Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[throbber]

3 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

That's nice of you to say but at the same time don't do yourselves a disservice. I don't envy anyone working in supermarkets just now in the slightest. Doing an essential service in brutal circumstances.

I think (hope) supermarkets have been largely alright since the lockdown and the worst of the panic buying is over. 

[ICTChris]

1 minute ago, TheScarf said:

Im guessing just through the nature of his job. I imagine there's close to zero social distancing when taking money from the passengers. Even with the perspex screens the buses have now. 

There is another Inverness bus driver who is in intensive care withit, I saw the story on the Courier Facebook page.  

Just now, throbber said:

I think (hope) supermarkets have been largely alright since the lockdown and the worst of the panic buying is over. 

I've not been in that much but the last time I was in the shelves seemed a bit more replenished. There was toilet roll and pasta etc, reduced amounts but it was there.  Assume that the reduction of numbers allowed into supermarkets has had an impact on that.

[Hillonearth]

8 minutes ago, Gaz said:

My mate's a nurse in one of the ICU Covid wards in Glasgow, he's been keeping us posted. It sounds absolutely fucking brutal.

We know somebody who's been working as a nurse down in London for a while now and has just been seconded to that new Nightingale hospital that's just opening. They've been working in a completely different field for years, and have only a few months' ICU experience from about a decade ago when they were not long out of training.

Gives you an idea of the grim scale of the problem down there when they're pinging folk like that to work there who probably genuinely won't know what they're doing initially.

[Guest Moomintroll]

That's nice of you to say but at the same time don't do yourselves a disservice. I don't envy anyone working in supermarkets just now in the slightest. Doing an essential service in brutal circumstances.

Cheers Marshy, the voice of cynicism & experience that resides within me would prefer if everyone retains their sympathy for us when this shit is all over & we are expected to hit our FY wage budgets or get threatened with the sack for failing to hit our targets even though the first half has rendered it impossible.

[throbber]

3 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

There is another Inverness bus driver who is in intensive care withit, I saw the story on the Courier Facebook page.  

I've not been in that much but the last time I was in the shelves seemed a bit more replenished. There was toilet roll and pasta etc, reduced amounts but it was there.  Assume that the reduction of numbers allowed into supermarkets has had an impact on that.

Yeah they have been fine when I have been in and the atmosphere has been fairly chilled out. A few visits I did before lockdown where people were in a state of panic were awful, you really saw people at their absolute worst.

[Granny Danger]

59 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

The dead deserve some dignity.

 

Fair point, more suited to the living dead.

[Bairnardo]

7 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

We know somebody who's been working as a nurse down in London for a while now and has just been seconded to that new Nightingale hospital that's just opening. They've been working in a completely different field for years, and have only a few months' ICU experience from about a decade ago when they were not long out of training.

Gives you an idea of the grim scale of the problem down there when they're pinging folk like that to work there who probably genuinely won't know what they're doing initially.

That's the same for Mrs B getting told they can all get sent. None of them in her ward are trained for that kind of care. It's just a simple matter of getting extra pairs of hands in there who have at least some degree of training in treating patients. Shes bricking it in case she gets sent tbh. Rightly so. Hard enough for staff who are working in their own domain. 

[ICTJohnboy]

15 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Im guessing just through the nature of his job. I imagine there's close to zero social distancing when taking money from the passengers. Even with the perspex screens the buses have now. 

 

Yeah, what I was thinking was there's little or no evidence of this having reached Inverness, but a quick glance at the Courier this morning would suggest that this is no longer the case.

https://www.inverness-courier.co.uk/news/inverness-nurse-says-having-coronavirus-feels-like-being-run-over-by-a-bus-196336/

[Gaz]

13 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

We know somebody who's been working as a nurse down in London for a while now and has just been seconded to that new Nightingale hospital that's just opening. They've been working in a completely different field for years, and have only a few months' ICU experience from about a decade ago when they were not long out of training.

Gives you an idea of the grim scale of the problem down there when they're pinging folk like that to work there who probably genuinely won't know what they're doing initially.

Aye. My mate's a theatre specialist or something like that - can't remember his exact job title but he is one of the nurses scrubbing in for surgeries normally.

[ICTChris]

Professor Neil Ferguson has said about the end of the lockdown.

Quote

 

"We clearly don’t want these measures to continue any longer than is absolutely necessary.

"But we do want to find a set of policies which maintain the suppression of transmission of this virus.

"Without doubt, measures will be targeted, probably, by age, by geography and we will need to introduce, in my view… much larger levels of testing."

 

I can't find the Twitter account of the guy but one of the groups advising the government on the lockdwon has written a paper on putting in place rolling lockdowns dependent on infection rate and iCU capacity.  Obviously that's going to be very difficult to play correctly and there will be big challanges with it.  You can't turn these things on and off like a tap.

[s_dog]

54 minutes ago, bendan said:

Why is it so difficult for them to say how many new confirmed cases and how many tests conducted in that 24hr period? Why is the cumulative total considered so important? It's good they're providing quite a range of stats, but there's a lot of room for improvement if they genuinely value transparency.

They are providing the updated total figures on a daily basis, any news report will summarise it and tell you how many new infections/deaths there are, or you could look at one of the many websites that people have set up to chart it all. For Scottish stats, take a look at (and he has links to UK & International stats pages at the bottom of the page): https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker/

 

24 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

I think there's a number of reasons.  One is that the Italian cases were highly focussed on a single region so the scenes there were absolutely horrific.  The virus here is mainly focussed on London but even there I don't think the impact is as focussed as Lombardy or Bergamo.  We haven't, yet, seen the sort of healthcare system stresses or collapse that happened (and probably still is happening) in the regions of Italy that wer hit.  Also, Italy being the first European country that was affected so badly it was a shock to see - maybe it prepared people for the figures we are seeing, it let people know that this was coming, it's not been such a huge shock to people.

I'm sure some people are playing it down or up for what they see as partisan politic reasons but I don't think that's the main factor.  

I think you are spot on here, so far its only London that has seen some similar scenes of packed ICU wards, but still find it a bit surprising that while there's been horror at the daily figures in Italy and Spain, there's not been quite the same level when our figures are now just as bad. I'm not sure some of the scenes from hospitals in London have been that widely reported either, so do wonder if they are trying to play it down a little so as not to make people panic.
 

16 minutes ago, MixuFixit said:

I don't buy the age thing being why we aren't reacting with as much horror because we did react with horror to Italy.

I don't understand the age thing and people still saying as its not affecting the young that's why people aren't being horrified by the figures. Have all these people not noticed the difference between what the UK Government originally said about it affecting mostly those over 80, and how ICU doctors have been talking about how surprised there are about the number of younger people that are in intensive care? And I know that it depends what age you are, but in the past weeks there's been news reports about two nurses in their 30's, another who was in her early 20's and worked in NHS 111 (so not frontline) have died, and there's probably more that I've missed. 
 

6 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Another wee but of info I heard today is the NHS Forth Valley is currently at 75% ICU capacity with Forth Valley considered to be respecting the lockdown very well.

Not sure how many ICU beds they have in Forth Valley, but the Scot Gov breakdown states they only had 7 patients in ICU? It has been reported that last week overall ICU capacity had been increased to around 350 (150 being used, now up to just over 200) and they'd hoped to quadruple the original capacity which suggests up to around 700 by the end of April.

[The DA]

Does anyone detect a hint of desperation in The Rangers' recent statements?

https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/rangers-football-club-members-update/

Quote

RANGERS have received confirmation from the SPFL board, that the SPFL’s legal adviser did not deem our Members Resolution as competent.

We prepared this update in advance of the scheduled SPFL board meeting this morning, in the full anticipation that the SPFL board would rule our proposed resolution was not competent.

As a member club, we sought assistance from the SPFL Executive on several occasions yesterday, to ensure our resolution was deemed competent. For the avoidance of doubt, no advice was forthcoming prior to the meeting starting.

Now that the SPFL have belatedly identified the reason why our members resolution was not competent, we will immediately resubmit our resolution, based upon their advice. If this advice had been forthcoming earlier, we would not have lost valuable time in this process. We are confused as to why attempts have been made to slow the progress of Rangers’ resolution.

Over the last 36 hours, we have received numerous reports from fellow Scottish clubs relating to attempts to coerce and bully them into voting for the SPFL’s own resolution. We are proud that many fellow clubs will stand strong and not be swayed.

Our resolution was simply intended to urgently address the financial hardship faced by clubs whilst allowing more time to discuss and evaluate all options for completing this season, in line with UEFA advice. This is in the interest of every football club in Scotland and the wider Scottish game.

We trust that when we resubmit our resolution, no impediments will be placed in the way of clubs voting on this matter in a swift manner.

 

[101]

Quite good to see the stats per area in Scotland, Highland and Fife clearly the cleanest lot of Scots (even though we have extra fingers to wash) no surprise that hand washing in the west needs some work.

[greendot]

1 minute ago, The DA said:

Does anyone detect a hint of desperation in The Rangers' recent statements?

 

 

Aren't they all?

[Hard Graft]

On a Friday we get the mother and mother-in-law's shopping. Was surprised by how many cars are on the road this morning - hope this is not a sign that people are starting to ignore the lock down.

[hk blues]

18 hours ago, SlipperyP said:

Bangkok Bans Booze for 10 days

https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1896575/bangkok-bans-alcohol-for-10-days-to-curb-covid-19

We just declared 54 new cases today for the whole country.  Something is not adding. 

They say it;s to stop gatherings.   Shops were full of folk  buying booze......

 

We've had a booze ban for 3 weeks now.  They never said why.  

Here we couldn't cope with a mass outbreak like we've seen in some places so everything  we can do to minimise numbers is worth doing.

I probably won't agree in 2.5 weeks when my stock runs dry!

[greendot]

 

Quote

 

First Scottish prisoner death from Covid-19

 

A Scottish prisoner who had been suffering from Covid-19 has died in hospital - the first known such death in the country.

John Angus, 66, was a serial sex offender who had been in custody at HMP Edinburgh, commonly known as Saughton Prison.

 

 

Can't say too many people will be upset by this news.

[HeartsOfficialMoaner]

7 minutes ago, 101 said:

Quite good to see the stats per area in Scotland, Highland and Fife clearly the cleanest lot of Scots (even though we have extra fingers to wash) no surprise that hand washing in the west needs some work.

They need to put gloves on when they are raking the buckets for something to eat.

[Jacksgranda]

9 minutes ago, The DA said:

Does anyone detect a hint of desperation in The Rangers' recent statements?

https://rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/rangers-football-club-members-update/

 

I thought it was fairly restrained, tbqh

[ICTChris]

2 minutes ago, greendot said:

 

 

Can't say too many people will be upset by this news.

If the virus gets established in prisons then it could be very serious indeed.  There was a riot in Addiewell prison a couple of weeks ago where the virus was said to be a contributory factor.  There were also serious disturbances in Italian prisons due to visiting being banned, I assume that the lockdown has reduced visitor hours in British prisons as well.