LongTimeLurker

My point was mainly that people shouldn't take what someone is describing in terms of science and make assumptions about their politics. Science should be evidence based and not driven by what you want to happen. Governments acted earlier this year on the assumption that 100% of the population had no immune system response and the fatality rate for people who became infected would be about 2%. Under that scenario letting herd immunity unfold naturally was a complete non-starter for most people (Boris Johnson was one of the minority on that). The near complete lack of a response from Jan-Mar in the UK and other western countries was irresponsible in the extreme given that backdrop. Since then it now looks more like 0.2% on fatality rate (closer to bad flu year territory, basically) and herd immunity kicking in after only 20% get infected because of cross-immunity rather than the 70% expected if everybody had no immune response. There were some early indications from cruise ships that was probably going to be the case, but I doubt that information guided government policy as the panic over ventilators strongly points to them still expecting the worst case scenario back in late March and early April. The scientific evidence is now pointing strongly towards the pandemic being largely over in western Europe and lifting restrictions and getting the economy (and by extension but not as importantly WoS) going being the sensible course of action, but the optics of pushing ahead with that while the new cases curve is heading in the wrong direction as efficient testing ramps up are not easy for the politicians. It will only take a few more weeks for this to be resolved one way or the other, because deaths will have either risen exponentially then peaked in an April to June sort of way or not by that point. The local lockdown measures that are being imposed appear to be about being seen to do something without really reversing most of what has already been opened up again. If the powers that be thought we were in for a huge problem the new restrictions would be much more stringent. We are unlucky that in a Scottish context that the reopening hadn't included lower level football crowds yet unlike in England, but hang in there a few more weeks and good things should start happening by the looks of things.

When and whether herd immunity is achieved will be determined by the science involved not by politics.

Once herd immunity is achieved it should slowly fade as long as it doesn't mutate into a form that people who had it previously have not built up an immune response for. So far the mutation rate has been low fortunately., so that's unlikely. Herd immunity means there are not enough people available to be infected for R0 to be above one and for the virus to be able to keep spreading to more people. With a highly contagious virus pandemic herd immunity usually happens naturally in any population after two to three months of exponential growth rather than through lockdown and vaccination. Optimists think we are close to herd immunity already with COVID-19 because it ultimately turned out that a large portion of the population had pre-existing cross-immunity from being exposed to other coronaviruses, so the exponential growth in cases in most western countries at the start of the year was enough to start drastically lowering the R0 making the lockdowns a bit of a waste of time. Pessimists ignore the evidence that has been accumulating on cross-immunity and think we are on the brink of a huge second wave of deaths and ICU admissions if restrictions are not reimposed because lockdowns were effective and we are still far away from herd immunity with no vaccine imminent. It won't be long until there is a very clear picture on which camp is correct, because we have some countries available like Sweden, Belarus and most recently South Africa to compare what happens with fewer restrictions in place. Governments in the UK are being very cautious right now because they want to be 100% sure the optimistic outlook is correct having already received what appears to have been misleading advice about probable peak severity from experts at the start of the year that led to the huge flap over Dyson ventilators etc.

There is little sign so far that this "second wave" is anything more than a lot more mild and asymptomatic cases being identified now than was the case back in April due to increased testing. If we look elsewhere Spain has had a significant uptick on deaths and ICU admissions under similar circumstances, but Italy hasn't. We are in wait and see mode right now on WoS starting up with fans because the politicians don't want to be blamed if we follow the Spanish rather than the Italian trajectory before we see another plateau and decline with the new cases numbers. Anyone who expected complete elimination any time soon was delusional. The near complete inaction by UK authorities to stop the initial spread from Jan to Mar until the exponential curve on deaths was already rocketing up (a further10 days or so of exponentially increasing numbers of new infections were already locked in by that point before the lockdown could have any effect) gave COVID-19 the chance to spread widely throughout the country. Once the genie is out of the bottle like that an elimination strategy would be very difficult and economically ruinous to achieve given how easily it spreads and how many mild and asymptomatic cases there are. Life can't grind to a halt completely and there were always plenty of people who had to be out and about performing essential services. The rational course of action is to accept that although there is still some risk involved on moving towards normality, it is probably no more drastic than the other risks we face every day of our lives. A large portion of the population has already been exposed to COVID without even being aware of it, so it is most likely largely over by this point.

Floodlights were supposed to be a tier 5 requirement from the outset over and above entry level. There was only supposed to be a two year grace period to become compliant on this in an LL context. The LL got round this for some of their members by only requiring clubs to have access to a floodlit ground if necessary at any point, but that was not what was initially expected.

Took them long enough. This was supposed to be done by the end of year two of the LL as part of creating a suitable league for SPFL clubs to be relegated into. Actually trying to comply in that regard didn't help Selkirk's finances any, so VoL have been helped out in a big way by the flexibility that was provided by the LL and SFA on floodlights to full members of long standing in recent seasons.

...panels they are fine... Was trying to work out if it's one for each club hence explaining the need for repairs, but seems to be off by two. Can't make out what the engravings say but suspect it's related to past presidents maybe going back to the old Lothians, Stirlingshire and Clackmannanshire east region before the superleagues came in.

Looks like it. The winner would have to be Golspie Sutherland for it to make any difference. Golspie have never applied for HL entry AFAIA even though they could have done so in recent years and would have been difficult to deny entry to if they had. The only team eligible for promotion from the north region would be Banks o Dee who have also not applied in recent years and even knocked back an unsolicited invitation to replace Cove. Where am I going with this? It will no doubt happen in due course but it's probably not viewed as being urgent enough to merit special general meetings if it didn't get dealt with in time for the AGMs that were held over the summer.

...almost inevitable there will be the occasional new case. The question is more whether we could reasonably expect zero new cases at this point so close to the big wave April-June and whether it's best to just start getting on with life to a large extent while still taking some reasonable precautions given COVID is uncharted territory compared to the flu.

...but not to the UK, Belgium and France etc possibly because they had similar issues with care homes. People select what comparison to make with Sweden to fit their preferred narrative. I hesitate to bring Belarus into this but the overall vodka and sauna approach complete with professional fitba continuing with crowds and more recently mass public demonstrations of 100,000 + should have led to a public health catastrophe of near biblical proportions if what was being predicted in computer models at the start of the year had been in any way accurate. As far as I can tell it didn't and when you get scenarios like that unfolding you need to start re-examining your basic assumptions.

There are examples of countries with less stringent barriers than Nicola Sturgeon is implementing that have nothing like the horrendous situation of April to June at the moment. Sweden's curve on daily deaths looks remarkably similar to the UK's despite very different policies.

It's actually highly questionable whether there was any effective mitigation in a Scottish context. Check out what Taiwan or South Korea did for what would have needed to be done to stop the outbreak in its tracks. Get in early with large scale testing and track and trace with the first cases and have stringent lockdown measures well before the pandemic was even noticeable for most people. Nothing like that was happening in most European countries, because of the massive backlash there would have been from a civil liberties angle. Instead of that, the exponential curve on deaths and ICU admissions was already starting to rocket up when the UK finally took some action by imposing a lockdown and that's way too late in the day to make much difference, if you understand how an exponential curve works.

It's not that simple because tests of the type you are referring to only deal with one of several possible immune system responses. The most important evidence that the pandemic is largely over is that deaths and ICU admissions are still largely flatlining despite significantly relaxed and often routinely ignored restrictions.

The idea of a vaccine arriving to save the day was mainly being used in the first half of the year to give people the idea that they could somehow stay safe and would be able to avoid being exposed to the virus as that helped them from a mental health sort of angle. Anyone who understood how exponential curves work when an R0 number is well above 1 knew better, so the explanation they got for the lockdown was that the active infection numbers curve had to be flattened so ICU capacity wasn't completely overwhelmed when the first wave hit its peak. As it turned out it wasn't and the peak on fatalities was about an order of magnitude lower than originally feared. Despite all the recent media hysteria the number of daily deaths is still a flat line close to zero, so the "second wave" is mainly a result of a lot more testing being done now on mild cases than was the case back in April. There is nothing inevitable about not having a season at WoS sort of level in other words, because the pandemic is now most likely largely over in a UK context and most people have already had their chance to play Russian roulette with it. In most cases that will be unknowingly because they were asymptomatic or had some sort of cross-immunity from earlier coronavirus infections. The politicians still need the "second wave" to start going down now before lifting more restrictions though because a large chunk of the population doesn't understand any of that and still thinks vaccines are important in all of this because they don't realise the horse has long since galloped away for most people in terms of being exposed to the virus meaning there would be little to be gained now by bolting the stable door with a jag in the upper arm.

That will be what the surveymonkey is all about. Beyond that best to always bear in mind that the darkest hour is just before dawn.

There's nothing so far from the SG to suggest that the season definitely won't be given the green light on Oct 5th, so for now things are in wait and see mode. If the new cases trend plateaus and then starts to dip again and the number of deaths is still flatlining then all should be OK.

It's most likely to be a bit of both rather than an either/or scenario.

The point I'm making is that rUK born voters and others born elsewhere that don't identify as Scottish in any way could easily take up half of the 16%, so you probably need closer to 90% of people born in Scotland to have 84% overall. Vast swathes of Scottish society that would normally be pigeonholed as Unionist (Rangers, fermers, the very well off, etc) have to be moving to Yes in completely unprecedented ways in that age cohort to get to that sort of number.

By the time you get to 16%, it's worth bearing in mind that only 82% identified as being Scottish whether alone or in combination with another national identity such as British in the last census back in 2011. To reach a number like that represents tectonic levels of change that moves beyond stereotypes that arise from attitudes that hold sway amongst the older generations at 35+.

What swung the last referendum was that the SNP could not outline a convincing road map of what would happen next on EU membership and national currency and were therefore asking for a huge leap of faith. Fast forward six years and the UK government can't provide a convincing way ahead on those sorts of issues either and is currently talking about breaking international law just to be able to maintain internal trading links with NI. If your Unionism revolves around 1801 as much as 1707 that is potentially mind blowing. That 84% 16-24 number is a massive sea change because the Yes side is widely believed to have actually lost the argument amongst that cohort last time around. Looks like there hasn't been much net movement amongst older voters who grew up pre-devolution and had their attitudes on identity politics shaped by an era in which there was no Holyrood. 40% previously looked like the approximate floor No could ever go to because after that you were starting to get into voters for whom independence was unthinkable no matter what, so numbers as low as 25 and 16% amongst the two youngest cohorts must be terrifying from a Westminster perspective.

Even though you support a club that were originally called Bainsford Britannia?

What's happening in Sweden shows it should be possible to get football back soon with no significant negative public health effects. The problem we have is that with a stricter lockdown back in April there are still sizable numbers of people who missed being exposed to the virus during the first wave, so when restrictions get eased again there was always going to be a bit of a dead cat bounce effect on new cases. That makes the optics of easing restrictions further difficult for the politicians until we have the second peak on the decline. It will be a while before anyone in authority wants to tell the punters that there was never likely to be a vaccine before we had all had the chance to play Russian roulette with COVID-19 given the initial very high R0 number and that with the benefit of hindsight the Swedish approach would probably have been the better way to go given the IFR turned out to be much lower than initially feared, so for now we still have to pretend that the lockdown made a huge difference and go through the motions on having some tighter restrictions reimposed. They play their games to power, and cut and mark the pack...

Thinking back to how my grandfather (born in the immediate aftermath of the reign of Queen Victoria in a miner's row in Bo'ness) reacted to finding out that the Village People were gay (how are they no in jail, whit are they daein on the telly etc), I always wonder what he would have made of the present day. Having no intention of being a latter day version of that close to half a century later this is something that clearly needs to be accomodated given the way society is headed on this issue before it gets turned into a cause celebre.

It might be 4 with Livingston United already having been announced? Syngenta are also likely to be viewed as every bit as unappealing as the three tribute acts as opponents, so the east region is clearly on its last legs south of Tayport with the emergence of the WoS. Once the rival east tier 6 feeder issue is put to rest hopefully there can be some joined up thinking on merging the SCC and SJC to form something bigger and better.