Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[stumigoo]

[Billy Jean King]

It's really not ' speculation' at all to claim that the SG will not reach its '1 million vaccinated by the end of January' target.
And no, it's actually not okay 'if it takes a bit longer'. 'It took a bit longer' to exit original lockdown because the government followed Sridhar and the gang in pursuing a ridiculous 'zero Covid' strategy. It then 'took a bit longer' than the two weeks announced as a 'circuit breaker' in October: indeed, large parts of central Scotland have been in one form of lockdown or another for nearly three months. If the government at UK and Scottish levels do not get their act together and start vaccinating in a prompt and efficient manner then it should be resignation material for them all round. 
Between now and then they must also enact consistent and credible policies which include shielding (if there's an end in sight then that applies above all to those who are high risk of hospitalisation), no half-arsed 'just another two weeks/secondary but not primary' approach to school closures and also binning 'elite sport' exemptions.

The UK would need to receive about 12 million doses before 31 January to give the SG any chance of meeting that target. Pfizer say 2m by 31 January and AZ say "several weeks" to get to their 1m a week target.

There is no way it can be reached but given the sort of numbers the UKG were tossing around early December it's not hard to see why the 1m by end January statement was made.

That said we should know better than to trust a single utterance from idiots like Johnson and HanCOCK

[D.A.F.C]

Ah the non vague stay at home and essential.

[Szamo's_Ammo]

11 minutes ago, stumigoo said:

What about the football though?

Lower leagues to be suspended has been rumoured.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, virginton said:

It's really not ' speculation' at all to claim that the SG will not reach its '1 million vaccinated by the end of January' target.

And no, it's actually not okay 'if it takes a bit longer'. 'It took a bit longer' to exit original lockdown because the government followed Sridhar and the gang in pursuing a ridiculous 'zero Covid' strategy. It then 'took a bit longer' than the two weeks announced as a 'circuit breaker' in October: indeed, large parts of central Scotland have been in one form of lockdown or another for nearly three months. If the government at UK and Scottish levels do not get their act together and start vaccinating in a prompt and efficient manner then it should be resignation material for them all round. 

Between now and then they must also enact consistent and credible policies which include shielding (if there's an end in sight then that applies above all to those who are high risk of hospitalisation), no half-arsed 'just another two weeks/secondary but not primary' approach to school closures and also binning 'elite sport' exemptions.

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

What about the football though?

Lower leagues to be suspended has been rumoured.

Head's gone would have to be re-instated.

[vikingTON]

18 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

The UK would need to receive about 12 million doses before 31 January to give the SG any chance of meeting that target. Pfizer say 2m by 31 January and AZ say "several weeks" to get to their 1m a week target.

There is no way it can be reached but given the sort of numbers the UKG were tossing around early December it's not hard to see why the 1m by end January statement was made.

That said we should know better than to trust a single utterance from idiots like Johnson and HanCOCK

I see it's everyone else's fault again apart from the SG minister who made the claim and can't deliver on it. How convenient!

[craigkillie]

47 minutes ago, virginton said:

It's really not ' speculation' at all to claim that the SG will not reach its '1 million vaccinated by the end of January' target.

And no, it's actually not okay 'if it takes a bit longer'. 'It took a bit longer' to exit original lockdown because the government followed Sridhar and the gang in pursuing a ridiculous 'zero Covid' strategy. It then 'took a bit longer' than the two weeks announced as a 'circuit breaker' in October: indeed, large parts of central Scotland have been in one form of lockdown or another for nearly three months. If the government at UK and Scottish levels do not get their act together and start vaccinating in a prompt and efficient manner then it should be resignation material for them all round.

This hits the nail on the head. The big problem with the "just a few more weeks" or "just another couple of months" patter, is that it has been "just another X" basically since about May. You can't keep producing these elastic deadlines and then be surprised when people get fed up.

There has been nowhere near enough acknowledgement from politicians of the emotional toll all this is taking on people. I'm not talking about the faux concern about suicide rates and mental health from the anti-lockdown loonies, but just generally the accumulation of wee things that have been missing for peoples lives for nearly a year at this stage. These things will be different for everyone. For me it's been mainly around having a baby - from me being unable to go to any scans right at the start, to being ushered out of the hospital about an hour after she was born and then only being able to visit for an hour when both she and my wife were at their most vulnerable, not being able to kiss her because I was wearing a mask. Every pre- and post-natal baby class has been cancelled or pushed to a substandard online thing, even though the main purpose of a lot of them is the social aspect. No chance for family to spend any sort of time with here, which also has the double whammy that we've then been more or less left alone to deal with  everything, unable to get support from family or even a couple of hours respite where they take her out in the pram or something like that.

Now I'm in a lucky position where I have a good, very flexible, job and a really understanding boss, and where I'm able to afford lots of the wee things that make this a tiny bit easier, and I also generally have good mental health, so I've been able to cope with all of that reasonably well. However, there are lots of parents out there who aren't as lucky, and who really need a bit of help, but they're not getting it. I don't think there has really been any specific message aimed at people in this position, it's all been take, take, take with not much give. That's just my personal circumstances too, there will be others who have had different, probably much worse, things going on in their lives which have not been properly addressed.

I like Sturgeon, I think that unlike many politicians she actually comes across like a real human being and I do get the sense that she does have a proper sense of compassion. However, aside from the "it makes me want to cry" type stuff, she hasn't actually done anything to encourage a public conversation about the restrictions, about where the balance in personal freedoms v public health concerns lies, or about how the Scottish government actually plans to bring us back to normality in the longer term. People getting on board with short-term restrictions is totally different to long-term ones, and that hasn't been really explored at all. What if there was another pandemic and we didn't find a vaccine for five years, or ever, would there ever be a point where they have to go "OK, there is still a risk attached to this disease, but we can't simply hide away from it forever". Lots of things that we do in our "normal" lives have a risk attached, but society has determined that the benefit outweighs the risk.

 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

People will ignore a 'stay at home' message. There's just no way that you'll get people going back to the days of sitting inside for months on end with one walk per day or whatever. 

f**k knows what we'll do if this vaccine resistant strain in South Africa makes a surge for world domination. 

 

 

[doulikefish]

1 minute ago, Bob Mahelp said:

 

f**k knows what we'll do if this vaccine resistant strain in South Africa makes a surge for world domination. 

 

 

Complain about schools being open/ closed 

[Thereisalight..]

30 minutes ago, stumigoo said:

I take it the big bad super spreaders - gyms, hair salons and nail bars will remain closed as well?

[Archie McSquackle]

15 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

The UK would need to receive about 12 million doses before 31 January to give the SG any chance of meeting that target. Pfizer say 2m by 31 January and AZ say "several weeks" to get to their 1m a week target.

There is no way it can be reached but given the sort of numbers the UKG were tossing around early December it's not hard to see why the 1m by end January statement was made.

That said we should know better than to trust a single utterance from idiots like Johnson and HanCOCK

I know everyone likes a bit of "insider chat" so "the science people" I know said that AZ had already sent a good few batches (12 or 13) through the necessary checking procedures before approval of their virus with each of these batches roughly containing a million doses. Allowing for some of these batches being spoiled, there should still have been 8 or 9 million sitting ready to go. So although AZ have said it will take "several weeks" to get to targeted production, they should have enough stocks to take up the slack.

They outsource production and it then goes in bulk to Wrexham (Wockhardt) who package it into individual doses for distribution. Supposedly they've got another 'fill' towards the end of this week and another at the beginning of next week although of these may not be a million doses if the particular manufacturing plant isn't set up for those volumes.

So it does sound as though AZ are on track for producing the volumes discussed in the very near future and they're also setting up other plants to change production both here and abroad.

[paul-r-cfc]

Our head teacher has told us we're expected in school tomorrow for a "planning day". Fairly sure that could be done from home.

[ICTChris]

2 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Now I'm in a lucky position where I have a good, very flexible, job and a really understanding boss, and where I'm able to afford lots of the wee things that make this a tiny bit easier, and I also generally have good mental health, so I've been able to cope with all of that reasonably well. However, there are lots of parents out there who aren't as lucky, and who really need a bit of help, but they're not getting it. I don't think there has really been any specific message aimed at people in this position, it's all been take, take, take with not much give. That's just my personal circumstances too, there will be others who have had different, probably much worse, things going on in their lives which have not been properly addressed.

I've seen a few people talking about the issue of support bubbles for single people.  During the initial lockdown, going by the regulations, people living alone weren't allowed to mix with others, you couldn't even meet up with a friend in the park and go for a walk.  That lasted several months, which must have been exceptionally hard.  The impression given by a few people was that it seemed like people living alone were forgotten about in the rush to get rules in place.  I'm sure there's plenty other examples as well.

I have a friend who is a single mother with a child similar age to me and having to work from home with no nursery absolutely killed her.  It's almost impossible.  We have a friend who has a one year old with her partner, who also has a child in England.  He went down to see his other child a few weeks ago and she had to work from home with no childcare - we went and helped her out one day by taking the kids out for a walk for a few hours but it's so difficult.  Essentially you don't do your job or you don't properly look after your kid.  There were pretty specific circumstances around that but I doubt they are particularly unique.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

It's just astounding to me that island nations like the UK and Ireland, which have a built-in advantage in that it should be very difficult to travel there and import the virus into them, have made such a colossal mess of this in the last few months.
There's no way we can bring cases down without closing both schools and workplaces to the same extent that we did in March. The reason the lockdowns are providing diminishing returns is that every c**t is back at work and while coronavirus may not affect bairns as much, they can still carry and transmit it. While it's so rampant, this is certainly having an effect.
March-style lockdown is the only thing that kills this, coupled with extensive furlough measures and a proper quarantine process for international arrivals. UK and Ireland need to work together on this because of the CTA. You fly into either country, you spend the next two weeks at a hotel unless you return multiple negative PCR tests.
It seems that we haven't hit the acceptable number of deaths yet to prioritise people over capital.

There’s the point. We dealt with the first wave quite effectively, without mandatory masks and with a shortage of soap and sanitizer! England were criticised by their own scientists for opening up to early and had they stayed on the same path as us they would have it all but eliminated too. Now I appreciate that our lack of experience would have had many, including myself , screaming oh come on tae f**k 3 cases and were still in lockdown ffs! But never mind we are not in charge.
One big lesson, travel corridors and self isolaton is a waste pf time, you can’t measure covid spread in real time . By the time spain reported enough cases to go on the naughty list , that info was already 7-14 days out of date. Everything with covid is shutting the door after the horse has went.
It’s nice to get away to the sun / countryside but we fucked it right up like the spoilt first world waens we are ( that includes those in charge) i said already on this thread had you offered anyone in Europe the New Zealand style full normality but with zero foreign travel , they would bite your hand off. Now we can do neither. Were aw tired and crabbit. Some of us will soon be unemployed, perhaps for along time, and many thousands are dead .

[super_carson]

Our head teacher has told us we're expected in school tomorrow for a "planning day". Fairly sure that could be done from home.

Our head has told us to work from home this week, and probably expects those with valid reason to (or those who make a big enough song and dance) to do so for the duration of the closure.

I’ll probably be in to cover key worker kids.

[paul-r-cfc]

Our head has told us to work from home this week, and probably expects those with valid reason to (or those who make a big enough song and dance) to do so for the duration of the closure.

I’ll probably be in to cover key worker kids.

I'd generally be happy to go in but I live 90 minutes away from my school and stay down there during the week so if I am not needed, I would really rather not go in.

[Big Fifer]

5 minutes ago, paul-r-cfc said:

Our head teacher has told us we're expected in school tomorrow for a "planning day". Fairly sure that could be done from home.

That planning day should be rescheduled for the day before the sprogs come back, which now we've seen the schools are shut till February at least, will likely be mid March.

[strichener]

9 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

have a friend who is a single mother with a child similar age to me and

I alway had you down for an immature adult rather than a child. 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Just don't mention how many Palestinians are getting a vaccine

When you see the media writing ‘getting the vaccine to rural remote areas’ re Israel read ‘getting the vaccine to land stolen from Palestinian people’.