LongTimeLurker

Clubs like Dalbeattie Star, Vale of Leithen and Edinburgh United will struggle big time to even get to 20 points given the competitive imbalance across the league. Having 9 after 3 games with a makeshift team means relegation shouldn't be on anyone's radar right now. The last two games went the way they needed to for that to be put to rest as a concern. Agree that being a title contender is another matter entirely though given the budgets EK, the Shire and Kelty appear to have thanks to having sugar daddies.

They will need a vaccine in the not too distant future or they will have some very difficult decisions to make. The real disaster though was the imbecile in No. 10 that knew full well that shielding the elderly was the key in the absence of a NZ style early lockdown but still contrived to find a way to let it run rampant in care homes by moving lots of elderly people with the infection back there from hospitals.

Lots of suburban train lines though that will have many of the same issues. I'd check out whether south was ahead of north on cases the first time around back in April. The places that are getting it worst right now (TFS is the poster child) tend to be those that were still furthest away in the process of peaking when the lockdown was imposed and hence still have the most susceptible people available for a "second wave" after opening up again.

Only begin? That's been abundantly obvious for a very long time.

10/10 for observation. Won't dignify the rest with a direct response.

There's even a "second wave" in Italy now so there goes your mask wearing theory. If there is no vaccine available and the decision is that the economy and education have to be kept running (what Nicola and Boris are doing even with their highest level restrictions) then an epidemic of a highly contagious infection is ultimately always likely to run its course through to herd immunity. If you don't take effective measures very early on like Taiwan did, expecting to stop that process from unfolding is a bit like King Canute with the incoming tide. Modern medicine doesn't always have a magic bullet solution.

Meanwhile Burnieman is posting this elsewhere about what is being said in EoS circles by the people that matter, in response to cmontheloknow's bizarre ongoing one man crusade to get football halted over on the WoS subforum:

Could be too late on that, if Darvel can get floodlights up. They are alleged to have threatened legal action in a recent zoom meeting if the WoS season didn't start and there has to be a reason why they would be willing to go to those lengths.

...which is why the pyramid was worth pursuing. No reason why clubs like that should have guaranteed national league status in perpetuity.

Trying to open up the economy and education again was always likely to lead to a "second wave" even if there had been more compliance on advise like that. There is no painless exit at this point whatever we do. Either we completely crash the economy, close down face-to-face education and wait for a vaccine that may never arrive over a virus with an IFR that is in unusually bad flu season territory on mortality, or we accept that there is going to be more pain for a bit until there is herd immunity and it starts to go away naturally. Nobody wants the second option because they like it. Politicians move in that direction because it is the least bad option overall and hence the rational course of action.

...at the very least they need to dream up some meaningful alternative incentive for being the champion of each section. Maybe something cup format related that gets them some extra playing time against Premiership teams in 2021/22? Beyond that, if a club like Darvel or Kilwinning can get licensed in time to move up to the LL for 2021/22 by winning the Premier and then beating the EoS and/or SoS champions, it isn't completely impossible that there will be a promotion place up for grabs. Maybe they need to talk that possibility up a bit more and they could give the overall Conference champion some kind of delayed guaranteed promotion playoff place for entry into the Premier in 2022/23 if that doesn't happen for them in 2021/22.

What on earth is that gig venues part all about? Hospitals were not overwhelmed in the UK during the first wave and no other comparable western European country has had a "second wave" that has hit March/April levels on deaths and ICU admissions despite many being significantly further along with it or even over the peak as in Spain. Sweden is flatlining right now on deaths and ICU admissions after letting the first wave run its course and not imposing a drastic lockdown and its cumulative mortality levels to date are comparable to the UK's. There is no rational reason to expect what you are describing.

During any epidemic with an infection that is too contagious to effectively eradicate that is going to happen until herd immunity is achieved and imposing severe lockdown restrictions just prolongs the pain involved in getting there, if there is no readily available vaccine. There is no easy painless way out of this right now. Meanwhile, the SG in its infinite wisdom appears to be loosening restrictions on care home visits: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-54523044 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-54507488 Yes, let's keep fixating over regulations surrounding football for people in age groups with infinitessimally small mortality rates where COVID-19 is concerned rather than focussing on the shielding measures needed for the age group that actually have a lot to worry about over this just as they do every winter over influenza (but nobody ever pays a blind bit of notice on that in Scotland unlike in some Asian countries). Did the SG learn nothing from the mistakes they made back in March?

The debate was three-way start/pause/cancel rather than a two-way start/cancel one. It's easy enough to understand why 22 initially preferred to pause to January (there was a sensible case to be made for that) but then after further deliberation would have had start rather cancel as their second choice. Not playing a competitive game for 18 months has its own set of risks (people get out of the habit and lose interest, at a small club that could tip things over the edge), just as starting without crowds does for larger clubs with large wage bills to cover.

Worth following this guy's updates. He reassigns cases to the date the sample was taken rather than the date its result was announced, so you get a better picture of the real trend albeit with a bit of a time lag:

I hope you are joking. They knew there was a problem for weeks and hushed it up at the point when containment might still have been doable. Worst of all they allowed millions to leave the Wuhan area for lunar New Year holidays in late January. Their statistics all the way through should be treated with a healthy degree of skepticism. The idea that there was a 2% mortality rate drove a lot of the early panic elsewhere, but a cynic might suggest pushing that idea was a useful way for them to hide how far and for how long it had already spread.

Only possible sensible reason I can think for not doing it that way is that the SFA have objected to expanding beyond 20 in a tier 6 league. Would they though under these circumstances? Seems a bit farfetched they would be that petty given there's a big difference in workload for them between 24 in conferences and 67 in conferences.

I'm sure Burnieman will have seen this from a poster linked to Pollok yesterday when I suggested over on the WoS forum that Hurlford were now in the 2019/20 SJC final: Plenty of blazer politics left to unfold by the looks of things. Will be interesting to see what the reaction is from certain quarters, if pulling out of the 2020/21 SCC also means no 2021/22 entry for failing to fulfill a fixture.

A lot depends on whether the players and management were willing to play on expenses only until fans get back. If not, the committee have a stronger case for doing what they did. If they have been playing friendlies in recent weeks, it almost certainly isn't about a sudden concern over safety.

Latest from WoS: 6 of the 14 changed their minds. The 8 that didn't were joined by Glenafton. The clubs that withdrew still have to withdraw from the SCC as that's not a WoS competition.

Main thing to watch on Sweden is whether they have a second wave on deaths similar to what is happening in western European countries that imposed strict lockdowns. So far no sign of one, which is what you would expect if they had reached herd immunity with the first wave. The other countries mentioned like the UK stopped that process in its tracks, so they still have to endure significant pain that the politicians are terrified of for opinion poll rating reasons whenever they try to open things up again. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ We are very lucky that the IFR turned out to be much lower than initially feared, because the relatively small size of the "second waves" on deaths in western European countries that locked down is consistent with most of the infections needed to reach herd immunity having happened before the lockdowns were imposed. Sweden messed up every bit as badly on its initial response as the UK did, but had public health officials in charge and acting rationally on what to do next rather than opinion poll gazing politicians guided by kneejerk populism. Anyway, guess this is a fitba subforum...

Too early to be sure. Best to give it 2 to 3 weeks before it can confidently be identified as the signal rather than random noise. Last time it looked like things were peaking on new case numbers it soon turned out that there was an Excel spreadsheet issue.

The die is cast, basically.

If strict lockdowns don't get imposed a pandemic usually sweeps through a population in 2 to 3 months until there is herd immunity. What we are having right now is the portion of the first wave that the lockdown intereupted. Assuming Nicola and Boris keep the schools and workplaces open this time and let things run their course, everything could look very different on COVID six weeks from now and the people who pressed the panic button where having a season is concerned will wind up looking very silly.

Only conceivable rational reason I can come up with not to is the SFA have a problem with doing the discipline for that many clubs in one of the tier 6 leagues.