Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[PWL]

Just now, superbigal said:

Tbh it's the fecking unions. Can't remember ever reading an article where the EIS etc agreed with anything.

Am sure they will do some positive work and I'm generally pro union representation. 

However, they do seem particularly nippy. Moaning about teachers missing Oct breaks last year was a poor call.

Plus, I'm still pissed off at the EIS for the mid 80s teachers strikes as I didn't get to play football for my school. 

I long hold a grudge. 

[TheScarf]

Unions are great in certain scenarios.  They're utter cunts in others.

[Rob1885]

Get the pubs open.
Keep League 1(Falkirk) in the mud.
IMO.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

33 minutes ago, Steven W said:

I stand to gain from the announcement that 40-49s are next up once Groups 1-9 are complete.

But I think I'd prefer to let the police and teachers go next. Not sure I can face the continued bleating much longer

 

When the Louisa Jordan was binning 650 doses a day and some of the other centres binning 50-90 doses a day there existed a fantastic opportunity to have police officers or fire fighters use up end of day spares that were refused/no attendance, but the NHS decided at some kind of strategic level to throw all of these doses out and specifically that they should not be offered to emergency services. There are some examples of end of day use but they are very much the minority. The good thing about using the end of day approach is that you pretty much guarantee its all operational police officers/firefighters getting vaccinated as its after 5pm and the office wallas have gone home. 

30 minutes ago, Left Back said:

I get their point.  They may be more at risk of catching the virus but they're not more at risk of getting ill from it.  Once the vulnerable are done the next target is surely herd immunity and for that we need to keep up and increase the volume (if we can).  Prioritising any specific occupation will slow that down as it will be more data for the NHS to cross-reference.

The big concern ive heard from Police officers is the risk that they go from a call say at a party with people fighting with them to a call at an old dears house. They are essentially a massive risk as super spreaders. Many nursing homes or specialist care homes (brain injury places etc) phone police (in my opinion absolutely irresponsibly) when residents act out. That coupled with the fact they are being asked to now fill in for NHS service provision cuts (particularly with cpns and social workers (who have been vaccinated) refusing to go to many people in crisis) means that in one example from one team of police officers them all spending an average of 5-8hrs a week waiting within hospitals. The argument from the NHS being people working in clinical environments should be protected, yet they fail to protect the people who they call when a patient goes missing, gets aggressive, or any one of the scenarios that results in police attending clinical environments. 

20 minutes ago, Steven W said:

I get their point too. But by the time all over 40s are vaccinated a large chunk of police / teachers will be done anyway. They've harped on about this from day one - strikes me as a little selfish. Folk stacking the shelves in Asda are just as exposed, yet we hear little from them.

As you say, a perfectly valid reason has been given for going down this route. The reaction (within minutes) from Police and Teachers is a bit "Me, me, me!!"

Its not me me me, its reasonable that they should expect to be vaccinated, occupationally they have to engage with the most vulnerable people, deal with sudden deaths in the community, go into high risk areas (when ambulance and others refuse), yes there is risk from people working in shops etc and sadly they do get abuse and in some cases assaulted, but they are allowed to withdraw, whereas police officers have to go ‘hands on’ (yes i get people will have lots of examples of the police being the baddies ....). But yes we expect police officers to do these things and then they go home to their families, i know several who have had to move out the family house because there are vulnerable kids, parents or partners who would be at risk yet these people are still going to work at significant personal sacrifice. The fact that the NHS has vaccinated people who work a saturday at specsavers with no clinical training or responsibilities, security staff at the louisa jordan who work in control rooms and dont see the public, NHS accountants who are not public facing and work from home) coast guard and mountain rescue (btw when either of these are called out guess who coordinates...?) and social workers who work from home and send police out when they dont want to go, then I think its certainly fair that questions get asked. 

[TheScarf]

To be honest, I'll be happy when I can walk into a shop without having to wear a face mask.

[ICTChris]

 

[Jacksgranda]

38 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Doing it by age should rattle through the whole process quicker than waiting to see how many come forward from certain professions, then carrying on. I do feel for shop workers and non jobsworth coppers, but teacher tears are hilarious.

The only thing about this whole shitshow the UK has gotten right is the vaccine rollout.

That was probably a mistake...

 

[David W]

I am another one in the camp of not being bothered about skipping the queue as a teacher. However, I accept that teaching in a secondary school in an affluent area is decidedly different than having to control primary kids elsewhere in the country. 

I think the police have a far greater claim.

[Left Back]

7 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

When the Louisa Jordan was binning 650 doses a day and some of the other centres binning 50-90 doses a day there existed a fantastic opportunity to have police officers or fire fighters use up end of day spares that were refused/no attendance, but the NHS decided at some kind of strategic level to throw all of these doses out and specifically that they should not be offered to emergency services. There are some examples of end of day use but they are very much the minority. The good thing about using the end of day approach is that you pretty much guarantee its all operational police officers/firefighters getting vaccinated as its after 5pm and the office wallas have gone home. 

The big concern ive heard from Police officers is the risk that they go from a call say at a party with people fighting with them to a call at an old dears house. They are essentially a massive risk as super spreaders. Many nursing homes or specialist care homes (brain injury places etc) phone police (in my opinion absolutely irresponsibly) when residents act out. That coupled with the fact they are being asked to now fill in for NHS service provision cuts (particularly with cpns and social workers (who have been vaccinated) refusing to go to many people in crisis) means that in one example from one team of police officers them all spending an average of 5-8hrs a week waiting within hospitals. The argument from the NHS being people working in clinical environments should be protected, yet they fail to protect the people who they call when a patient goes missing, gets aggressive, or any one of the scenarios that results in police attending clinical environments. 

Its not me me me, its reasonable that they should expect to be vaccinated, occupationally they have to engage with the most vulnerable people, deal with sudden deaths in the community, go into high risk areas (when ambulance and others refuse), yes there is risk from people working in shops etc and sadly they do get abuse and in some cases assaulted, but they are allowed to withdraw, whereas police officers have to go ‘hands on’ (yes i get people will have lots of examples of the police being the baddies ....). But yes we expect police officers to do these things and then they go home to their families, i know several who have had to move out the family house because there are vulnerable kids, parents or partners who would be at risk yet these people are still going to work at significant personal sacrifice. The fact that the NHS has vaccinated people who work a saturday at specsavers with no clinical training or responsibilities, security staff at the louisa jordan who work in control rooms and dont see the public, NHS accountants who are not public facing and work from home) coast guard and mountain rescue (btw when either of these are called out guess who coordinates...?) and social workers who work from home and send police out when they dont want to go, then I think its certainly fair that questions get asked. 

Which would be valid if the vulnerable hadn't been protected.  They will have by the time we'd have thought about prioritising occupations so to me the point is moot.  I have sympathy for them but as soon as you make something multi-agency, which it would have to be as the NHS won't have accurate records of anyone's profession, you introduce beurocracy and slow the whole process down.

Also where do you draw the line?  Is it front-line police, support staff, office staff?  The fact you're talking about the moaning about types of NHS staff backs up the point it will just give another group of people cause to moan.

JCVI directions so far have worked and NHS have done a great job with the programme.  Probably better than anyones wildest dreams.  Let them get on with it without putting obstacles in their way

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

Apart from the fact it's been identified as the reason for the apparent slowdown in the pace of the fall in cases here (and presumably Israel going by the graph you posted last night) this is spot on. 

Shades of grey exist fyi 

When you look at the overall shape of the curve versus last April (and October) it's pretty similar, and that's without considering the figures from March & April are going to be largely understated.

That they are identifying more cases now doesn't automatically mean that it's more infectious, particularly when we are testing massively more people, and there is much more open than last April / May which will lead to much more contact between people.

Take confirmation bias out of the equation and there's nothing here to suggest it is more infectious at all.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[Bairnardo]

I think we ought to be keeping these types of debates to simple cigar smoking analogies/memesfrom now on until the pubs open. It's for the best.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

5 minutes ago, Left Back said:

Which would be valid if the vulnerable hadn't been protected.  They will have by the time we'd have thought about prioritising occupations so to me the point is moot.  I have sympathy for them but as soon as you make something multi-agency, which it would have to be as the NHS won't have accurate records of anyone's profession, you introduce beurocracy and slow the whole process down.

Also where do you draw the line?  Is it front-line police, support staff, office staff?  The fact you're talking about the moaning about types of NHS staff backs up the point it will just give another group of people cause to moan.

JCVI directions so far have worked and NHS have done a great job with the programme.  Probably better than anyones wildest dreams.  Let them get on with it without putting obstacles in their way

I took this as a slightly different definition of vulnerable - the likes of the homeless, substance misusers, domestic violence victims, many of those ignored as part of some "underclass" - dealing with these folk can be a copper's bread and butter, and they have been vulnerable since long before the pandemic. I'd also be surprised if the level of vacine uptake will be as high in these individuals as in the general population - for a variety of reasons.

I discussed earlier the idea of vaccinating Prison Staff as a priority. I would have been in favour of this, as not only are those in the care of the Greybar Hilton chain are at the mercy of any virus brought in through the Gate, but also because Prison staff historically travel a fair distance to work. At my present nick*, for instance, I travel 45 miles and cross four Health trust borders twice a day, every day. We currently have a pretty decent level (<40) of staff absent either positive or through T&T, but that figure has been as high as 130 in recent months. Some Prisons have had figures as high as 200+ at times. With the best will in the world, this is not a workplace whre guidelines and SD are maintainable all the time, and any outbreak leaves the Prison at end of shift to be dispersed as far as forty or fifty miles away.

As stated before, I'm no expert, but as with the teachers situation - it may not have done a lot of good, but it sure as hell wouldn't have done any harm.

*Last nick - 150 yards from front door to Gate. A bit of a culture shoick, to say the least!

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

20 minutes ago, Left Back said:

Which would be valid if the vulnerable hadn't been protected.  They will have by the time we'd have thought about prioritising occupations so to me the point is moot.  I have sympathy for them but as soon as you make something multi-agency, which it would have to be as the NHS won't have accurate records of anyone's profession, you introduce beurocracy and slow the whole process down.

-it could be mobilised incredibly quickly for police alone as the coordination system allows only front line staff to be identified in around 3 clicks of a mouse. It could be very easily rolled out via occupational health or allocating spaces at end of day clinics. 

Also where do you draw the line?  Is it front-line police, support staff, office staff?  The fact you're talking about the moaning about types of NHS staff backs up the point it will just give another group of people cause to moan.

-front line staff alone, ie police officers in the community, custody staff or scenes of crime examiners who have to go to peoples homes. Its too late now.

 

20 minutes ago, Left Back said:

JCVI directions so far have worked and NHS have done a great job with the programme.  Probably better than anyones wildest dreams.  Let them get on with it without putting obstacles in their way

 

[superbigal]

23 hours ago, superbigal said:

 

Daily Infections per 100K in 7 days Update:   A hugely Significant 24 Hours as we finally surge below the 100 per 100K cases measure.  Also the positivity plunges to 4.7%  Hopefully we are back on the gravy train after a stuttering fortnight.

Highlights a plenty so take it all in below.

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

Total cases latest 7 days are down from  5,570 to 5,342 , and the positive test rate goes from 4.9% to 4.7%  Cases per 100k goes from 102.0 to 97.8 down 4.12%

England 119.9 to 118.3 down 1.33% in last 24 hours.  Wales  78.8 to 78.3 down  0.63%  in last 24 hours , Northern Ireland 111.1 to 112.9 up 1.62% in last 24 hours.   UK Average is now  116.4 to 115.3  down 0.95%  in last 24 hours.

NHS FIGURES :  Forth Valley 186.2 to 173.2, Lanarkshire 152.9 to 142.3, Greater Glasgow & Clyde 131.6 to 128.8,  Lothian 115.9 to 111.6,  Ayrshire & Arran  113.2 to 109.1, Fife  69.9 to 68.5, Tayside  55.6 to 52.7, D&G 51.1 to 51.7, Western Isles 48.7 to 44.9, Highland 43.8 to 41.0, Grampian 33.6 to 33.5, Borders 34.6 to 31.2,  Orkney 0.0 to 0.0 & Shetlands 0.0 to 0.0

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

Falkirk  219.4 to 200.8  Finally on the move and down 10% in 24 hours.

West Dunbartonshire  177.7 to 170.9  

North Lanarkshire  174.9 to 165.5 

West Lothian  174.8 to 161.7   A decent day at last down 7.5%

Clackmannanshire  166.9 to 157.2

East Ayrshire  144.3 to 141.8 

Glasgow City 144.4 to 139.9

Midlothian 127.6 to 137.4 

Stirling 140.1 to 134.8   

Renfrewshire  131.8 to 129.0

East Renfrewshire 120.4 to 118.3    

South Lanarkshire  129.5 to 117.6    Great 9.19% drop  

North Ayrshire 121.0 to 116.5 

East Lothian  109.3 to 110.2

NOW ALL BELOW SCOTTISH AVERAGE

East Dunbartonshire 93.0 to 96.6 

City Of Edinburgh 93.7 to 89.0 

LARGE GAP

Fife 69.9 to 68.5

South Ayrshire 69.3 to 63.9  Great day down 10%

Perth & Kinross  55.3 to 56.6  

Dundee City   58.9 to 54.2 

Moray 71.0 to 54.3 Great day down 23.52%

Highlands 52.2 to 53.2  

Dumfries & Galloway 51.1 to 51.7

Western Isles  48.7 to 44.9  

Angus  50.8 to 44.8  Another great over 10% day.

Inverclyde  37.3 to 42.4

Aberdeenshire  34.1 to 32.5    

Scottish  Borders 34.6 to 31.2  Another 10% day

Aberdeen City   24.1 to 25.8 

Argyll & Bute   21.0 to 19.8

Orkney Island   0.0 to 0.0

Shetland Islands   0.0 to 0.0

[NotThePars]

Blue envelopes have arrived for wife and I - a big cloud suddenly lifted at that time and there is now an air of more optimism.  Strange how little it takes.

My ma was skipping about like Charlie with the golden envelope when a blue one turned up here only for her to open it and see it was addressed to my uncle who has his mail delivered here

[Jamie_B]

Once we're through the JCVI lists all teachers/prison staff/police over 50, and any with clinical vulnerability will have been done. Any in the 40-49 age bracket will be next up.

There will only be about 1 million people left to get first doses at that stage.

If we're doing 400k doses a week at that stage then - even taking into account a massive ramping up in second doses - it won't take long to get down through the remaining age groups.

[Nowhereman]

40 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

When the Louisa Jordan was binning 650 doses a day and some of the other centres binning 50-90 doses a day there existed a fantastic opportunity to have police officers or fire fighters use up end of day spares that were refused/no attendance, but the NHS decided at some kind of strategic level to throw all of these doses out and specifically that they should not be offered to emergency services. There are some examples of end of day use but they are very much the minority. The good thing about using the end of day approach is that you pretty much guarantee its all operational police officers/firefighters getting vaccinated as its after 5pm and the office wallas have gone home. 

The big concern ive heard from Police officers is the risk that they go from a call say at a party with people fighting with them to a call at an old dears house. They are essentially a massive risk as super spreaders. Many nursing homes or specialist care homes (brain injury places etc) phone police (in my opinion absolutely irresponsibly) when residents act out. That coupled with the fact they are being asked to now fill in for NHS service provision cuts (particularly with cpns and social workers (who have been vaccinated) refusing to go to many people in crisis) means that in one example from one team of police officers them all spending an average of 5-8hrs a week waiting within hospitals. The argument from the NHS being people working in clinical environments should be protected, yet they fail to protect the people who they call when a patient goes missing, gets aggressive, or any one of the scenarios that results in police attending clinical environments. 

Its not me me me, its reasonable that they should expect to be vaccinated, occupationally they have to engage with the most vulnerable people, deal with sudden deaths in the community, go into high risk areas (when ambulance and others refuse), yes there is risk from people working in shops etc and sadly they do get abuse and in some cases assaulted, but they are allowed to withdraw, whereas police officers have to go ‘hands on’ (yes i get people will have lots of examples of the police being the baddies ....). But yes we expect police officers to do these things and then they go home to their families, i know several who have had to move out the family house because there are vulnerable kids, parents or partners who would be at risk yet these people are still going to work at significant personal sacrifice. The fact that the NHS has vaccinated people who work a saturday at specsavers with no clinical training or responsibilities, security staff at the louisa jordan who work in control rooms and dont see the public, NHS accountants who are not public facing and work from home) coast guard and mountain rescue (btw when either of these are called out guess who coordinates...?) and social workers who work from home and send police out when they dont want to go, then I think its certainly fair that questions get asked. 

Spot on

[Todd_is_God]

Live footage of everyone reading @superbigal's posts

[RiG]

Good to see a wee reduction in cases in Edinburgh. I wonder if the recent uptick was due to the cases being picked up in schools?

[madwullie]

30 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

When you look at the overall shape of the curve versus last April (and October) it's pretty similar, and that's without considering the figures from March & April are going to be largely understated.

That they are identifying more cases now doesn't automatically mean that it's more infectious, particularly when we are testing massively more people, and there is much more open than last April / May which will lead to much more contact between people.

Take confirmation bias out of the equation and there's nothing here to suggest it is more infectious at all.

The particular graph I'm referring to showed a steep drop in cases which slowed down as the new variant became dominant. All within the spell of a few weeks. 

So it's neither baseless, nor hysterical, hence why I commented on your post. 

It hasn't had the effect the most pessimistic models suggested which is a really positive thing. 

But the fact remains,  it does lower the efficacy of the vaccines, and it is right to be concerned about this particular variant, and other types which may arise with this particular mutation. Otherwise we wouldn't have vaccine companies scrambling to make boosters and tweak their jags to provide extra protection. 

Brushing it off as fear porn or baseless hysteria is about as sensible as suggesting we should all be locked down for the next two years till the virus becomes extinct. 

Edited February 26, 2021 by madwullie