Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, Left Back said:

Another testing method approved apparently

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-20second/britain-approves-20-second-covid-19-test-distributor-says-idUSKBN2BI16V

On the assumption they will have something in place, this is infinitely preferable to domestic vaccine passports IMO.

[Todd_is_God]

7 minutes ago, Burnieman said:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/44dea936-8dbe-11eb-a1a3-928d43a3bbc1?shareToken=7c7f0bb80f1cb56756eabc625f4bf892&fbclid=IwAR09ZG46lq3pM-_W8IiVaaDYbp5N8AF_qg7zSASpEVbGRyDnwhISuNHJ6-4

Schools are safe

[Marshmallo]

 

This is just factually inaccurate, no?

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, Todd_is_God said:

On the assumption they will have something in place, this is infinitely preferable to domestic vaccine passports IMO.

Depends how much you have to pay for it.

Also imagine the scenes if someone comes up positive.  Does everyone around them then have to self-isolate?  Waited all year to go to your festival (or whatever event) and you get told to bolt because the person in front of you in the queue gets a positive test.

[Detournement]

3 minutes ago, Michael W said:

I'd certainly look strongly at quitting if I was made to work from home full time. I dont find it enjoyable in the slightest.

Then again, as I've said numerous times before, I'm not paying silly money for my commute. We're I shelling of for a London season ticket there is no chance I'd be wanting to go back and would take the non-enjoyment of working from home for the additional money in my pocket. I currently have little to no financial benefit from working at home. 

There's a balance to be had. Get it wrong and people will indeed leave. In particular mandating 5 days in the office isn't going to fly with the vast majority. 

I don't know about that. There is a huge culture in London of socialising after work and people love talking about their jobs to an extent that even the most boring Scots can't compete with. 

I think there will be plenty of people choking to get back into the office just to get away from the homes/families and get out for a drink a few nights a week.

 

 

[Michael W]

I will accept a blanket international quarantine on all arrivals from France on the condition Devi Sridhar accepts personal responsibility for the resulting catastrophic failure of UK supply chains as a result. 

We will then have her loaded into Mons Meg and fired into the Firth of Forth, never to be heard from again. 

[Bairnardo]

Depends how much you have to pay for it.
Also imagine the scenes if someone comes up positive.  Does everyone around them then have to self-isolate?  Waited all year to go to your festival (or whatever event) and you get told to bolt because the person in front of you in the queue gets a positive test.

Anything other than a stance where the herd is by and large protected by vaccines, and any positive case is going to run into more road blocks than viable hosts so let's just crack on, quite frankly needs to f**k off.

[superbigal]

Where I believe the effectiveness of the Vaccine is becoming apparent, is in the deaths per million reporting in Europe.

On the flip side the Europeans are suffering badly.  Europe also fills the top 11 spots in the world.

Excluding the too honest Belgium we were always way out at the top in the UK.  We are dropping quickly down the charts currently 6th.

I suspect we will be 10th within another few days.

Current figures in Major European countries are for top 16.

Czech 2,391 Deaths per 1 Million

Hungary 2,022

Belgium 1,962

Slovenia 1,928

Bosnia 1,881

UK 1,855

Bulgaria 1,811

Italy 1,768

Slovakia 1,716

North Macedonia 1,716

Portugal 1,652

Spain 1,591

Croatia 1,432

France 1,428

Poland 1,357

Sweden 1,318

Edited March 26, 2021 by superbigal

[yoda]

3 hours ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

I like the Fringe as well despite udderbelly et al, but I've a feeling there's going to be a lot of shite "that lockdown eh?" content this year 

 

Quote

Remember that lockdown?

[Michael W]

5 minutes ago, Detournement said:

I don't know about that. There is a huge culture in London of socialising after work and people love talking about their jobs to an extent that even the most boring Scots can't compete with. 

I think there will be plenty of people choking to get back into the office just to get away from the homes/families and get out for a drink a few nights a week.

 

 

There is indeed. I think some combination of 2/3 days at home and the rest in the office may be what many settle on. 

That said... A lot of people will be basically paying the same as their 5 day season ticket if they have to go in 3 days a week. 

[dirty dingus]

44 minutes ago, superbigal said:

Where I believe the effectiveness of the Vaccine is becoming apparent, is in the deaths per million reporting in Europe.

On the flip side the Europeans are suffering badly.  Europe also fills the top 11 spots in the world.

Excluding the too honest Belgium we were always way out at the top in the UK.  We are dropping quickly down the charts currently 6th.

I suspect we will be 10th within another few days.

Current figures in Major European countries are for top 16.

Czech 2,391 Deaths per 1 Million

Hungary 2,022

Belgium 1,962

Slovenia 1,928

Bosnia 1,881

UK 1,855

Bulgaria 1,811

Italy 1,768

Slovakia 1,716

North Macedonia 1,716

Portugal 1,652

Spain 1,591

Croatia 1,432

France 1,428

Poland 1,357

Sweden 1,318

Home Nation figures.

Scotland 1,386

England 1,977

Wales 1,743

N.Ireland 1,113

 

[EdinburghPar1975]

47 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Then again, as I've said numerous times before, I'm not paying silly money for my commute. Were I shelling out for a London season ticket there is no chance I'd be wanting to go back and would take the non-enjoyment of working from home for the additional money in my pocket. I currently have little to no financial benefit from working at home. 

I think this is at the root of the 'problem'. The majority of office workers likely commute and for City of London imagine the knock on impact to their direct economy if @25-30% or so of office workers not coming back to their desks each day - extortionate rail tickets, lunches etc. all not handing the cash. To a lesser extent the same will be happening in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

My work are going to split working with some full time home working but have said some jobs just need people in the office so some folks will still need to come in - those teams will be in the minority though and the chancellor needs the cash from lunches, travel and after work drinks to help pull back some of the cash spent

[Donathan]

47 minutes ago, Michael W said:

There is indeed. I think some combination of 2/3 days at home and the rest in the office may be what many settle on. 

That said... A lot of people will be basically paying the same as their 5 day season ticket if they have to go in 3 days a week. 

https://www.cityam.com/rail-commuters-to-get-flexible-season-tickets-in-back-to-office-bid/

Rail companies have been asked to design a flexible season ticket to allow for roughly 10 return journeys a month at a discounted price

[101]

1 hour ago, Gaz said:

Mind when folk said that the government would stay out the way of businesses deciding where staff have to work from?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56535575

It's alright for him, his house is also an official residence with offices and meeting rooms and the other main meeting rooms are next door to him and if he really has to go into the office to see the plebs it's round the corner. p***k.

[s_dog]

1 hour ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

This might be the first time I've ever seen comments on a BBC article that are actually sensible.

Had to go and see that with my own eyes to be sure, that really is a first.

From an article titled "People may quit if forced to worked from home, warns Sunak"

Sean has it spot on: Commercial property prices may drop and millionaire investors may suffer if people work from home, Rishi Sunak cries.

 

Isn't the reality that no one will be expected to work from home full-time and the way forward will be a mix of home/office working?

Edited March 26, 2021 by s_dog

[s_dog]

1 hour ago, Michael W said:

I will accept a blanket international quarantine on all arrivals from France on the condition Devi Sridhar accepts personal responsibility for the resulting catastrophic failure of UK supply chains as a result. 

The simple thing to do would just be to test the delivery drivers that are coming in from France. The same way the French have been testing delivery drivers coming into their country from the UK. 

[NotThePars]

15 hours ago, Gaz said:

Perhaps controversial but I've never understood folk in their 60s (or even 70s) who 'have never had a mobile phone' or 'don't use internet banking' or anything like that.

25 years ago they were in their 30s and being told mobile phones were the future. If they've ignored that I don't have a great deal of sympathy.

There was a woman on one of the local Facebook groups a few weeks ago moaning that her local bank was going to close and her mum, who was - wait for it - 52, was going to be stuck as she didn't know about Internet Banking. She'd have been in her fucking twenties when it would have become apparent it was the way it was going to go.

I need to do DBS checks for a lot of older folk and it's class how many from the age of about 50 above just refuse to enter their bank details online regardless of how safe it is and how much cover banks will give if on the incredibly rare chance you do have your bank raided.

1 hour ago, yoda said:

 

We should be so lucky!

[Distant Doonhamer]

Good to see the hospital cases now below 300 at 296 (310 yesterday). ICU also down from 32 to 26. Pleasing.

[scottsdad]

Much made of the efficacy of the AZ vaccine on the South African variant, with people stating categorically that it is ineffective. 

The study itself can be found here: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2102214?query=featured_home

The key section for me being the results section:

Quote

Between June 24 and November 9, 2020, we enrolled 2026 HIV-negative adults (median age, 30 years); 1010 and 1011 participants received at least one dose of placebo or vaccine, respectively. Both the pseudovirus and the live-virus neutralization assays showed greater resistance to the B.1.351 variant in serum samples obtained from vaccine recipients than in samples from placebo recipients. In the primary end-point analysis, mild-to-moderate Covid-19 developed in 23 of 717 placebo recipients (3.2%) and in 19 of 750 vaccine recipients (2.5%), for an efficacy of 21.9% (95% confidence interval [CI], −49.9 to 59.8). Among the 42 participants with Covid-19, 39 cases (92.9%) were caused by the B.1.351 variant; vaccine efficacy against this variant, analyzed as a secondary end point, was 10.4% (95% CI, −76.8 to 54.8). The incidence of serious adverse events was balanced between the vaccine and placebo groups.

This is a really small-scale study. I'm not saying it's wrong, but more needs to be done to look in to this. Of these cases identified here, nobody was hospitalised (either from the vaccinated or the placebo group), mainly due to the age of the participants. It covered nobody over 65 and the median age was 30, so half the people in this study were aged 18-30. 

[superbigal]

16 hours ago, superbigal said:

 

Daily Cases Update:   Numbers up again a little but the key positivity is not on the rise.  Scottish borders now have only 2 cases in a population base of around 115,000 which is quite astonishing.  Looks like Lanarkshire may be on it's way back to the top in the next few days.   West Lothian & Dundee should start to drop sharply in the next few days.  Stirling gets to light a cigar and throw the lit matches into Fallin.

Scotland peaked at 301.9 for figures 29th Dec to 4th Jan, (UK was 642.1)    Cases that day were 16,496 and test positivity rate was 11.9%  

Total Cases 7 days from 17th March to 23rd March were 3856 to 3889  up 0.86%. Positivity was  3.0% still 3.0%.   Cases per 100k were  70.6 now 71.2

Home Nations Daily update:  UK Average  57.1 to 56.0, England  56.5 to 55.5,  Wales 42.3 to 40.2, Northern Ireland 60.1 to 56.6

NHS Progress   Lanarkshire 102.6 to 109.7, Greater Glasgow  92.2 to 92.7, Lothian  80.7 to 80.7, Forth Valley 81.2 to 75.7,   the rest all under Scottish average.

European (Above 2 Million Population) Shockers: Hungary 564 to 625, Czech 659 to 557, Serbia  501 to 504, Poland 396 to 427, Bulgaria 352 to 360, Sweden 307 to 328, Netherlands 262.  Italy 255 to 264, Belgium 258 all over 250 and showing how much worse it is in Europe.  The UK only has below it  Portugal 33 (Who were top recently !!!) and Russia 44.   

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
The Bad boys club Over 100 Cartel

West Lothian 208.6 to 188.4 Prediction it had peaked correct. Down close to 10%.

North Lanarkshire  124.2 to 131.2  Kicking off in Coltness 840, Newharthill 703 & Wishow North 505

Glasgow City 108.4 to 107.1   

Dundee City  106.5 to 101.1  Hopefully Students now peaked at 118 cases of 151 in Dundee

Under 100 Club

East Renfrewshire   89.0 to 95.3  

Falkirk 101.3 to 95.1

Renfrewshire  86.0 to 89.9

North Ayrshire   85.3 to 89.8

South Lanarkshire  79.9 to 87.0 

West Dunbartonshire   93.3 to 81.0 Back on the way down from peak I believe. 13%

Under Scottish Average club 71.2

Moray 58.4 to 68.9 Doubled in 48 hours.

Midlothian   61.6 to 67.1 

Perth & Kinross  73.1 to 65.2 Moving back to where it should be down another plus 10%

Clackmannanshire  71.8 to 64.0 

Fife  61.8 to 60.5

East Dunbartonshire  48.8  to 58.0  Put the Cigars away again.

City Of Edinburgh 48.8 to 53.3

SUB 50 Good Guys

Stirling  52.0 to 48.8   Top spot to Cigars well played. Fallin still a cesspit.

South Ayrshire   51.5 to 48.8 Another back into the smoky room.

East Ayrshire  54.1 to 45.9  Another 15% great drop into hamlet territory

Shetland Islands  43.6 to 43.6

Aberdeen City  37.6 to 42.9 

Aberdeenshire 36.4 to 38.3

East Lothian  30.8 to 38.3

Inverclyde 33.4 to 36.0

Havana & Malt Whisky club Sub 30.0

Angus 25.0 to 23.2

Dumfries & Galloway  17.5 to 21.5  

Highlands  20.4 to 20.4

Western Isles   11.2 to 11.2

Argyll & Bute  7.0 to 7.0

Orkney Island  4.5 to 4.5    

Scottish  Borders 3.5 to 1.7  Grand total of 2 cases.  

 

Edited March 26, 2021 by superbigal