Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Have some faith in Magic]

32 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Maybe I'm having a bad day, but that Boris Johnson quote has absolutely riled me. 

What the actual f**k is this? Person dies of covid has been a sad but routine fact throughout the last twenty months. Indeed, we have averaged about 150 deaths a day for the past few months and not an eyelid has been batted about that. That someone has died of the Omicron variant (sorry, WITH the Omicron variant) is not exactly a massive surprise either. Unfortunately, some people do die of the virus.

You should avoid direct comparisons between countries as they are not comparable, but you can draw some inferences. South Africa's hospitals are not filling up the way they did with Delta and this is a country with a vaccination rate far below the UK's. The qualifier is that they have a younger population than we do, almost certainly in part to inferior standards of healthcare. Two things can be true at once: it might be milder, but some may still die from it. 

There is a doomsday feel about Omicron tht seems to be harking back to the pre-vaccine, "we just don't know" days of April and May 2020 and it's really starting to grate given that we live in one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. There is still no evidence that the vaccines don't protect against serious illness. 

The pictures from China of them desperately building new hospitals in Jan 20; the scenes from the hospitals in Northern Italy in March; later with delta the shortage of wood and bodies piling up in the Ganges.

These were sobering and frightening stories. If South Africa was being swamped in these ways you can guarantee it would be headline news all over the world. 

 

 

[sparky88]

1 hour ago, williemillersmoustache said:

There's Boris announcing the first death of a patient in the UK who had Omicron. 

That's sooner than i was expecting tbh. 

It's everywhere , there will be plenty of people in hospital who have Omicron.

[Michael W]

34 minutes ago, ddfg said:

Assuming that politicans will feel the need to intefere and accepting this are not necessarily the same thing. 

Sadly too many are happy to accept free this and free that that they have stopped thinking for themselves. 

Maybe if more people had something to loose they might be less accepting of all this nonsense for what on this occasion appears to be nothing more than a bad cold. 

There are a number of problems here, I think. You could accept the restrictions at the start when we genuinely didn't know anything about the virus and had to basically find out everything as we went along. We now have a number of treatments for covid and we have several effective vaccines that have brought down hospitalisations and deaths substantially. We also have one of the highest vaccine coverage in the world. 

In that respect, the imposition of restrictions is no longer justified under the current conditions. The trouble is that the politicians have not adapted to the new environment and "shut things down, stop people doing things" remain their default responses. Restrictions such as the ones seen last year and the early part of this year can only be justified innthe case of a genuine emergency and I don't think.we are currently at that point. Yet, here we are with the standard hint hint hint about what's to come. 

Things like border closures, travel restrictions and the shut down of pubs etc and/or non-essential shops are not measures that are to be taken lightly. These are hugely disruptive to people's livelihoods and, if I could so so, expecially disruptive as we are particularly dealing with lower-income workers in these sectors as well as a fair bit of casual labour. The loss of earning doesn't end with the employees either - their employers are being put under severe strain. It's one thing to say 'just bring back furlough and support the sector financially' but this doesn't fix the problem completely. Bear in mind it also doesn't pay back the disruption from the recent round of gloomy government guidance either. 

The other problem is the government. Westminster is still under the Coronavirus Act which allows Ministers to essentially rule by decree with no oversight from Parliament at all (think it's basically the same in Scotland too). At the stroke of a Minister's pen, people's livelihoods can be shut down, you can be banned from entering the UK or confined to expensive quarantine at your own expense, banned from visiting your friends and family or have arbitrary limits placed on how many people you can have in your own house. These types of restrictions have become painfully normalised and determined on a whim: no parliamentary approval needed, no chance to vote on these. It's abhorrent. 

The attitude at government level needs to change. As I said, you can excuse this when it was a genuinely new situation that we knew nothing about. This is not the case anymore and the mentality needs to shift to acknowledge this. Covid will not go away, the virus will continue to mutate and, yes, it will unfortunately continue to kill some people in the same way that other endemic viruses do. There seems to be no willingness to acknowledge this and instead we are basically back where we were in 2020 when we had no vaccines and no effective treatments. 

If Parliament cedes authority to the Government to act in the way that it sees fit, this cycle will continue to happen, unfortunately. Never, ever, ever let this happen again. 

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Michael W

[deegee]

Happy days for Leitch, Linda Bauld and co. They are getting their moment again the limelight and more opportunities to basically talk on behalf of the Scottish government. These de facto spokespersons get another bite of the juicy COVID cherry and I’ve noticed how quick they have all been to shove their faces ain’t front of the media and open their gubs.

I thought I’d seen and heard the last of that condescending twat Leitch but sadly not. He’ll be hoping for a call to be on Strictly Come Dancing or I’m a Celebrity, or at the very least a trip to Buckingham Palace for an OBE in January.

[pub car king]

If I was being hugely cynical here this just an appalling government in the midst of yet another self inflicted  scandal creating a crisis out of this. 

Yes the dreaded disease has evolved again just like every single other fucking virus that has ever existed. 

Johnson looks like he will get emptied by the electorate or more likely his own party so he's drumming up a new crisis with all that best of British bullshit. 

Sturgeon and Starmer should be calling this out for the fear mongering sham it is however we live in a risk averse world. 

[bairn88]

1 hour ago, Michael W said:

Maybe I'm having a bad day, but that Boris Johnson quote has absolutely riled me. 

What the actual f**k is this? Person dies of covid has been a sad but routine fact throughout the last twenty months. Indeed, we have averaged about 150 deaths a day for the past few months and not an eyelid has been batted about that. That someone has died of the Omicron variant (sorry, WITH the Omicron variant) is not exactly a massive surprise either. Unfortunately, some people do die of the virus.

You should avoid direct comparisons between countries as they are not comparable, but you can draw some inferences. South Africa's hospitals are not filling up the way they did with Delta and this is a country with a vaccination rate far below the UK's. The qualifier is that they have a younger population than we do, almost certainly in part to inferior standards of healthcare. Two things can be true at once: it might be milder, but some may still die from it. 

There is a doomsday feel about Omicron tht seems to be harking back to the pre-vaccine, "we just don't know" days of April and May 2020 and it's really starting to grate given that we live in one of the most vaccinated countries in the world. There is still no evidence that the vaccines don't protect against serious illness. 

It's the biggest confirmation so far that Omicron isn't a serious threat (in terms of overwhelming the NHS), and it's pure politics. Ramping up the fear by *announcing* that ONE person has died with Omicron, whilst there's literally been hundreds of Covid deaths per day for months and months is quite....something. As a fairly rational and moderate person it makes me closer to toying with fucking conspiracy theories than I have ever been in my life!

[Dons_1988]

10 minutes ago, pub car king said:

If I was being hugely cynical here this just an appalling government in the midst of yet another self inflicted  scandal creating a crisis out of this. 

Yes the dreaded disease has evolved again just like every single other fucking virus that has ever existed. 

Johnson looks like he will get emptied by the electorate or more likely his own party so he's drumming up a new crisis with all that best of British bullshit. 

Sturgeon and Starmer should be calling this out for the fear mongering sham it is however we live in a risk averse world. 

I don’t think this is true. 

[Thereisalight..]

3 hours ago, PedroMoutinho said:

I see Humza has said ‘securing additional support from the U.K. government’ will be ‘very important’ for the restrictions (sorry protective measures) to be announced tomorrow.

Sounds ominous.

 

2 hours ago, Donathan said:

Nightclubs will be gone for sure. I wouldn’t be shocked if the SG go ahead and close them anyway and then either pay the support out of their own budget or just unilaterally close them with no support and dare the UK Government to not introduce furlough. 

Hopfully it's bluster about nothing as usual. I have a gig on Fri, my first for 2 years so  I'm hoping they dont shit the bed and take gigs/shows/football to lower capacities. As an aside is a nightclub really "unsafe" compared to the likes of the Hydro with 10k+? I dont go to nightclubs as I'm 36 and antisocial but they've been shafted throught this

[Vimto90]

Why should we just accept restrictions?

We shouldn't, but we will.

[Empty It]

Is this the case? I couldn’t find a source for it but saw one guy on FB saying the person was 96 years old.

Not read into it just a random number but if the person turned out to be 96 I'll be putting the lottery on tonight.

[NorthernLights]

 

[deegee]

24 minutes ago, pub car king said:

Sturgeon and Starmer should be calling this out for the fear mongering sham it is however we live in a risk averse world. 

It’s 100% definitely a political circus and has been since the start of the year in my opinion. Boris is using this as a last roll of the dice diversion tactic, since his own backbenchers and the influential men’s in grey suits seem to be getting weary of him and his usefulness. Unfortunately for the UK population, Sturgeon and Starmer seem to be wanting to go balls- deep in even more effing restrictions.

As someone wrote the other day, have a look across the Irish Sea to get a glimpse what Scotland would be like with further, more prolonged virus restrictions , if we were independent now!

[deegee]

18 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

 

Hopfully it's bluster about nothing as usual. I have a gig on Fri, my first for 2 years so  I'm hoping they dont shit the bed and take gigs/shows/football to lower capacities. As an aside is a nightclub really "unsafe" compared to the likes of the Hydro with 10k+? I dont go to nightclubs as I'm 36 and antisocial but they've been shafted throught this

I hope that you get to enjoy your gig mate. It’s these relatively small things that we should be looking forward to and enjoying, and it’s not too far or being overly dramatic to say it’s these social experiences that helps happiness and wellbeing.

I’m long past my nightclub days but it’s unfair that teenagers/ 20 somethings, who have given up 2 years of their lives continue to be harshly treated by the government.

[Left Back]

South Africa starting to put some context around the Omicron numbers.

20,000 cases and 25 Covid deaths yesterday (doesn't say how many of those were Omicron).  during their Delta wave when they had 20,000 cases it was 200-300 deaths per day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-59635277

[anotherchance]

Just now, deegee said:

I hope that you get to enjoy your gig mate. It’s these relatively small things that we should be looking forward to and enjoying, and it’s not too far or being overly dramatic to say it’s these social experiences that helps happiness and wellbeing.

I’m long past my nightclub days but it’s unfair that teenagers/ 20 somethings, who have given up 2 years of their lives continue to be harshly treated by the government.

Glad to read stuff like this.

The amount of middle aged, middle class “progressives” who turned their noses up when nightclub bosses had the cheek to fight for their livelihoods (and that of their low paid staff) was disgusting. Genuinely makes my blood boil that kind of shite.

[Thereisalight..]

2 minutes ago, deegee said:

I hope that you get to enjoy your gig mate. It’s these relatively small things that we should be looking forward to and enjoying, and it’s not too far or being overly dramatic to say it’s these social experiences that helps happiness and wellbeing.

I’m long past my nightclub days but it’s unfair that teenagers/ 20 somethings, who have given up 2 years of their lives continue to be harshly treated by the government.

Cheers mate. Its definitely the small things like football and gigs etc that make life more enjoyable! Just find it shit that some people look at folk enjoying these things as being "selfish". We've had almost 2 years of this shit show with no signs of better days ahead. It's no way to live and is affecting peoples mental health, that's not even taking into account the backlogs for treatments/operations. 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

3 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

Glad to read stuff like this.

The amount of middle aged, middle class “progressives” who turned their noses up when nightclub bosses had the cheek to fight for their livelihoods (and that of their low paid staff) was disgusting. Genuinely makes my blood boil that kind of shite.

Absolutely agree. A trip to sub club or whatever is my ideal of hell but i get why people enjoy it. I love going to gigs and the cinema and find them to be my escape from the stresses of a demanding job and caring etc. 

Im absolutely gutted for the younger generation who have missed out on all the wee things that all us older folks (30s onwards) took for granted, the socialisation, the school trips, classroom learning, making friends/getting a winch off some girl who lives near their grans house but you wouldnt know her, the extra cirricular stuff like playing centre half for the school team or the debating club, graduations, freshers week, pretending youre doing a gap year but just fucking off to australia to find some sheilas, stuff that seems trivial but actually helps people grow. 
The impact on the wellbeing and development of that generation is quite obvious, its such a shame.

[MP_MFC]

Surprisingly I can’t see anything on the bbc or usual screaming news outlets or retweets by politicians but these numbers still seem stable? Slightly higher % but that’s fairly normal on a Monday I believe.

Scottish numbers: 13 December 2021

Summary
3,756 new cases of COVID-19 reported
34,138 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
11.8% of these were positive
0 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends)
39 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
561 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
4,364,519 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 3,976,670 have received their second dose, and 2,154,571 have received a third dose or booster.

[Jan Vojáček]

Just now, MP_MFC said:

Surprisingly I can’t see anything on the bbc or usual screaming news outlets or retweets by politicians but these numbers still seem stable? Slightly higher % but that’s fairly normal on a Monday I believe.

Scottish numbers: 13 December 2021

Summary
3,756 new cases of COVID-19 reported
34,138 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
11.8% of these were positive
0 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends)
39 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
561 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
4,364,519 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 3,976,670 have received their second dose, and 2,154,571 have received a third dose or booster.

Bracing myself for a 'data error' which will be sorted by tomorrow when the figures are double what they should be.

Those pesky 'data errors' always link up with restrictions being tightened.

[Michael W]

7 minutes ago, MP_MFC said:

Surprisingly I can’t see anything on the bbc or usual screaming news outlets or retweets by politicians but these numbers still seem stable? Slightly higher % but that’s fairly normal on a Monday I believe.

Scottish numbers: 13 December 2021

Summary
3,756 new cases of COVID-19 reported
34,138 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
11.8% of these were positive
0 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends)
39 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
561 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
4,364,519 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 3,976,670 have received their second dose, and 2,154,571 have received a third dose or booster.

Marginally lower than last Monday's case load.