT LOCKDOWN CONTINUES FOR ANOTHER MINIMUM 2 WEEKS !!!

The "Saturday" figures i was bothered about have been "clarified" which leads to good news.  

My Headline Aberdeen City & Dundee City combined population close to 400,000 have 134 Covid Infections.   Yes only 134 !!!

Daily infections have now dropped for 40 days in a row since the peak on 4th January. The total drop being 66.58%. Total cases are 5,512 and the positive test rate is down from  5.7% to 5.5% 

The top 4 (We should exclude Serco East Ayrshire) are still not covering themselves in Glory.  However just look at the Councils already below 100.  Sustained huge falls for South Ayrshire, D&G, East Dunbartonshire, Moray, East Lothian, Angus and pride of place for Dundee City with a total of 52 cases.

England 167.5 to 157.5 have dropped 5.97% in last 24 hours.  Wales 100.9 to 96.8 have dropped 4.06% in last 24 hours and beat Scotland to 100 barrier , Northern Ireland 140.6 to 133.8  have dropped 4.84% in last 24 hours.   UK Average is now 149.7 

Scotland peaked at 301.9 for figures 29th Dec to 4th Jan    

Yesterdays figure for 6th Feb to 12th Feb was 103.8

Todays figure for 7th Feb to 13th Feb is 100.9   Another single Day drop of 2.79%. 

Council progress in last 24 hours as follows.

Click cases by neighbourhood to see the spread on the geographical map. 

https://public.tableau.com/profile/phs.covid.19#!/vizhome/COVID-19DailyDashboard_15960160643010/Overview

East Ayrshire 310.6 to 303.3  That Kilmarnock Prison area now 7,601 cases per 100K

West Dunbartonshire  217.0 to  227.1   Yet another bad day.

Clackmannanshire 221.2 to 219.2

Falkirk  192.1 to 193.3  

THEN A LARGE GAP

West Lothian  143.6 to 159.5    Privately run Prison sending Breich Valley to 1,670 cases per 100K and rising.

Stirling 146.5 to 158.2  Another bad day in Stirling 3 weeks worth  

Renfrewshire  152.4 to  154.7

North Lanarkshire  158.2 to 147.1    

South Lanarkshire 142.0 to 142.9  

Glasgow City  141.5 to  131.9  Great drop in the big City of 6.78%

North Ayrshire 135.8 to 130.6   

THEN ANOTHER GAP

East Renfrewshire  112.0 to 103.6  Terrific 24hours down 7.5%

Inverclyde  99.0 to 96.4

Midlothian   94.1 to 91.9

Western Isles   82.3 to 82.3  

South Ayrshire  83.5 to 76.4 Outstanding 10% drop on the day   

Dumfries & Galloway  84.6 to 72.6  Great daily drop of over 14% 

Argyll & Bute 78.0 to 71.0  

East Dunbartonshire   76.4 to 67.2  Brilliant 12% drop on day

Moray   74.1 to  66.8  Another 10% plus drop.

East Lothian  71.0 to  58.8   Sensational 17% drop in 24 Hours

Perth & Kinross    59.2 to 57.9

Highlands  53.9 to 57.2 

City Of Edinburgh  58.7 to 56.2

 Fife  52.7 to 54.6   

Angus   56.8 to 50.8  Another 10% drop 

Aberdeenshire 45.9 to 44.0

Aberdeen City    36.7 to 35.9  

Dundee City 37.5 to 34.8  Another great drop from such low levels  

Scottish  Borders   27.7 to 30.3

Orkney Island  26.9 to 26.9

Shetland Islands  4.4 to 4.4

Edited February 16, 2021 by superbigal

[Bairnardo]

I just read that schools in England were at 25% capacity last week.

At the end of the article it said Schools in Scotland are closed except to vulnerable children and those of key workers.

What are Enlgand doing that schools are running at 25%?

[Marshmallo]

1 minute ago, Bairnardo said:

I just read that schools in England were at 25% capacity last week.

At the end of the article it said Schools in Scotland are closed except to vulnerable children and those of key workers.

What are Enlgand doing that schools are running at 25%?

Parents purposely twisting their jobs to be defined as "key worker" to get the weans out the house so they don't have noise in the background of conference calls.

[Donathan]

I just read that schools in England were at 25% capacity last week.

At the end of the article it said Schools in Scotland are closed except to vulnerable children and those of key workers.

What are Enlgand doing that schools are running at 25%?

A ridiculously wide definition of “key worker”

My company has been WFH since last March, but senior individuals have got their kids in school because “high value business leaders” count as key workers

[dirty dingus]

1 minute ago, Donathan said:

A ridiculously wide definition of “key worker”

My company has been WFH since last March, but senior individuals have got their kids in school because “high value business leaders” count as key workers

Also aresholes who bleated about opening schools after about 2 days like isabel oakeshott are classed as key workers.

[Scotty Tunbridge]

Listening to Sturgeon makes it sound like we are going to be in tier 3 at best until 2023.