Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[D.A.F.C]

Mind when everyone laughed and said calm down when the pubs were rammed the night before lockdown.

Those experts aye

[vikingTON]

4 minutes ago, Michael W said:

They are genuinely acting like the vaccines are either useless, or don't exist. 

It is incredible that we are at this stage when we have a bloody vaccine and therefore an exit strategy and yet the way they talk about it this is that it's worse than it ever was. The end should be in sight. 

Slight but important correction: we have several vaccines already and more on the go all the time, using different technologies that are now easily adjustable for future risks. Even the much-derided Russians have delivered an effective vaccine. 

If there was one vaccine that everyone was relying on right now then some caution would be reasonable. Instead we have literally one of the greatest successes in the history of medicine, yet that's not good enough for genuine psychos advising the Government. 

[vikingTON]

2 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

Mind when everyone laughed and said calm down when the pubs were rammed the night before lockdown.

Those experts aye

Mind when Scotland's National Clinical Director gave the green light for an Old Firm game with 60,000 fans to go ahead two days later, and said that mask-wearing would not take root because we didn't have the required 'Asian cultural norms'? 

Get back in your box. 

[AllSaint]

1 minute ago, Marshmallo said:

Weird.

For me, restrictions should be lifted fairly quickly once ICU and ward admissions are at level that is deemed manageable. Given that vaccines are being given out at a phenomenal rate it seems entirely justified that once they are lifted they should stay lifted. 
 

None of that detracts from the point that this website (or at the very least the posters who shout the loudest) isn’t a fair reflection on how the majority of the country see the way forward. 

[101]

19 minutes ago, virginton said:

Well no because if you had actually read the summary, you'd note that they were further 'divided into small(!) groups' for focused discussion. They could have therefore set up hundreds of these small groups to achieve their goal of in-depth debate, while collecting their deliberations to achieve a more broadly representative sample. Instead they went for a smaller and more garbled set of responses than you'd get from the breakout rooms of an average college class right now. 

I assume the chair decided that this was the best approach how could 7 MSPs sit in and listen to the discussions of hundreds of small groups. If I'm honest I don't think this parlimentary committee will have very much power or suggest anything particularly earth shattering as proper opinion polling (1000+ participants) has the current strategy at something like 75% approval.

I'm honestly not sure the worth in a public group looking at suppression strategy they should now be dealing with a group of health experts but primarily economists & similar academics looking at the route out.

27 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

It would appear that 19 people have been lectured to by some heavily selected experts then at the end of it asked some pointed questions about what government strategy should be.

It is being reported this morning as some sort of public opinion on the matter.

I've not seen the press reports but it seems unbelievable it's phrased it that way, it's not the parliaments job to decide Government strategy.

Tbh the pool of experts in Scotland that would suggest different approaches would probably be quite small you only have to look at the membership of the CMOs committee to realise it represents most of the key academic bodies.

[Bairnardo]

In the end of the day, the non couch dwelling Helen Lovejoy portion of the Scottish public who would like to see life returned to normal are currently reliant on effective industry and economists lobbying of both (mainly) UK and Scotgov, and media pressure. 

It really doesnt matter what these wee parochial groups of knicker wetters say, other than serving to remind us how compliant a population we have and how calls for civil unrest over any thing from Brexit to Indy to withdrawal of workers rights or use of emergency powers beyond their scope will always be totally fruitless. 

[Todd_is_God]

16 minutes ago, AllSaint said:

None of that detracts from the point that this website (or at the very least the posters who shout the loudest) isn’t a fair reflection on how the majority of the country see the way forward. 

You've been here an hour (). Unless you are Johnny 5, how would you know?

Edited February 18, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[MrWorldwideJr]

34 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

What do the experts know, they spent years studying it whereas I've goggled it five minutes ago.

One thing that you seem to be missing is that there is no single path out of this lockdown which can be categorised as the view of 'the experts' or as 'THE SCIENCE'. 

This is a really complex situation and we don't really have a playbook for it - we saw that last spring when public health experts said things which proved with hindsight to be incorrect - thats not me saying we shouldn't listen to experts but its pointing out that in a novel situation where we're learning as we go not everything that every expert says can be corrrect. The complexity of the situation means that there is a pretty wide range of opinion from different experts on how exactly we proceed. Obviously there are things they will agree on like that we don't open everything up tomorrow and hope for best but its overly simplistic to take one expert's view and then say that anyone who disagrees with it in any way is ignoring the experts.

That's not me saying that I know better than Devi Sridhar or that I could do a better job at advising the government or that we should ignore what experts are saying. But what it does mean is that things are a bit more complex than seeing people who disagree with a 'Zero Covid' strategy and saying 'you're ignoring the experts, you don't care about the science' because there is no one path which all of 'the experts' agree we should follow next. There are plenty of people far more qualified than you or me who don't agree that 'Zero Covid' is the correct strategy either.

[AllSaint]

5 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

You've been here an hour (). Unless you are Johnny 5, how would you know?

You don’t have to be an active poster to read this thread. 

[Alert Mongoose]

It should also be taken into consideration that ‘business leaders’ are not advocating reopening as a means to maintaining employment.  It’s mostly about the bottom line profit.  Not to say they shouldn’t be heard and it would be sensible to have input from all sectors.  Question for the ones asking for an adult conversation - how do you actually go about facilitating this? I’m not having a go just confused how that could ever work.

[vikingTON]

18 minutes ago, 101 said:

I assume the chair decided that this was the best approach how could 7 MSPs sit in and listen to the discussions of hundreds of small groups. 

What is the benefit of having MSPs literally joining every small group for a listening exercise? You could just record the discussions and allow MSPs to have (time-limited) access to however many group discussions that they wanted, in addition to getting their actual views on the issue.

This is absolutely tinpot, small-time stuff for a 21st century democracy.

[Steven W]

Missed much of this this morning.

See this group of 19 that have been asked about Scotland's strategy - When were they asked? Cause surely the horse has already bolted on adopting NZ style approach (1100 new cases yesterday). 

Even if we are to adopt a NZ style strategy, dunno how we'll get there - you'd never know we're in'Lockdown' going by the traffic volumes

 

[ICTChris]

1 minute ago, Alert Mongoose said:

It should also be taken into consideration that ‘business leaders’ are not advocating reopening as a means to maintaining employment.  It’s mostly about the bottom line profit.  Not to say they shouldn’t be heard and it would be sensible to have input from all sectors.  Question for the ones asking for an adult conversation - how do you actually go about facilitating this? I’m not having a go just confused how that could ever work.

Businesses making profits maintains employment.

[Alert Mongoose]

1 minute ago, ICTChris said:

Businesses making profits maintains employment.

^  ^  ^
Never been part of a ‘restructure’

[Left Back]

13 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Missed much of this this morning.

See this group of 19 that have been asked about Scotland's strategy - When were they asked? Cause surely the horse has already bolted on adopting NZ style approach (1100 new cases yesterday). 

Even if we are to adopt a NZ style strategy, dunno how we'll get there - you'd never know we're in'Lockdown' going by the traffic volumes

 

Happened during January this year.

[101]

12 minutes ago, virginton said:

What is the benefit of having MSPs literally joining every small group for a listening exercise? You could just record the discussions and allow MSPs to have (time-limited) access to however many group discussions that they wanted, in addition to getting their actual views on the issue.

This is absolutely tinpot, small-time stuff for a 21st century democracy.

To listen and dig into an idea brought up in the discussion it's their session it would seem odd to just have some members public in a room with a member of parliament staff and no elected representatives digging into detail.

I agree I would like to see a secondary chamber made up of members of the public but in terms of bringing our democracy into the 21st century let's see how the citizens assembly do in 10 years certainly work to do any you would hope an independent state would have a root and branch review of its operations and how knows maybe that would come sooner if the inquiry into the handling of the pandemic highlights it as a risk.

Or maybe just have Jackie Bailey as a kind of oracle as she saw the pandemic before everyone 

[Detournement]

15 minutes ago, Steven W said:

 

dunno how we'll get there - you'd never know we're in'Lockdown' going by the traffic volumes

 

Exactly. Everyone who does essential work or a job which generates real value for the economy still has to go to work. 

All the important parts of the economy have either been continually open or only shut down during spring 2020. There is no economic imperative to reopen pubs or nail bars or gyms. 

 

[ayrmad]

1 hour ago, Jacksgranda said:

I made the point about parents congregating at the school gates months ago on here and was ridiculed for it.

Not by me. 

[Todd_is_God]

 

[super_carson]

I saw Leitch's comments on BBC here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-56110282

To be fair, he seems to be somewhat realistic about the cost of any such policy and compromises we might have to make.  The debate is whether or not that is a policy worth following, and that should be left open to the public to decide.  

It is interesting to note, however, at the bottom of the article comments from another Doctor from Edinburgh Uni who is talking about living with the virus and the vaccination programme.  I'm not sure if it's wishful thinking but I do seem to notice more of these types of comment getting traction in the media.  

I actually wouldn't be as annoyed if NS/SG were to say these restrictions may be needed depending on the vaccination programme and are a pragmatic contingency plan and not plan A.   At least that would be an acknowledgment there is a near-future with significantly less restrictions (ideally none) if things work as hoped instead of this "abandon all hope, ye who enter here" messaging.