Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Todd_is_God]

3 minutes ago, Paco said:

Yeah, it’s hard not to see this as utterly pointless while England’s airports are essentially as open as they’ve ever been. There will be a handful of people entering hotel quarantine down South in the next few weeks, as anyone truly needing to make the journey will simply fly around it via Doha/Amsterdam/Dublin (and most destinations on the red list don’t even currently have direct flights either).

Scotland’s won’t be vastly different. Again, anyone who really needs to make the journey will simply fly to England. And why wouldn’t you?

I can vaguely understand a short-term Scottish policy difference in an attempt to influence the UK Government into doing what they’d like to see UK-wide. In the long run, it’s utterly pointless.

It really does come across as being different for the sake of it on this occasion. A "caring more" display in the run up to the election.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Elixir said:

What is it with the lack of clarity surrounding comments like this? Talk of 'hopefully able to do things like last summer' is a tragedy, but then does vaccination rates of '70-80%' mean all restrictions are in the bin, even through winter?

It does say "fully lifted"

[Elixir]

3 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

It does say "fully lifted"

Here's hoping the bonfire builders might show us the way, then!

[D.A.F.C]

29 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

Does she know that she's looking at 10 years and a 10k fine ??

She was on bbc news

[madwullie]

51 minutes ago, Hedgecutter said:

My dad who's in Oz just found out his dad / my grandad over here has died (at our time this morning) and will wake up in a few hours to find out he'll need to spend £1750 to stay in a hotel for 10 days should he have any aspirations of getting across for the funeral, whenever that might be.  Talk about kicking a man when he's down

That's shit mate. Sorry to read that

[Jacksgranda]

My wife's just got her first jag (AZ), she'll get a phone call in April for the second one. 300 booked in at the practice this afternoon, think that's quite impressive, imo.

No word when myself and our daughter get ours "just have to wait for the appointment" according to the nurse. Still, that's 16% of the household vaccinations done.

[Elixir]

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

Wait what. He's being nostradmus? Oh no he's not. I mean, Hats off to the guy, but he's not predicting the future, he's suggesting how people could behave, how he would like things to go. 

Prescient suggests *will* happen, not could, should, may or would be nice to. 

Thanks for your input tho  

As you clearly don't get it - he's basically saying, it would be nice if people stopped behaving like that, in order for us to reach a more sensible future. Your "shit posting" being exactly the kind of shit he's talking about. 

So that's like, your opinion, man.

[madwullie]

32 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

Been on and off the phone for weeks to Business Gateway who have been saying that there's a 'mobile close contact services' relief fund coming for several months.

My partner has been a self-employed hairdresser since late August 2020 and due to having no-business premises, has not (until now) qualified for any sort of relief so been living off of the little money she's managed to stash in the couple of months before December to pay mortgage, bills, etc.

We were told though that newly self-employed hairdressers, nail workers etc working from home would be eligible for a 'forced to close relief fund' and was advised by Business Gateway to email a local MSP (In my case, Tom Arthur) to request an update on when this would be available.

I received a call about an hour ago from a case worker out of Tom Arthur's office who was letting me know that the relief was now about to go live and that for not being able to work, my partner would be eligible for up to £4000 as a one-time grant and she was sending me the details.

As soon as I clicked the link, eligibility criteria was below:

 

I explain that my partner is NEWLY self-employed (ie, 7 months - no set of accounts yet published) so is not eligible and get told 'oh, there's a newly self employed relief fund' so have a look at that.

 

Laughable stuff. Honestly.

So basically my partner is up shit creek without a paddle for having the gall to leave a failing business and go out on her own last year. I express this to the case worker who replies that 'Yes, it's disappointing'. Is it? Is it fucking disappointing?! I explain that it's not 'disappointing', it's completely infuriating and leaves my partner (who is already as fucking down as I've ever seen her) wondering when she'll ever catch any sort of a break here. It's massively frustrating that despite seemingly every other business in her sector having money thrown at them to keep themselves afloat, hers is disregarded as a fully registered and completely above board, but ultimately new business.

So it makes me question why my partner should be considered important enough and high risk enough to be forced into closure, but not important enough to be subsidised for her sacrifice? I'm quite sure if she started to trade on the downlow, she'd be as subject to the laws as any other business. 

I can't get my head around it. We've been told and assured for the last 3 months to hold off as this grant was coming. We were also told that they were aware newly self employed people were slipping the net and something would be set up to help them out, that help would definitely be coming her way. 

We're completely gutted at this. It's as close as I've come to being broken by the entire thing.

 

It is completely out of order mate. If a business is forced to close for any reason based on govt legislation they should be reimbursed no question asked. That any business at all should lose out through absolutely no fault of their own is completely unacceptable. 

She might as well phone up clients and batter round houses doing homers tbh if she's not being supported. 

[madwullie]

Just now, Elixir said:

So that's like, your opinion, man.

No mate. Its what the word means.

[Todd_is_God]

We just don't know if they work, though

[djchapsticks]

2 minutes ago, madwullie said:

It is completely out of order mate. If a business is forced to close for any reason based on govt legislation they should be reimbursed no question asked. That any business at all should lose out through absolutely no fault of their own is completely unacceptable. 

She might as well phone up clients and batter round houses doing homers tbh if she's not being supported. 

It has been spoken about.

The consensus we've both came to is that when the first set of restrictions are lifted, whatever or whenever they are (probably some sort of lift at start of March), she may go back to trading whether hairdressing is on that list or not. 

At that point it will have been 2 weeks she's been allowed to work in the previous 13. If she's not being subsidised, that's enough. She can't even apply for universal credit because I work.

[Ned Nederlander]

So has the Vaccination Cup been cancelled?

It's went from wall-to-wall coverage to diddly squat!!

Has something happened?

[101]

Still busy at the vaccine center at Halbeath about 20 cars outside, no idea how many folk they can do at once but seems to be moving along despite the weather.

[Elixir]

1 hour ago, madwullie said:

Maybe something to do with the tweaked vaccines being ready in autumn? I dunno.

I asked a similar question on twitter (why the need for zero covid if we're all jagged) and all the replies (from actual educated people and not shit posting no-marks) gave me nothing new. 

Hardly surprising that your beige musings would be ignored, tbf.

[Billy Jean King]

I think the biggest frustration / anger comes from the fact that it comes across that unelected advisors are dictating, rather than advising on, policy.
Devi Sridhar, for example, is perfectly entitled to whatever opinion she holds. But NS doesn't need to do exactly as she says.
You would hope that, after NS placed all her faith in her last year, yet it ultimately made no difference, that she may question her advice this time around, but it comes across that ministers on both sides of the border are reluctant to go against any cautious advice, in case the predictions of doom come true.

That's just an opinion passed on as fact though. No one on here knows how much influence any advisor has on Govt policy. It's just speculation.

[Shandon Par]

This just popped up on my MyBuilder app...

 

[s_dog]

1 hour ago, Hedgecutter said:

My dad who's in Oz just found out his dad / my grandad over here has died (at our time this morning) and will wake up in a few hours to find out he'll need to spend £1750 to stay in a hotel for 10 days should he have any aspirations of getting across for the funeral, whenever that might be.  Talk about kicking a man when he's down

Considering there's a cap on the numbers of people travelling back into Australia, and quarantine there too, that seems like a nightmare. Does that potentially mean he'd have to quarantine here, and then quarantine when he returns to Australia (if he can get back)? 

[Skyline Drifter]

10 minutes ago, madwullie said:

It is completely out of order mate. If a business is forced to close for any reason based on govt legislation they should be reimbursed no question asked. That any business at all should lose out through absolutely no fault of their own is completely unacceptable. 

She might as well phone up clients and batter round houses doing homers tbh if she's not being supported. 

I set up as a hairdresser in December and haven't been able to cut a single head of hair yet due to the pandemic. Can I have £4,000 please?

 

 

Note - I didn't set up as a hairdresser, I don't know a styling mousse from a hairdryer and I've got no intention of ever cutting any hair but you want any Tom, Dick and Harry who says they were trading or intending to trade for a short period since to get a grant "no questions asked"? That's even more ridiculous. The Govt has a real problem with the recently self employed who are either unable to prove it or, at least, unable to justify their losses. There are a lot of things they can be doing better to help those people no doubt but one of them is absolutely NOT giving people grants with "no questions asked".

[Todd_is_God]

4 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

I think the biggest frustration / anger comes from the fact that it comes across that unelected advisors are dictating, rather than advising on, policy.
Devi Sridhar, for example, is perfectly entitled to whatever opinion she holds. But NS doesn't need to do exactly as she says.
You would hope that, after NS placed all her faith in her last year, yet it ultimately made no difference, that she may question her advice this time around, but it comes across that ministers on both sides of the border are reluctant to go against any cautious advice, in case the predictions of doom come true.

That's just an opinion passed on as fact though. No one on here knows how much influence any advisor has on Govt policy. It's just speculation.

Maybe. But NS has said on many occasions she listens "very closely" to DS, which suggests that she has a fair amount of influence.

[Billy Jean King]

Fly into an English airport. That's how pointless this sabre rattling PR exercise is.

Just been on the news. Any passenger arriving in England with a passenger locator form giving an address in Scotland will be taken to hotel quarantine at point if entry in England regardless of their departure airport. 10k fine and / or imprisonment for falsifying a PLF declaration.