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The closest we'll get to Tsunami will be a Manic Street Preachers CD.

Nice wee bit of emotional blackmail there about not being boosted.

Or can prove a negative LFT

To me learning to live with Covid involves making personal choices based on personal circumstances and individual attitude to risk not the First Minister instructing the whole country on what they can and cannot do. Allowing people to think for themselves is obviously not high on her agenda.

The point re 200 in the arena and no restrictions on the shopping centre is a perfect example of the lunacy surrounding this latest round of protections. In theory everyone with a ticket could meet in the food court but only the chosen 200 would be able to go through to the arena, makes nonsense at all.

That was my view of it, Ramsay stood his ground and like you say Cavani ran into him. In rugby union you get to hear the discussion between the TMO and ref maybe something for football to consider.

Maybe she'll come out and say she's going straight to full capacity for sports and licenced premises and shutting garden centres, shopping malls and bingo halls just to mix things up a bit.

Encouraging people not to test without good reason would be a good starting point. Sticking a swab up your nose because the day of the week ends in a Y should not be starting point for our testing regime.

After seeing an advert on TV the other night I went online for a quote for private health insurance for 2 adults. It came back at £176. I have never looked for prices before so have no idea how this compares, however on the point re taxes would people rather pay that for their family to be covered or pay the same in extra tax on top of what they already pay for an improved NHS?

My opinion is based on almost two years of having additional restrictions than England, having restictions for longer periods of time than England, of the FM saying she is not being political and then making an overtly political point, repeated comments by the FM that she makes no apologies for restrictions, of veiled digs that she would do more if she could, repeated comments along the lines of we "just don't know" when erring on the side of caution. Ultimately she will do anything she can to out care the Tories which the vast majority of her supporters just lap up rather than acting for the overall benefit of the country.

They certainly make poor decisions and plenty of them. Do you consider the 500 limit at outdoor sporting events to be necessary or propotionate in light of England having lower case numbers per 100,00 and no crowd limits on "superspreader" events?

For the same reason they effectively shut down football, because they can. I'd be delighted if they do away with restrictions on crowds and the licenced trade but on past experience I chose to answer the guys question as I did. Shutting football down to teach a lesson on keeping your distance wasn't really that scientific or evidence based was it?

Hope so but I have my doubts. The FM's rant about the suggestion in a newspaper article that free LFT's be withdrawn allied to the widely reported comments by Mr Yousaf that they do not intend to reduce self isolation makes me think they are intending to dig in and try and make a further point about how much more they care.

That's good to hear if your local MSP is engaging. I contacted ours a couple of times last year and it was party line central, every response could have come straight from a government press release. When he told me that fast food outlets were more important to keep open than gyms and sports centres I decided to stop wasting my time.

From what I could hear there wasn't really much chat between the officals about the colour of the card.

Still waiting on your definition of a moonhowler from last night, a few ^^^ didn't really make much sense. Something other than a gif, some smart comment or keyboard graphics would be nice. For what its worth my opinion is that the current restictions are neither necessary nor proportionate and that they have been deeply flawed and of little value throughout other than being a vehicle for Nicola Sturgeon to try and appear more "caring". In my humble opinion her opinion poll ratings should not have been the litmus test for closing whole sectors of society. Time after time the SG has taken the easy option and gone for the same soft targets.

In your opinion what characteristics qualify as a moonhowler? To me a moonhowler re Covid would be someone with a totally irrational, groundless fear of a virus which in reality is now no worse than the cold.

We were £17.50 each for commercial tests for travel requirements. $15 for a box of 7 tests would be approx £1.75 per test so not prohibitively expensive of anyone still feels the need to self test.

Does anyone know what a box of LFTs would cost to buy? It would be interesting to see if all of the oh so worried brigade make the effort to self fund their obsession.

Maybe some of those who see this thread as an echo chamber could offer an opinion on how well or otherwise they consider the Scottish Government have handled the pandemic. In particular I would be interested to hear if they think that the First Minister has been honest and truthful in all of her dealings with the Scottish public since March 2020? Have the additional layers of protection imposed on Scotland made any significant difference to case numbers as compared to England? Have the protections made sense or even been necessary or propotionate? For example did it make sense to close pubs but still allow offsales to continue? Have certain business sectors been repeatedly subject of extra protections because they are easy targets whilst more difficult to deal with but much higher risk sectors been largely ignored? Is the pandemic being used as a cover for years of under investment in the NHS?

This is a farce, in my previous job I had to collate weekly stats for submission to SG from teams across Scotland. All offices had to provide exactly the same data to exactly the same definition, it wasn't really that complex to organise. They are either hiding something or utterly abysmal at their jobs.

Surely trust in anything Covid related that we are told by the Scottish Government evaporated a long time ago. I'm currently at the stage where if the First Minister appeared on tv and said that it was Friday I would want to go and double check.

As we hopefully return to more normal times was anyone on here ever contacted as a result to scanning QR code or leaving contact details in a pub, cafe etc?

According to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social we are just entering the peak. More scaremongering or does he look at different figures from rest of us? In good news the SG have agreed to do away with preflight testing etc in the same way as announced elsewhere earlier in the week.

I am only wearing a mask in the shops, bars etc so as not to potentially create a problem for the staff. Never wore one outside or more bizarrely in the car and as soon as they are removed as a protection I will not be wearing one.