Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Elixir]

Quote

Posted at 10:1310:13

One in three adults have been vaccinated - Hancock

Hancock also tells Marr that hospital admissions are falling "much more sharply than they were in the first wave... but clearly the level is far too high".

So basically the extent of the super dooper extra infectious talk was largely hyperbolic to scare the public some more, given that restrictions aren't as strict as last spring and SAGE were indicating this likely wouldn't get R below 1, which has easily happened with cases plummeting nationwide.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

12 minutes ago, 101 said:

We have 30 million on order not sure when they "come on stream" though. Tbh if it's July before they are here might be better diverting them to another country as I'm not sure you could have a AZ Vax followed by one that's a single dose.

Do agree if this happens after July then a single dose vaccine would be best served being donated to a developing country as the logistics of rolling it out would make it much easier than other vaccines. However if its say available in April then get it fired into every c**t still waiting. 

[Billy Jean King]

Sorry to interrupt your smugfest but the holiday was booked in December 2019 before anyone had heard of covid as we are going away for my old dear’s 60th and it took a bit of planning. If they are cancelling holidays then so be it, but its getting to the point where they need to actually commit, is the travel ban going to unreasonably go for the rest of 2021 or is it not? Its unfair to people in similar situations and indeed those who rely on the travel and tourism sector for their employment.  
Clownshoes and Nicola can wag the finger and ‘advise against booking’ but until they act like a government and actually commit to a position fully then they look weak and out of control. Its unfair to make half hearted industry destroying statements but they should own their decisions and the financial repercussions. 

I would suggest don't book a summer foreign holiday means they won't be happening. I too have 3 booking made long ago but I pretty much have written the July one off (October and December other 2). I'm not happy about it either but I don't see as it stands how anyone can be even slightly confident of a foreign holiday before the Autumn with the current messaging. Yes it's shit but it seems pretty clear to me.

[Billy Jean King]

You're replying to someone who had a holiday in Turkey last summer lol

Keep up it was Autumn actually as did plenty others on here and I have 3 more bookings for this year. All perfectly legal so not sure what point your trying to make. It's shit I agree what more can you say.

[Gaz]

3 hours ago, 101 said:

Not if we don't renew trident. I genuinely can't believe it appears we are going to renew it without any second thought. We could also sell the House of Commons, after the pandemic is over we can't just go for austerity again well if that's their plan I hope Scotland can disappear into the sunset leaving them far behind.

This country is utterly obsessed with pretending we are still a global military power. There's absolutely no way Trident won't be renewed.

[coprolite]

1 minute ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

But where do we get the idea this has to be paid back...or not? It sounds to me like extending your overdraft, at some point you need to get it down again.

I think that idea comes from "free market" Tories with a victorian-era fetish who want to shrink the state and especially the state's spending on poor people.

They are aided by a complicit media staffed by careerist morons who regurgitate briefings as news. 

The 3/4 never really needs to be paid back. For a household analogy, it's like having a money printer that you own and you just keep a tab as to how much you "owe" it. It's an accounting fiction with no basis in reality. 

The 1/4 that is funded by outside lenders that could need paid back. But an overdraft isn't a good analogy because they're usually high interest. 

Most gilts at the moment have negative real interest rates so the government is getting paid to borrow. There is a risk that when those need refinanced that rates will be higher, so they shouldn't just borrow un needed amounts. 

Imagine your overdraft had an interest rate of 2% and you only ever dipped into it to pay for courses that would increase your wages by 5% at a time. 

Even if you never paid it back it would be worth borrowing. Your debt and interest would go up but as a percentage of earnings it would decrease. 

Even if your consumption increases in line with your earnings so you never have spare cash, you can increase your overdraft to increase your income. 

And if the bank decides they do want their money, you can always print some for them. 

So there's a large chunk that's not really borrowing at all and a large chunk that  will always be manageable and repayable if really necessary. 

[vikingTON]

19 minutes ago, madwullie said:

It's not comparing like for like.

Noone said anything about can't possibly know. Not being 100% certain is different from being unable to know. 

Since when was 100% certainty the minimum benchmark for ending government intervention and restrictions on liberties? 

Meanwhile, back in the land of reality, we can see the vaccine absolutely crushing the virus among vaccinated groups elsewhere in the world right now, as well as over 200 years of vaccines repeatedly crushing and ending epidemics among treated populations. 

That is an absolutely decisive basis on which we should act. 

[Sergeant Wilson]

@coprolite and @PWL thanks, I think I get it.

[Jamie_B]

Just to go back to the dates/doses thing from the previous page. July 31 is the date now being touted for all adults to have one dose.

That is exactly 160 days from now.

There are approximately 4.5 million adults in Scotland. Approximately 1.4m have had their first dose, meaning approximately 3.1m left to do. That works out at less than 20,000 first doses a day to make that target. And that’s assuming 100% uptake.

Obviously there are second doses to be done as well - but even if you aimed to have very adult to have had two doses by then it works out at about 44,000 a day. Presumably the actual programme would run in such a way that you’d hit the first doses across the whole population quite a bit earlier then vary the number of second doses being given every day so that people are getting them at the correct interval.

But even at the rates and supply we’re working at just now July 31 for everyone to have a single dose is not an ambitious target in the least.

[Elixir]

3 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

Of course it’s about risk mitigation. But the greatest mitigation’s depend upon a critical proportion of the population actually getting vaccinated. Those who refuse to have it when it’s available without proper medical justification for not having it are the scum of the Earth because from that point onwards every single human interaction they have poses a greater than necessary risk of infecting and making ill someone else.

They should be socially shunned and that includes refusing to participate in public gatherings with them. Football clubs, Sainsbury’s, GP surgeries etc should be turning away people who have declined a Covid vaccine against health advice.

 

3 hours ago, Ad Lib said:

People who express concerns should also be shunned as they are part of the problem too.

The deliberately and unreasonably unvaccinated should be beaten with 8ft sticks, not sympathised with or white knighted. That sort of behaviour does more to legitimise them than their precious bodily autonomy being violated by a jab.

We should deprive those “concerned about the precedent” of half their weekly supermarket shop’s worth of food until they repent and also pick up an 8ft stick and start beating the nearest anti-vaxer.

It’s far more dangerous for us to be staying indefinitely in emergency powers once everyone is able to get a vaccine. That’s been precisely my point. All policy should be directed by that point not to “the lifting of restrictions” but to the ostracisation or abolition of those who stand in the way of herd immunity.

 

Anti-vaxxers are essentially scum, but the simple fact is we are going to reach such a high degree of vaccine coverage in the UK, combined with the estimated ~33% of people exposed and recovered through natural infection, that there is no need to mandate anything. Even without a vaccine, the epidemic would eventually wane, it would just take longer and be a more painful process.

The scientific consensus is quite clear that SARS-CoV-2 will eventually be de-risked to the level of the more then 200 respiratory viruses which circulate in humans, which we control due to vaccination and/or acquired immunity. Your clear advocacy to generate a 'your papers, please' dystopian society is ultimately going to be pointless as levels of hospitalisation and death return to normal levels.

[madwullie]

11 minutes ago, virginton said:

Since when was 100% certainty the minimum benchmark for ending government intervention and restrictions on liberties? 

Meanwhile, back in the land of reality, we can see the vaccine absolutely crushing the virus among vaccinated groups elsewhere in the world right now, as well as over 200 years of vaccines repeatedly crushing and ending epidemics among treated populations. 

That is an absolutely decisive basis on which we should act. 

Sadly I think the govt(s) are pretty stuck on the idea of using the data from our vaccine program, hospitals and test centres to determine whether or not they'll lift certain restrictions, rather than the data from another country 3500 miles away with different demographics and a different vaccine program. 

[Elixir]

39 minutes ago, madwullie said:

It's not comparing like for like.

Noone said anything about can't possibly know. Not being 100% certain is different from being unable to know. 

Since when was anything in life '100% certain'? Not least medicine or the fact that 'hypothetically', there could be another pandemic just around the corner.

[madwullie]

2 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Since when was anything in life '100% certain'? Not least medicine or the fact that 'hypothetically', there could be another pandemic just around the corner.

If you're expecting our govt to lift restrictions based on data from another country that aren't even doing the same things as us, you think they're a million miles more cavalier than they actually are. 

Edited February 21, 2021 by madwullie

[Todd_is_God]

2 minutes ago, madwullie said:

If you're expecting our govt to lift restrictions based on data from another country that aren't even doing the same things as us, you think they're a million miles more cavalier than they actually are. 

The SG were quite happy to use examples from abroad when they wanted to keep restrictions in place.

When we get into summer, for example, they absolutely should not be allowed to ignore what is happening elsewhere.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

27 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

2 hours ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

Sorry to interrupt your smugfest but the holiday was booked in December 2019 before anyone had heard of covid as we are going away for my old dear’s 60th and it took a bit of planning. If they are cancelling holidays then so be it, but its getting to the point where they need to actually commit, is the travel ban going to unreasonably go for the rest of 2021 or is it not? Its unfair to people in similar situations and indeed those who rely on the travel and tourism sector for their employment.  
Clownshoes and Nicola can wag the finger and ‘advise against booking’ but until they act like a government and actually commit to a position fully then they look weak and out of control. Its unfair to make half hearted industry destroying statements but they should own their decisions and the financial repercussions. 

I would suggest don't book a summer foreign holiday means they won't be happening. I too have 3 booking made long ago but I pretty much have written the July one off (October and December other 2). I'm not happy about it either but I don't see as it stands how anyone can be even slightly confident of a foreign holiday before the Autumn with the current messaging. Yes it's shit but it seems pretty clear to me.

Right, so are they going to confirm this to allow the industry to get access to financial support and for customers to get their money back etc? Its entirely reasonable to want answers to this question. Im not confident about a foreign holiday due to the messaging, if it has to be cancelled then so be it, but the uncertainty over whats going to happen is shite. They can’t message saying its not to happen reducing the cash flow of the industry then suddenly allow it to happen because thats entirely irresponsible and would lead to massive job losses in a vulnerable sector with significant repurcussions across the world. So if they actually gave fair warning ‘no foreign travel until ...’ then people know exactly where they stand, industry can lobby for support, tentatively plan for ... and people can either rebook or get money back. The shite thing about the SG’s handling of this is the fact they are happy to stand and lecture about the likes of travel and football etc speaking to everyone like a naughty child, but wont actually pull the trigger and say officially that its not happening. 

[Billy Jean King]

If you're expecting our govt to lift restrictions based on data from another country that aren't even doing the same things as us, you think they're a million miles more cavalier than they actually are. 

If we did follow their example we wouldn't be relaxing measures until we had 50% of the entire population vaccinated. That's the equivalent of about 33m in the UK. We are a good 2 months from that position.

[vikingTON]

7 minutes ago, madwullie said:

If you're expecting our govt to lift restrictions based on data from another country that aren't even doing the same things as us, you think they're a million miles more competent than they actually are. 

FTFY. 

[Todd_is_God]

9 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

17 minutes ago, madwullie said:

If you're expecting our govt to lift restrictions based on data from another country that aren't even doing the same things as us, you think they're a million miles more cavalier than they actually are. 

If we did follow their example we wouldn't be relaxing measures until we had 50% of the entire population vaccinated. That's the equivalent of about 33m in the UK. We are a good 2 months from that position.

Do you genuinely see the SG allowing bars, restaurants and theatres to be operating at 75% capacity by the end of May?

We all know what the roadmap is going to look like, and we all know that emphasis will continue to be placed on using cherry picked examples from a restaurant in Skopje to justify a pedestrian approach regardless of the overall picture.

Edited February 21, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[Elixir]

8 minutes ago, madwullie said:

If you're expecting our govt to lift restrictions based on data from another country that aren't even doing the same things as us, you think they're a million miles more cavalier than they actually are. 

As has just been said, the Scottish Government like using international examples when it suits them. I understand the need for travel restrictions currently, but come the summer when cases will naturally plummet, our vaccination program will be nearing completion, and it will by then be much further on in Europe, restrictions will be wholly disproportionate to any cost-benefit analysis or so-called precautionary principle.

[Billy Jean King]

Right, so are they going to confirm this to allow the industry to get access to financial support and for customers to get their money back etc? Its entirely reasonable to want answers to this question. Im not confident about a foreign holiday due to the messaging, if it has to be cancelled then so be it, but the uncertainty over whats going to happen is shite. They can’t message saying its not to happen reducing the cash flow of the industry then suddenly allow it to happen because thats entirely irresponsible and would lead to massive job losses in a vulnerable sector with significant repurcussions across the world. So if they actually gave fair warning ‘no foreign travel until ...’ then people know exactly where they stand, industry can lobby for support, tentatively plan for ... and people can either rebook or get money back. The shite thing about the SG’s handling of this is the fact they are happy to stand and lecture about the likes of travel and football etc speaking to everyone like a naughty child, but wont actually pull the trigger and say officially that its not happening. 

I've had my money back no problem for cancelled holidays (Jet2 and easyjet). Rolling cancellation programs are ongoing and have been since last summer. It doesn't need an actual ban from govt for holiday firms to refund anyone. This stance isn't peculiar to the SG it's pretty much the stance Europe wide. UK citizens are still banned from entering the EU for holidays as it currently stands and that is nothing to do with the UK or Scottish governments. A lot if things need to change within a multi agency chain for holidays to restart. When they do I fully expect it will include compulsory testing plus mitigation measures and those alone will put a lot of folk off. Travel insurance will be critical as measures might (probably wont) stop tour operators flying once permitted but will mean a lot of folk with bookings wont want to go. It's a very complex sector and one that will be difficult to restart with any great certainty.