Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[101]

16 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

Nowt to do with agreeing/disagreeing with any of these scientists but I firmly believe that governments should be taking advice from experts with a broad spectrum of beliefs/opinions, it's never healthy to have too many like-minded folk shaping decisions. 

Tbh Devi is one of what 20 or so advisors she might be the most vocal on social media but it's not difficult to imagine that they don't all agree with her.

[Marshmallo]

3 minutes ago, Smokie_D said:

Try again

[Michael W]

Perhaps 'zero covid' could've been given the light of day in the UK had we acted in the same way as Australia and New Zealand did back in February. When you miss the boat, it's pretty much game over. 

That being  the case, how do the likes of Sridhar propose the UK achieves zero covid? I hear zero covid a lot but never how it might be achieved in practice. 

[Todd_is_God]

20 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Perhaps 'zero covid' could've been given the light of day in the UK had we acted in the same way as Australia and New Zealand did back in February. When you miss the boat, it's pretty much game over. 

That being  the case, how do the likes of Sridhar propose the UK achieves zero covid? I hear zero covid a lot but never how it might be achieved in practice. 

The answer will depend on what her definition of zero is that day

[Donathan]

29 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Perhaps 'zero covid' could've been given the light of day in the UK had we acted in the same way as Australia and New Zealand did back in February. When you miss the boat, it's pretty much game over. 

That being  the case, how do the likes of Sridhar propose the UK achieves zero covid? I hear zero covid a lot but never how it might be achieved in practice. 

 

Most Zero Covid types are advocating a very strict lockdown until it the numbers can be driven all the way to zero. I'd have more sympathy for the idea if we didn't have vaccines to protect the vulnerable, but the fact is that we do and thus covid is now over as a public health crisis in the UK (yes, I said it) and there is no need to have ongoing lockdown restrictions. Legal bans on socialising are no longer necessary nor are they proportionate and they should be repealed across the UK imminently and replaced with simple pandemic mitigation measures like good ventilation, hand washing and face coverings.

[Left Back]

7 minutes ago, Smokie_D said:

Well, as sturgeon wanted last year ...to follow NZ and other far East and Australian countries and go for Zero covid....but we can't close our borders as we have a PM who promoted herd immunity and refused to close our borders....if only we were an island like , NZ, Australia, Taiwan, Japan........

Why is it currently illegal to either enter or leave Scotland except for essential purposes then?

[anotherchance]

13 minutes ago, Donathan said:

 

Most Zero Covid types are advocating a very strict lockdown until it the numbers can be driven all the way to zero. I'd have more sympathy for the idea if we didn't have vaccines to protect the vulnerable, but the fact is that we do and thus covid is now over as a public health crisis in the UK (yes, I said it) and there is no need to have ongoing lockdown restrictions. Legal bans on socialising are no longer necessary nor are they proportionate and they should be repealed across the UK imminently and replaced with simple pandemic mitigation measures like good ventilation, hand washing and face coverings.

Exactly, it’s the fact that we’ve got cracking vaccines yet well paid mouthpieces like Sridhar seem to want us to maintain hard restrictions for longer than necessary which will absolutely destroy lives and livelihoods, based on ego and extended time in the limelight.

No better than the worst kind of Tory.

[Left Back]

11 minutes ago, Smokie_D said:

A year later.

So ScotGov reacted a year too late then?

[HTG]

10 minutes ago, Left Back said:

So ScotGov reacted a year too late then?

You're not comparing apples with apples though. Sturgeon maybe wanted to close the borders but she couldn't force England to do so. She still can't. So unless you're prepared to put controls on every border crossing or entry point into Scotland, it is unachievable in practical terms. Scotland doesn't have those levels of resource and let's be honest, if it had been done a year ago, all hell would have broken out politically so trying to change minds across the UK was the obvious thing to do. 

I was talking to my uncle in Auckland about this recently and he was very clear that there are only a couple of main entry points into NZ and of those, only Auckland is truly international with the likes of Wellington connecting to Australia. Australia is also only really reachable in any numbers by air so controlling borders is straightforward. But you have to want to take the hit and Westminster didn't want to. 

Be as simplistic as you like but the level of death on this island is very much down to the setting of policy in Downing Street. If Johnson has shown nothing else in his tenure, it is that he's absolutely fucking useless at almost everything. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

[strichener]

11 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

You appear to be mistaking the concept of a cumulative number of "things got right" for "got everything right"

Being below the "experts" in that table is quite an achievement. Hopefully you get your first point on the board soon.

Tbf, your success rate is pretty miniscule.  Let's ignore cumulative and speak about percentages.  I'm sure you'll be well below the "experts".  

Even more stark if you take the number of times that you posted the same inaccuracies with conviction.  

[Michael W]

7 hours ago, Smokie_D said:

Well, as sturgeon wanted last year ...to follow NZ and other far East and Australian countries and go for Zero covid....but we can't close our borders as we have a PM who promoted herd immunity and refused to close our borders....if only we were an island like , NZ, Australia, Taiwan, Japan........

She certainly wasn't advocating this back in February/March 2020 when we might've had a shot at this. 

[Michael W]

In other news today, it's the grand reopening in England. Pubs and restaurants are open for business on the premise that all consumption takes place outside. Exciting times for patrons! 

It snowed last night. 

[mizfit]

In other news today, it's the grand reopening in England. Pubs and restaurants are open for business on the premise that all consumption takes place outside. Exciting times for patrons! 
It snowed last night. 

Could you have imagined the rage if this was postponed by one week due to the death of Philip?

[101]

5 minutes ago, Michael W said:

In other news today, it's the grand reopening in England. Pubs and restaurants are open for business on the premise that all consumption takes place outside. Exciting times for patrons! 

It snowed last night. 

And 14 days for our turn + whatever extra easements are in store for us.

It is a bit parky for beer garden weather hopefully the FM has the thermostat on timer for our reopening.

[Michael W]

13 minutes ago, mizfit said:

 

Could you have imagined the rage if this was postponed by one week due to the death of Philip?
 

 

At least Johnson got his excuses for not being pictured with a pint in early! 

[madwullie]

31 minutes ago, Snafu said:

You don't half spout some pish.

The grass is always greener everywhere else but here isn't it?

These countries are probably looking over at us as a success story due to how far into our vaccination program we are right now and this and the restrictions we have had to put up with have driven infection levels right down to extremely low figures and this is all of the UK. This while the rest of Europe and most of the world are taking a hit right now, while they dither on their vaccination programs or do nothing about it.

Experience has taught us that restrictions by themselves only delay this virus, all those countries that have not vaccinated the majority of their population and have lifted are extremely vulnerable to another wave regardless if they have a zero covid policy or not. New Zealand for example never really achieved real zero covid because of a cluster outbreak after 3 months of no reported cases, not linked to over seas travel. This is what Leitch was on about when referring to no cases in our Northern Isles a month ago, despite how few people live up there compared to New Zealand ffs

My thoughts on that is that the virus is still there in NZ but going around younger unvaccinated people who have no or extremely minor symptoms, or that some people have been traveling around with no symptoms but not being pulled up for it. I remember that being the case there. Zero covid just isn't possible by policy and strategy, the virus itself will die off on its own when it runs out of people to infect, same as any other virus. This is why the most important thing we are doing against the virus is vaccination.

Despite all the difference in opinion of our leaders, the vaccination program and progress is something we are getting spot on right now. Testing is flagging up those who are infected but with no or minor symptoms. We have this under control it seems, we still need to get to the end.

And because of this it is possible normality in our lives apart from overseas travel will return earlier than most of the world without fear of another wave of infection, despite the buckled opinions of SAGE and our feargasm motivated media. Clusters will happen there's no avoiding it, its happening now in parts of Scotland hopefully without any serious risk to those people's health, so far.

Pints and cigars with zero covid in the bin.

 

Those countries are of course looking enviously at our vaccination figures. I doubt they cast the same looks at our death figures, and unfortunately, I also doubt BJ is casting envious looks at their death figures. 

Where we have got to is fucking brilliant all things considered, but it wasn't by choice or design. Most predictions for vaccine development were longer than it ultimately turned out, and had it taken even 9-12 months longer we would be looking at some seriously awful figures. Neil Ferguson might even have been close to the money

We didn't take the informed choice to have 125k (or whatever, I've even stopped looking) deaths knowing that we would be able to halt the advance with vaccines early 2021. We fucked it considerably, made the wrong choice at multiple points, and chucked all our eggs on the vaccines basket as a Hail Mary move which ultimately worked in our favour. 

So yeah, we're in a stronger place atm in terms of returning to normal re international travel than Oz or NZ, but that involves shrugging off over a hundred thousand avoidable deaths that they simply haven't had. 

I don't think either approach is going to come out the other side of this looking particularly optimum. 

Edited April 12, 2021 by madwullie

[Left Back]

7 hours ago, HTG said:

You're not comparing apples with apples though. Sturgeon maybe wanted to close the borders but she couldn't force England to do so. She still can't. So unless you're prepared to put controls on every border crossing or entry point into Scotland, it is unachievable in practical terms. Scotland doesn't have those levels of resource and let's be honest, if it had been done a year ago, all hell would have broken out politically so trying to change minds across the UK was the obvious thing to do. 

I was talking to my uncle in Auckland about this recently and he was very clear that there are only a couple of main entry points into NZ and of those, only Auckland is truly international with the likes of Wellington connecting to Australia. Australia is also only really reachable in any numbers by air so controlling borders is straightforward. But you have to want to take the hit and Westminster didn't want to. 

Be as simplistic as you like but the level of death on this island is very much down to the setting of policy in Downing Street. If Johnson has shown nothing else in his tenure, it is that he's absolutely fucking useless at almost everything. 

Where to even begin with this.  Another claim that the borders in Scotland can't be closed where they're currently legally closed. 

If as you claim it's impossible to enforce maybe NS has announced a sham policy to be seen to be doing something (i.e. playing to the gallery in the same way Johnson is criticised for) and protecting us from nasty infected England.  If she truly believes it's that important it should be enforced and resources allocated appropriately.  To hell with the political storm that may or may not have broken out.  When faced with a crisis decisions have to be made.  some of them will be unpopular in certain areas but shying away from measures you think are important because they might make you unpopular is hardly leadership is it?

So not only have you doubled down on this border nonsense but you've then gone all in and absolved ScotGov of all public health responsibility for this entire public health crisis.   That is some going.

[anotherchance]

1 hour ago, oaksoft said:

And how on earth would you be in a position to judge that with any level of credibility with just 5 minutes of Googling?

Oh and science doesn't work on "common sense".

What you are doing is believing the people who post what you want to hear. It's called Confirmation Bias.

Devi isn’t hitting out with complex scientific jargon, she’s putting forward policy arguments.

You don’t have to be a genius to work out, for instance, that any NZ comparison is now moot given we have a hugely vaccinated population and they don’t. Or to understand how the vaccines work in terms of reducing disease, efficacy etc - and to come to the conclusion that Devi playing them down (based on very little) is counterproductive.

Almost every political policy decision is made based upon information that the public don’t have easy access to, to suggest that because we don’t have that knowledge that we can’t challenge the decision makers is bonkers.

 

[Left Back]

37 minutes ago, Michael W said:

At least Johnson got his excuses for not being pictured with a pint in early! 

He's probably seething about it tbh.  Huge opportunity to be spouting his pish in front of a camera and playing to the crowd stolen away from him.  Wee shame.