Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Lyle Lanley]

41 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

 

Agree with that but masks can get to f**k. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by Lyle Lanley

[No_Problemo]

I’m not sure Sturgeon’s response to this could be any more obvious....

Maybe by around March she’ll agree. 

[Ron Aldo]

What does Sturgeon do from here? There literally isn't a shred of evidence to support any of the measures currently in place.

It would be glorious if it wasn't so depressing. I'd have a lot more respect for her (or any politician for that matter) if she were to just hold her hands up and admit to making a c**t of it.

[Bairnardo]

What does Sturgeon do from here? There literally isn't a shred of evidence to support any of the measures currently in place.

It would be glorious if it wasn't so depressing. I'd have a lot more respect for her (or any politician for that matter) if she were to just hold her hands up and admit to making a c**t of it.

Whilst its too much to expect an admission of wrongdoing from a politician, at this point, if she could just cease with the constant doubling down and get her bullshit "protections" so far to f**k, that would be an acceptable outcome.

[anotherchance]

Chat of doing away with emergency powers down south - did we ever establish whether this means Holyrood loses the same powers, thus rendering much of her posturing moot?

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Fully expect our carer in chief to completely shoot down this proposal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then enact it 3 weeks after England.

[Michael W]

The issue you have is that, in general, the opposition have consistently supported restrictions or have avoided complaining too seriously. The Scottish Tories are obviously a bit emboldened by Westminster and the direction of travel, but it was only really the last round of restrictions that saw widespread dissent. More importantly, there was a very big public backlash which is almost certainly why the SG is relaxing some of the measures a bit quicker than usual. Of course there's no admission they were wrong to put in place these measures, but good luck getting arrogant politicians to admit they were wrong. 

Labour at UK level are doing well in the polls for the first time in a while, albeit this is entirely down to the Johnson Government digging themselves deeper into an already deep hole. Their response to Omicron was to complain restrictions weren't increased or that the measures weren't sufficinet. They were wrong on two counts: extra restrictions were not needed and the Government implemented Plan B, which was an increase in restrictions. This has of course all been conveniently forgotten about and it'sa case of pretend ot didn't happen. Fake sage are quite fond of the "they did nothing!!!!" line as well, which isn't true and indeed implementing plan B was something fake sage demanded happened. Another disaster for fake sage, who have more Ls than a map of Wales. 

Opposition to restrictions has been tepid at best beyond some small criticisms, until very recently. Even then, there hasn't really been enough of it. It's what the public think that matters and after three rounds of vaccination, they are getting weary and I think the balance has finally shifted. Perhaps the government party shenanigans has also jolted some people as well into wondering whether the virus poses the threat the government said it did given its behaviour, and also that the restrictions are just for the little people whilst the leaders laugh at them. Either way, it is about time the pendulum swung against restrictions- remember these were supposed to be emergency measures covering extreme circumstances, not something we should be doing as a matter of clurse whenever the government feels like it. 

 

[Billy Jean King]

A loophole they allowed was in the case of small rental property owners who were set up as a business, claimed 100% rates relief, quite correctly, but could then claim grants from the council if they were so inclined.
Absolutely wrong morally to claim grants.

That's a totally different scheme. The fraud WM givt have announced was Furlough and Eat out to help out. The rates Grant's were administered by LAs and seem (comparitively) free of large scale fraud

[Billy Jean King]

7 day Cases Update:  3 Day lag to allow reporting to be accurate.  Cases DOWN 61% in the Tsunami which was due according to the Scottish advisors to peak end of January or into February. 

What is now very interesting for me is that the differences between the councils now are very small. This 100% cannot be blamed on behaviour, where previously you maybe had a council with 10 times the cases per 100K than another. This is 100% the new cold now.

Total Cases Scotland 7 days 8th January to 14th January were  87,049 to 33,929 Down 61.02%, Positivity was 27.4% now 18.9%.  Cases per 100K were 1592.6 now 620.7

Home Nations Weekly Cases  per 100K update  :  England   1925 to 1273 Down 33.87%, Wales 2381 to 884  down 62.87%, Northern Ireland 2905 to 1478 Down 49.12%

Cases in Europe in terms of of numbers per 100K  France 2842 to 3147, Denmark 2200 to 2595, Ireland 2971 to 2497, Portugal 2127 to 2415, Switzerland 1975 to 2036, Italy 1839 to 2022,  countries over 2000 and still mostly rising.

Council progress in last week 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

South Lanarkshire 2,050 to 722

Fife  1,611 to 700 

Falkirk  1,671 to 699

Clackmannanshire   1,640 to 696

Glasgow City  1,686 to 696

East Lothian   1,397 to 692

Dundee City   1,486 to 668

North Lanarkshire    1,810 to 668  

Midlothian   1,370 to 653

City Of Edinburgh   1,398 to 651

West Dunbartonshire 2,026 to 635  Down near 70%

Aberdeen City  1,507 to 624

East Ayrshire  1,696 to 624

Angus  1,531 to 619 

East Renfrewshire  1,768 to 618

Renfrewshire    1,975 to 615

Perth & Kinross   1,530 to 594

North Ayrshire  1,739 to 585

East Dunbartonshire  1,641 to 575

Dumfries & Galloway  1,560 to 570 

Stirling  1,443 to 561

Inverclyde  2,079 to 560 Down 73%

West Lothian  1,463 to 550

Highlands   1,308 to 535

Aberdeenshire   1,288 to 510

South Ayrshire  1,573 to 479

Moray  1,719 to 479  

Scottish  Borders   1,157 to 403

Argyll & Bute   1,016 to 396

Western Isles  706 to 370

Orkney Islands   728 to 233 

Shetland Islands  648 to 101

Is this down to folk stopping PCRs or do these figs include all positive tests ie PCR and LFT ?

[strichener]

On 16/01/2022 at 12:29, Patrick Noubissie said:

When I was saying that I only bother with masks to put other people at ease, I didn't realise you'd been having dust ups in opticians  We obviously just have very different priorities in life.

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

- "Number of new COVID-19 admissions to hospital each day where the patient first tests positive for COVID-19 in hospital or in the 14 days prior to admission is published daily by Public Health Scotland"

- "Number of NHS staff absent for COVID-19 related reasons: This data is provided by NHS National Services Scotland on behalf of 21 NHS Boards, and by the Scottish Ambulance Service separately"

Not the same people then. 

Thanks for posting that. It shows that considerably more staff were off last week with Covid-19 sickness than due to self-isolation. I guess NHS staff in Scotland have nothing in common with staff in Wales and everything in common with your vague assumptions about "the rest of the population".

Do you think you've got more of a grasp on the Covid situation across the population than you do on how governments and health services work, or are all of your takes on that flat out wrong as well?

 

PHS collate data from the health boards, as your own quote shows it is responsible for publishing the data.  Public Health Scotland (PHS) is the principal and authoritative source of statistics on health and 
care services in Scotland.  Admissions data is sourced from the RAPID dataset.  (Dataset summary).  Who collects the RAPID data?  Oh, that's right it is the NHS health boards.  So yes it is the same people.

Now, on your second point.  Can you think of a reason why isolation is now making up a smaller proportion of absences, maybe some changes to isolation requirement per chance?  I can't think what would have happened between the 20th December and 10th January that would have led to an increase in Covid cases either.  Of course this completely misses the point that the collection of the data is pointless.

 

Edited January 17, 2022 by strichener

[Billy Jean King]

A loophole they allowed was in the case of small rental property owners who were set up as a business, claimed 100% rates relief, quite correctly, but could then claim grants from the council if they were so inclined.
Absolutely wrong morally to claim grants.

Reading that again are you saying business owners in receipt of rates relief under the small business scheme should not have been claiming the loss of income grants on "moral" grounds ?

Wild if that's your point given that is virtually every small and medium size business on your local high street.

[Suspect Device]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

They can say to chuck masks in the nearest bin too.

 

1 hour ago, Lyle Lanley said:

Agree with that but masks can get to f**k. 

You can already do that. I've decided to self certify myself as exempt. Anyone can. All you have o say is that the wearing of them was affecting your mental health.

Which is almost true in my case.

1 hour ago, No_Problemo said:

I’m not sure Sturgeon’s response to this could be any more obvious....

Maybe by around March she’ll agree. 

March in what year? We just don't know

[Dawson Park Boy]

13 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Reading that again are you saying business owners in receipt of rates relief under the small business scheme should not have been claiming the loss of income grants on "moral" grounds ?

Wild if that's your point given that is virtually every small and medium size business on your local high street.

Okay, I had a flat in East Lothian which was owned by my wife and myself. We rented it out, claimed 100% rates relief but paid water rates. During the pandemic we lost renters but, rightly or wrongly just thought it was immoral to claim grants on a property on which we had no mortgage and minimal expenses. 
You obviously are knowledgeable on. these matters but we were quite happy to just not bother claiming.

[Dawson Park Boy]

21 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

 

You can already do that. I've decided to self certify myself as exempt. Anyone can. All you have o say is that the wearing of them was affecting your mental health.

Which is almost true in my case.

March in what year? We just don't know

That’s exactly what wife and I did.

Its a wonderful release.

[Monkey Tennis]

7 hours ago, NotThePars said:

You literally asked him if he preferred the Labour government of the 70s

Yip, he did.

More of the mouthy idiocy that defines much of this thread.

[scottsdad]

For as long as she is First Minister, masks and vaccine passports will never be revoked. 

[Billy Jean King]

Okay, I had a flat in East Lothian which was owned by my wife and myself. We rented it out, claimed 100% rates relief but paid water rates. During the pandemic we lost renters but, rightly or wrongly just thought it was immoral to claim grants on a property on which we had no mortgage and minimal expenses. 
You obviously are knowledgeable on. these matters but we were quite happy to just not bother claiming.

Rates on a flat, a domestic property ?

[Bairnardo]

DPB wanting to tell lies about being a landlord now, presulably because he knows landlords are unpopular on here.

What a sad act.

[Detournement]

3 hours ago, Jan Vojáček said:

If I get my booster on Wednesday only for the Vaccine Passports (the only reason I'm getting a booster) to be scrapped a fortnight later I'll be a bit frustrated. Not that I wouldn't fully support the move.

You might as well hold off and use Lat Flows to gain entry to places in Scotland.

You'll still need to be triple/quadruple/quintuple vaccinated to go abroad this summer unfortunately. 

[Detournement]

2 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

DPB wanting to tell lies about being a landlord now, presulably because he knows landlords are unpopular on here.

What a sad act.

He's right about the Scottish government giving relief to landlords but not renters though.

Neoliberal Nic has given up pretending to be anything other than a Blairite.