Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Bairnardo]

I'm affluent so these things are of no concern to me tbh.

The minted and choking for a pint are an oft forgotten victim.

[Honest_Man#1]

10 minutes ago, Bert Raccoon said:

I'm affluent so these things are of no concern to me tbh.

The words of a man with a five figure income.

[Ron Aldo]

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210106-nipah-virus-how-bats-could-cause-the-next-pandemic
Some cheery reading.

Do we really need bats? They seem to be disease carrying vermin from what I can make out.

Kill all bats is my solution.

[Thereisalight..]

3 hours ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

No need to apologise. Your experience is obviously different to mine - age, area, whatever. As I replied earlier, it appears the word "tinker" has become an ethnic slur, rather than starting that way.

For instance, growing up in Ayrshire in the sixties, anyone who looked scruffy or unwashed was referred to as "black". Absolutely no racial connotation whatsoever, but it's thankfully been left behind, as has Killie fans' affectionate nickname for our local rivals.

One thing I think we can agree on is that we are all a lot more respectful and aware of potentially offensive terms - and, just as importantly, able to say, if we inadvertently use an offensive term, "fúck it, I'll just use language which doesn't cause offence". *

*Does not apply to OF fans or Tories. Those are lifestyle choices, and anyone making them deserves all the abuse going.

I was at a couple of Killie home games last season with my Killie supporting mate who had a spare season ticket. I can assure you I heard Ayr referred to as black b*****ds on more than once occasion 

[Todd_is_God]

Excess deaths for 2020 in Sweden totalled ~5,000, around 7% above average. This is markedly better than in the UK.

The current situation there in terms of hospitals etc is very similar to what we have here.

Considering the wildy different paths Scotland (and indeed the UK as a whole) took for pretty much all of 2020, do people still think Sweden "got it wrong" and that the short and long term costs of our approach were justified?

Did we make a mistake by keeping the brakes on our economy through the Spring and into the Summer?

Given the current situation, what benefit did we actually gain from doing this?

Is it time to stop pretending we can "control the virus" like water from a tap?

What's done is done, but these are questions that need answered honestly, so that we do not make the same mistakes again this Spring and Summer.

Edited January 12, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

I'm wondering how many people are contacting the virus while picking up a takeaway coffee. 

This seems more like a political statement rather than one based on any scientific evidence. 

[renton]

3 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Bats aren't the problem, humans are.

Yup. This is just basically revenge of Fern Gully.

[SoapMactavish]

52 minutes ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

Wishaw about to follow.

Hairmyres going the same way. Talk of 700 patients by February across the 3 sites. 

[Have some faith in Magic]

3 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

I'm wondering how many people are contacting the virus while picking up a takeaway coffee. 

This seems more like a political statement rather than one based on any scientific evidence. 

It's a great deflection tactic at the moment. 

Where are the workplace stats, where is the pressure on the big businesses. 

 

[renton]

3 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Excess deaths for 2020 in Sweden totalled ~5,000, around 7% above average. This is markedly better than in the UK

Considering the wildy different paths Scotland (and indeed the UK as a whole) took for pretty much all of 2020, do people still think Sweden "got it wrong" and that the short and long term costs of our approach were justified?

Surely the various public health interventions are aimed at controlling case numbers rather than directly number of deaths, the total of which will be dependent on other underlying societal trends.

Whether Sweden got it wrong or not, I'm unconvinced that us doing the same thing would have led to Sweden type outcomes. 

A more economically unequal society, with the attendant degradation in health outcomes that go hand in hand with greater deprivation has to try harder to keep deaths down. Our health service is not theirs. The health outcomes of the nations are not the same.

I think, generally, we did better over a long spell in terms of cases/capita. However, underlying societal trends make it harder for us to keep actual deaths down.

[Deanburn Dave]

Do we really need bats? They seem to be disease carrying vermin from what I can make out.

Kill all bats is my solution.

^^^^^
The Joker lives on.

[renton]

2 minutes ago, Snafu said:

There's too many humans on this planet.

This isn't going to end well for us.

I think if you grew up in the 90s you'll end up looking at that period like it was a decade of Sundays before Sunday trading. Before that you had the ingrained dread of total nuclear annihilation, afterwards you had the war on terror, and now this. I don't think this will be the last public health emergency we have to deal with and it will only become more difficult as climate change, population growth and deforestation massively increases the mixing of wild animals and humans.

The nightmare used to be some Soviet era plague escaping from a lab somewhere. Now it's some arsehole choosing the wrong fast food option.

[Distant Doonhamer]

Excess deaths for 2020 in Sweden totalled ~5,000, around 7% above average. This is markedly better than in the UK.
The current situation there in terms of hospitals etc is very similar to what we have here.
Considering the wildy different paths Scotland (and indeed the UK as a whole) took for pretty much all of 2020, do people still think Sweden "got it wrong" and that the short and long term costs of our approach were justified?
Did we make a mistake by keeping the brakes on our economy through the Spring and into the Summer?
Given the current situation, what benefit did we actually gain from doing this?
Is it time to stop pretending we can "control the virus" like water from a tap?
What's done is done, but these are questions that need answered honestly, so that we do not make the same mistakes again this Spring and Summer.

Good question. Out of interest what is the excess death percentage for Scotland?

[101]

3 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Excess deaths for 2020 in Sweden totalled ~5,000, around 7% above average. This is markedly better than in the UK.

The current situation there in terms of hospitals etc is very similar to what we have here.

Considering the wildy different paths Scotland (and indeed the UK as a whole) took for pretty much all of 2020, do people still think Sweden "got it wrong" and that the short and long term costs of our approach were justified?

I think it's difficult to compare one country to another without weighting the numbers to account for age, poverty, obesity, unemployment, diversity of population the list is endless.

Ave. Age 41.1 40.3

Poverty 16% 20% but absolute poverty is higher in the UK

Overweight adults 43% 60%

Unemployment 6% 5%

Diversity largest non EU groups (Syria, Iraq, Iran) 2.2% Asian Brits alone make up 6%

So a quick look at that would show that it would have probably more risky to do what Sweden did and then I know nothing about the capacity of their health sector, did it keep other things running during the pandemic? Was there a danger that there would be a lack of storage facilities for the dead? IIRC they actually had a lite lockdown. So difficult to tell what difference that had on their stats overall.

[Todd_is_God]

Just now, Distant Doonhamer said:

Good question. Out of interest what is the excess death percentage for Scotland?

It's similar to the UK as a whole I think, around 12%

[itzdrk]

22 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

I'm wondering how many people are contacting the virus while picking up a takeaway coffee. 

This seems more like a political statement rather than one based on any scientific evidence. 

More than you would imagine is my guess, the queues at these places are a disgrace from my walking past experience. 

[effeffsee_the2nd]

It's similar to the UK as a whole I think, around 12%

Does Sweden have curbs on indoor house gatherings?

[Todd_is_God]

2 minutes ago, Snafu said:

You need to keep up with the latest, the pandemic isn't finished with Sweden not by a long way.

From Ottawa Citizen

Stockholm - Sweden has registered 17,395 new coronavirus cases since Friday, taking the total above 500,000 cases since the start of the pandemic as hospitals struggled to cope with a rampant second wave of the virus, Health Agency statistics showed on Tuesday.

The statistics showed that Dec 17 was the deadliest day since the start of the pandemic with 116 deaths, surpassing as previous peak of 115 daily deaths set in April.

More people are being treated for COVID-19 at hospitals in Sweden now than at any time during the pandemic. While Sweden still has around 20% spare capacity at intensive care units, there are worries the spread will accelerate again as people return to work and schools after the holidays.

“It’s quite obvious that the healthcare system is as strained now (as during the spring),” Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, the architect of an unorthodox pandemic strategy that has eschewed lockdowns, told a news conference.

“We are near the limit for what the healthcare system can handle.”

The country of 10 million inhabitants registered 234 new deaths since Friday, taking the total to 9,667. The deaths registered have occurred over several days and weeks with many from the Christmas period being registered with a significant delay.

The second wave has also affected how Swedes perceive authorities’ handling of the crisis. In December 47% said they had relatively high or high confidence in the government’s and agencies’ actions, down from 52% in the previous month.

Sweden’s death rate per capita is several times higher than that of its Nordic neighbors but lower than several European countries that opted for lockdowns. (Reporting by Johan Ahlander; editing by Niklas Pollard)

It's not finished here either, though, so i'm not sure what you are trying to gain with this line.

The rest of the bits in bold you could be talking about here just now as well, which is the whole point of my post - how have we managed to put in place so many restrictions, for such a long period, at huge cost, and still ended up far worse off than a country which the international consensus seems to be has made an arse of it?

[Todd_is_God]

2 minutes ago, effeffsee_the2nd said:

Does Sweden have curbs on indoor house gatherings?

Last time I checked I don't think so. There are limits on gatherings in public buildings but not your own home.

[Rugster]

3 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

It's not finished here either, though, so i'm not sure what you are trying to gain with this line.

The rest of the bits in bold you could be talking about here just now as well, which is the whole point of my post - how have we managed to put in place so many restrictions, for such a long period, at huge cost, and still ended up far worse off than a country which the international consensus seems to be has made an arse of it?

I thought you said it was over as a public health crisis?