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8 minutes ago, Bestsinceslicebread said:

I read some of your posts with interest and think some are good but in all honestly your way out on this one.
First of all I know of a few teams who knew they could easily play without fans and most of the rest have worked out that they can just get by without fans this season so would rather continue, if allowed to do so with what they had, so to them if fans came back then it as a bonus, so your first statement in your sentence is absolutely not true.

Again, the risks were not crystal clear as it's constantly been changing daily, we all thought we would get out of this and that's why the government gave the go ahead to open universities and pubs etc.. but they were wrong and that's even without the introduction of the new virus variant, again another of your comments totally untrue.

Yes it's the only thing we are in agreement with your recent posts. If leagues are not done by the official date then stop.

I will say, that no way can clubs be blamed, or accused with any substance of foolishness.
Association are in the same boat, cannot be blamed in any way, shape or form.
Its the Government Sports Group along with the SFA could be held accountable but in reality we are in a pandemic so really no one is to blame as no one thought of how to tackle or cope with the interchangeable pandemic.

We are all trying the best we can

 

 

Fair enough, I'm dipping in and out of the thread and my choice of words was a bit poor in my earlier post, I can see i've been a a bit of a dick with my tone so I apologize for that,  but nonetheless, the risks at the start of this season absolutely were clear.- there was no vaccine and the traditional Winter flu season was still to come. Many were predicting a resurgence in the virus and urging caution so it was an absolute gamble to play on. I can 100% see why teams did it but it was always likely to end in disappointment imo. 

 

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Many of those tested will be asymptomatic but carrying the virus. Players at lower levels aren't tested, therefore asymptomatic people will never know they have it.


I tested positive in November,I didn’t have a single symptom.I never for a second thought I had the virus.Im also certain I passed it on to someone who became seriously ill and had to spend seven weeks in hospital.
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Alan Pattullo hitting several nails on the head:

https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/international/comment-why-sfa-inaction-covid-dereliction-duty-3086797

Comment: Why SFA inaction on Covid is a dereliction of duty

Teamwork. ‘A collaborative group effort to achieve a common goal’. Responsibility. ‘A duty to deal with something or having control’. Both are important in football and in other walks of life too, of course.

The Scottish Government needs teamwork and responsibility from society at large to combat the coronavirus pandemic as it enters its most dangerous phase. That means pulling together, making sacrifices, showing leadership and determination in the face of adversity. Scottish football culture in a nutshell, you could say. Sadly, the sport’s governing body is letting the side down with its blinkered handling of this national crisis.

Sure, it will argue that there was no new instruction to stop football in the latest lockdown announced this week. Professional sport is allowed to continue, it will correctly point out. But the reality is that it has shirked its responsibility to society by failing to take decisive action.

Schools are closed. Only two people from two households can now meet outdoors. Group exercise is banned. People are being told to stay at home and to travel for essential purposes only. As it wrestles with a fast-moving crisis, the Scottish Government needs everyone onside, not just obeying the law and following the guidelines but adhering to them in spirit and understanding their purpose. The SFA response? Let’s carry on regardless. Nothing needs to change.

Players, coaches and officials from Brora Rangers, none of whom makes a living out of football, are today being asked to take a 400-mile round trip to play Camelon in a Scottish Cup tie. Their children, however, won’t be going to school.

The NHS could do without sports injury admissions at the moment, but around 100 so-called ‘professional’ football matches scheduled for this weekend mean some are likely. Add players, coaches, club officials and match officials at an average of, say, 50 people a match, and you’ll have 5,000 people from the same number of households mixing at football grounds this weekend. With a highly infectious new strain of the virus spreading fast, Nicola Sturgeon is asking people to avoid contact with others. The SFA is not listening.

The issue at play is its liberal interpretation of the word ‘professional’. It stems from Ms Sturgeon’s announcement of restrictions on October 7. She allowed exemptions for those “involved in professional sports, for training, coaching or competing in an event”.

Given an inch, the SFA trook a mile. It gave the green light to 240 clubs to start playing matches along with the 12 Premiership teams who had been allowed to start their season in August.

There is no mandatory testing outside of the Premiership. Yes, matches in the Championship, Leagues One and Two, Lowland League, Highland League, South of Scotland League, East of Scotland League (three divisions), West of Scotland League (three divisions) and six junior leagues are behind closed doors. Yes, there are detailed Covid safety guidelines in place and the majority of clubs will be doing all the right things. But 250 or so clubs is surely not what the Scottish Government and its scientific advisors had in mind when allowing ‘professional’ sport to continue. Especially now.

That guidance and the SFA interpretation of it has not changed this week, but the virus has.

Ms Sturgeon talked on Monday about an “extremely serious” situation due to the new, faster-spreading variant of coronavirus. The First Minister said she was “more concerned about the situation we face now than I have been at any time since March last year” and warned that hospitals could be overwhelmed in three weeks. But when the opportunity presented itself for the SFA to take responsibility and do what it could to help, it did nothing.

Sure, Camelon’s players sign the same ‘professional’ forms as Celtic’s players. It doesn’t mean the SFA should treat them all the same. It could have been responsible and pragmatic by temporarily putting a stop to football outside of the top two leagues, but it is instead allowing 5,000 people to mix again this weekend just because they all happen to sign the same registration forms.

Outside of the Premiership, Championship, Falkirk and Partick Thistle, all the players are semi-pro or amateurs who may be serious about their football but collect pocket-money wages and have jobs like the rest of us. They generally train twice a week but don’t do it for a living.

Some will be mixing with work colleagues as well as teammates and opponents. This doesn’t chime with Ms Sturgeon’s heartfelt appeal for people to leave home only if it is “essential”.

Sport’s benefit to physical and mental wellbeing can no longer be used to justify semi-pro football continuing at this critical juncture in the coronavirus crisis. Limiting the number of matches taking place should be the priority. An argument that football lifts the national mood could perhaps be made for the Premiership and Championship. But Thornton Hibs v Nisthdale Wanderers anyone?

A handful of West of Scotland League clubs did opt out of the season in October, but the vast majority of clubs outside the SPFL’s top two leagues are playing on. They still have to cover the cost of travel, referees, player expenses, ground maintenance and more with no matchday revenue coming in, relying instead on Covid bailout grants. Many of these clubs are run by volunteers in their 60s and 70s who must now be wondering if all their efforts are really worth it. Can semi-pro football really be justified when everyone else is being told to stay at home?

It is not up to the clubs. It is the SFA’s responsibility to do the right thing. It can show leadership and a duty of care to the those involved in the game and the nation at large by pressing pause for all but elite football. Or it can continue to do nothing.

As the going gets tough for the country, the SFA has been found wanting.

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21 hours ago, Lynchmob11 said:

Numbers always going to be higher with the level of testing now in place.
The chances of actually dying from this strain of the flu are still as small as ever.
Very honourable of Carlo and Maybole but let’s see how they feel if the WOSL apply the 12 point deduction for next season that all participating clubs signed up for when they decided to play on.

Influenza viruses are negative sense RNA viruses that make up four of the seven genera of the family Orthomyxoviridae. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus. So it is not "a strain of the flu".

When you call it that, everyone knows what you're doing. You're just trying to play it down.

In the real world, the expected number of deaths from Covid-19 without any mitigation measures like social distancing, enhanced hygiene, working from home, masks, closing leisure business and so on is, in the UK, over half a million. That's likely on the conservative side now as we know the new variant increases the R number by between 0.36 and 0.68 (probably at the higher end). Annual flu deaths in the UK are about 10,000 - so Covid-19 is about 50 times worse. And that's before we talk about the fact that Covid-19 kills people who would shrug off the flu, and that a huge number of people are living with long covid.

Testing has not increased since early September, when the number of positive cases each day was around 100. It's now about 2,300. (See charts below) So we know for sure that it has literally nothing to do with increased testing.

We can debate what steps are necessary, but let's not spin a big pile of pish that flies in the face of known facts, eh?

Screenshot 2021-01-08 at 20.03.49.png

Screenshot 2021-01-08 at 20.04.09.png

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55 minutes ago, PRICEY said:

 


I tested positive in November,I didn’t have a single symptom.I never for a second thought I had the virus.Im also certain I passed it on to someone who became seriously ill and had to spend seven weeks in hospital.

 

That's my nightmare and the motivation behind how seriously I take social distancing. I have no fear of dying of Covid. I am frightened of killing or seriously harming someone. It's my duty to get to the end of this thing without passing it to anyone else.

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3 minutes ago, GordonS said:

That's my nightmare and the motivation behind how seriously I take social distancing. I have no fear of dying of Covid. I am frightened of killing or seriously harming someone. It's my duty to get to the end of this thing without passing it to anyone else.

Exactly. Also, many people forget the knock-on effects it can have with medical treatment for others being delayed. I had to wait for medical treatment myself due to NHS Tayside being overwhelmed and it turned out that I had to be tested for cancer. Thank goodness all turned out to be fine in the end, but just imagine what the extra wait could have done to me if I were less lucky...

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Dalbeattie Star, whose manager, Ritchie Maxwell, works in the NHS, said in a statement: "We are classed as elite professional players, but no provision is available for Covid testing at our level. "We do, however, query the professional status as we are a part-time club and all players have other careers out with football. "Like all clubs in the league, we would love to be able to be able to complete this season in a timely manner, but the safety of our committee, management team, players and of course the people of our local community is of more concern than football."

Never truer words spoken, again someone who is seeing the bigger picture of what is going on in the ground.

 

Edited by Lobby Dossar
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Dalbeattie Star, whose manager, Ritchie Maxwell, works in the NHS, said in a statement: "We are classed as elite professional players, but no provision is available for Covid testing at our level. "We do, however, query the professional status as we are a part-time club and all players have other careers out with football. "Like all clubs in the league, we would love to be able to be able to complete this season in a timely manner, but the safety of our committee, management team, players and of course the people of our local community is of more concern than football."
Never truer words spoken, again someone who is seeing the bigger picture of what is going on in the ground.
 

Why did they start the season if they feel so strongly about it? Why don’t they withdraw if they feel so strongly about it? Why only now do they wish to query the professional status?
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That is your opinion on it but not necessarily the opinion of everyone else.
The media frenzy fuelled by government propaganda and announcements on this has scared people into believing how dangerous this strain of the flu actually is.
You keep believing whatever you want and leave the teams who choose to play on to get on with it.
No one forces players or management or committees to go to games the do so of their own choice.
The vast majority of teams chose to play this season so that might be a better indication of what people feel on the matter.

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6 minutes ago, Lynchmob11 said:

That is your opinion on it but not necessarily the opinion of everyone else.
The media frenzy fuelled by government propaganda and announcements on this has scared people into believing how dangerous this strain of the flu actually is.
You keep believing whatever you want and leave the teams who choose to play on to get on with it.
No one forces players or management or committees to go to games the do so of their own choice.
The vast majority of teams chose to play this season so that might be a better indication of what people feel on the matter.

Government propaganda? Get a grip.

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9 minutes ago, Lynchmob11 said:

That is your opinion on it but not necessarily the opinion of everyone else.
The media frenzy fuelled by government propaganda and announcements on this has scared people into believing how dangerous this strain of the flu actually is.
You keep believing whatever you want and leave the teams who choose to play on to get on with it.
No one forces players or management or committees to go to games the do so of their own choice.
The vast majority of teams chose to play this season so that might be a better indication of what people feel on the matter.

The deaths of a further 93 people who had tested positive for Covid-19 have been recorded in the past 24 hours - the highest daily total since the pandemic began

There were also 1,530 people in hospital, higher than the peak of 1,520 last April

Don’t let your craving to try and get into the playoffs get in the way of the facts.
You’ve got to do it this year as you’ve no chance next year when a full compliment of clubs are back playing.

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19 minutes ago, Lynchmob11 said:

That is your opinion on it but not necessarily the opinion of everyone else.
The media frenzy fuelled by government propaganda and announcements on this has scared people into believing how dangerous this strain of the flu actually is.
You keep believing whatever you want and leave the teams who choose to play on to get on with it.
No one forces players or management or committees to go to games the do so of their own choice.
The vast majority of teams chose to play this season so that might be a better indication of what people feel on the matter.

You can only laugh at that

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33 minutes ago, Lynchmob11 said:

Well as big Marvin said you keep believing.
For your info I am not interested in the play offs but can make my my own mind up on the risks involved in playing on.

Yeah I'll tell my sister who is an intensive care nurse and seen people die horrible painful deaths that its all a load of shite. I'm sure that'll make her feel better when she goes in for her shift tomorrow.

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TBH ...The likes of Clydebank and Darvel only wanted to play out this season was because they think/know it's there best chance to progress without the big boys re Pollok Talbot Cumnock Glenafton Kilbirnie etc being involved made it a no brainer.

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8 hours ago, catakoom said:

TBH ...The likes of Clydebank and Darvel only wanted to play out this season was because they think/know it's there best chance to progress without the big boys re Pollok Talbot Cumnock Glenafton Kilbirnie etc being involved made it a no brainer.

That was a bonus, but not the main reason that I wanted us to keep going. 
 

The danger involved in stopping is that you might not get going again, and even if you do it can take a while to get up to speed. Continuing as much as possible to help avoid either of those situations was always my preference.

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Fantastic Scotsman article quoted earlier articulating The thought of many very well. The SFA have to take ultimate responsibility for this but I have to again take task with the IMG on this. I know they are volunteers and have shown that in a normal backdrop will be very efficient and a credit to themselves. They are also to be lauded for trying this season. However...

It's astonishing that they have been silent, publicly at least, this week. This means one of three things;-

1) The IMG have not discussed the lockdown

2) The IMG have decided that they will continue until told by the SFA otherwise

3) The IMG have decided to coast along to see what happens as the weather is ruling out match play this week anyway

All of these are unacceptable from a leadership group. We have seen that at least one club has taken the matter into their own hands. Also other leagues have called a hiatus but the IMG silence continues. The right things have to be done by the right people. C'mon lads. Call a temporary halt at least.

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