Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[101]

7 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Now, into the bin with your tedious, nonsensical musings

Brilliant 

That means a lot coming from the most tedious and nonsensical poster if not in this mental thread, perhaps the entire forum. 

Keep up the good work champ x.

[Monkey Tennis]

5 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Err, it's not 'libertarian' to want a return to pre-pandemic normality, now that the threat has clearly faded into the background among all other risks we accept - not least thanks to mass inoculation and boosting of nearly the whole population.

Thanks anyway, though.

I know it's not.

To say what Oaksoft did, however, is.

It's incredible to see it receive such support from people who ought to know better.

[Patrick Noubissie]

3 hours ago, oaksoft said:

I honestly have no idea what you are wittering on about here.

I'm not completely convinced that you do either.

When I was saying that I only bother with masks to put other people at ease, I didn't realise you'd been having dust ups in opticians  We obviously just have very different priorities in life.

2 hours ago, strichener said:

1. Of course most abseentism is due to self isolation.  It is no different for NHS staff than the rest of the population.  I hope you aren't suggesting that we now need to track with/because of covid for abseentism just so we can waste more administrative resource. 

2. What a stupid statement but then given your postings on this, that isn't really a revelation.  Unless you are claiming that the NHS has employed admin staff solely to count the number of staff absent with Covid then it will be the same staff doing the admin.  Even assuming this ridiculous notion were the case, it doesn't really take away from the fact that their labour would be better spend providing the information that the Government promised. 

3.  You are not really getting this whole notion of not wasting resources collecting useless information.  Providing evidence to Patrick on a message board is hardly justification for employing another X amount of staff to collate data.  Apparently the Welsh government are a step ahead of you in the wasting resources and actually do collect and publish data on absences for Covid and for isolation.  https://statswales.gov.wales/Catalogue/Health-and-Social-Care/NHS-Hospital-Activity/nhs-activity-and-capacity-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic/nhsstaffabsences-by-date-staffgroup

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

- "Number of new COVID-19 admissions to hospital each day where the patient first tests positive for COVID-19 in hospital or in the 14 days prior to admission is published daily by Public Health Scotland"

- "Number of NHS staff absent for COVID-19 related reasons: This data is provided by NHS National Services Scotland on behalf of 21 NHS Boards, and by the Scottish Ambulance Service separately"

Not the same people then. 

Quote

Apparently the Welsh government are a step ahead of you in the wasting resources and actually do collect and publish data on absences for Covid and for isolation.

Thanks for posting that. It shows that considerably more staff were off last week with Covid-19 sickness than due to self-isolation. I guess NHS staff in Scotland have nothing in common with staff in Wales and everything in common with your vague assumptions about "the rest of the population".

Do you think you've got more of a grasp on the Covid situation across the population than you do on how governments and health services work, or are all of your takes on that flat out wrong as well?

[Monkey Tennis]

42 minutes ago, Elixir said:

He's absolutely spot on.

 

Wow.

More right wing bonkerdom.

That's what Rees-Mogg was saying during the week.  The Tories' behaviour in no10 apparently showed how silly the rules were, rather than how despicable the party goers were.

 

Great to see such sentiment endorsed on here.

[ICTChris]

Michael Johnson joins the debate on Scottish restrictions.

 

[deegee]

20 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Evan's can only speak for her own health board though and she will have little insight into why other individual trusts are unable to provide that information. As it stands I think the answer to that question is they haven't been asked bar 1 other so we don't really know if it can be provided or not.

I know from working in stats returns for decades (many of them requested by the SG) a lot of what they ask for genuinely cannot be provided as it simply isn't held on record. It doesn't stop them asking but in many occasions I have advised the info requested simply cannot be provided at that point in time. The fact Evan's is alluding (albeit I'm not sure how much insight into the operation of other trust she actually has) to this doesn't really surprise me. It's quite often the way that stats only start being recorded for a particular request after it's made. I'm not sure why trusts would waste resources collating a with / from distinction if no one was actually asking for it. Now it has been it should be collated but it might well take some time for the umpteen different trusts to be able to provide meaningful returns for something that was never actually on record.

In the state of crisis that the NHS appears to be operating in, whether a patient is needing treated on a Covid ward directly from Covid infection or as a result of testing positive after admissions for something else will be irrelevant to those actually trying to provide that care under massive pressure, they simply cannot place Covid positive patients on a ward with uninfected patients many of whom will be susceptible to severe illness due to compromised immune systems from other conditions. But at the end of the day that will be a total irrelevance to those actually on the front line who will be way too busy to even care about such things.

Bottom line is, now (if) the SG have requested that breakdown from every trust it should be getting collated. That process will probably take a few weeks to provide anything meaningful if it's having to start from scratch.

Thanks for a full and insightful reply. You make total sense in what you say about the authorities not wasting time and resources, however it probably opens up as many questions than answers, especially if England seems to have placed an early value on auditing the numbers and breakdown of covid cases etc.

I also wholly agree the frontline medico staff have no interest or time to check why a patient has covid but, as per the original point surely the Government would need (or at least want) to know this breakdown as part of their response strategy? Maybe I am being far too simplistic but whilst I accept there is a burden of administration, I don’t imagine it would be impossible to put out the request to each authority who in turn can cascade this down to each individual hospital etc?

It all goes back to the fact that only 2no authorities’ figures were disclosed recently, and the lack of clear reasoning why the Government selected these examples and specific timescales has lead to my and many others’ mistrust and suspicion of selective facts being offered.

[Todd_is_God]

54 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Utterly mental how she cannot seem to contain her glee in that clip btw.

Absolutely loving it.

Freak.

[Monkey Tennis]

15 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Thanks for pointing that out.

Just gave him a green

Fair enough.  

Sharing Oaksoft's world view is entirely legitimate.

I just find it odd when posters who I know don't share it, such as Dons1988, allow themselves to be led in such a direction, so easily.

[Patrick Noubissie]

19 minutes ago, deegee said:

Thanks for a full and insightful reply. You make total sense in what you say about the authorities not wasting time and resources, however it probably opens up as many questions than answers, especially if England seems to have placed an early value on auditing the numbers and breakdown of covid cases etc.

I also wholly agree the frontline medico staff have no interest or time to check why a patient has covid but, as per the original point surely the Government would need (or at least want) to know this breakdown as part of their response strategy? Maybe I am being far too simplistic but whilst I accept there is a burden of administration, I don’t imagine it would be impossible to put out the request to each authority who in turn can cascade this down to each individual hospital etc?

It all goes back to the fact that only 2no authorities’ figures were disclosed recently, and the lack of clear reasoning why the Government selected these examples and specific timescales has lead to my and many others’ mistrust and suspicion of selective facts being offered.

Genuine question because I'm not sure how it works in England, are the UK Government publishing a full country-wide breakdown between patients with/admitted for Covid? The stuff I've seen on here has been local Board data as well. Although that might well fit into a wider collation that I'm not up on.

Either way, you'd imagine the politicians getting pestered for this might lead to SG gathering it. Billy Jean King's summary of how that type of thing tends to work is a good one.

Edited January 16, 2022 by Patrick Noubissie

[Bairnardo]

Fair enough.  
Sharing Oaksoft's world view is entirely legitimate.
I just find it odd when posters who I know don't share it, such as Dons1988, allow themselves to be led in such a direction, so easily.

Dons1988 is maybe capable of viewing pandemic response strategy as a single issue though, and of uncoupling it from party political allegiances. This is something many on here have shown themselves to be incapable of doing, or even comprehending.

Agreeing that you no longer want or need protected from covid 19 hardly makes you a mental libertarian.

[deegee]

3 minutes ago, Patrick Noubissie said:

Genuine question because I'm not sure how it works in England, are the UK Government publishing a full country-wide breakdown between patients with/admitted for Covid? The stuff I've seen on here has been local Board data as well. Although that might well fit into a wider collation that I'm not up on.

Either way, you'd imagine the politicians getting pestered for this might lead to SG gathering it. Billy Jean King's summary of how that type of thing tends to work is a good one.

I’m not totally sure, however I believe the English do publish and talk about the different numbers of/with covid. Wasn’t that why there has been a bit pressure exerted upon Sturgeon these past couple of weeks?

Whilst I accept the apparent difficulties (due to good summary by Billy Jean King) and why we wouldn’t audit numbers unless it was a request from Government, I would be amazed and frankly not believing that this hasn’t been carefully measured and used internally at Holyrood as a tool for their reactions and regulations etc.

[Billy Jean King]

Thanks for a full and insightful reply. You make total sense in what you say about the authorities not wasting time and resources, however it probably opens up as many questions than answers, especially if England seems to have placed an early value on auditing the numbers and breakdown of covid cases etc.
I also wholly agree the frontline medico staff have no interest or time to check why a patient has covid but, as per the original point surely the Government would need (or at least want) to know this breakdown as part of their response strategy? Maybe I am being far too simplistic but whilst I accept there is a burden of administration, I don’t imagine it would be impossible to put out the request to each authority who in turn can cascade this down to each individual hospital etc?
It all goes back to the fact that only 2no authorities’ figures were disclosed recently, and the lack of clear reasoning why the Government selected these examples and specific timescales has lead to my and many others’ mistrust and suspicion of selective facts being offered.

Absolutely, if the request is made (has it been we don't really know) then the trusts should now be collating the info. I would expect it to be available before this month is out but if this is the first time it has been asked for by the SG (safe to assume this) then it's no surprise it hasn't been readily available.

Would be interesting to see if any of the media go down the FOI route, I'm surprised they haven't although again that is no guarantee of a quick response.

ETA I'm almost sure the fact we only got a very limited data release on this subject was for the very reasons I stated. It was basically hastily flung together because they simply were not previously recording it. Pressure on the SG forced their hand and I think the SG thought that very limited release with their caveats might placate the public clamour but as you rightly point out it's merely raised the issue of mistrust. It could and should have been handled much better by all concerned.

[Billy Jean King]

Genuine question because I'm not sure how it works in England, are the UK Government publishing a full country-wide breakdown between patients with/admitted for Covid? The stuff I've seen on here has been local Board data as well. Although that might well fit into a wider collation that I'm not up on.
Either way, you'd imagine the politicians getting pestered for this might lead to SG gathering it. Billy Jean King's summary of how that type of thing tends to work is a good one.

No idea how it's been released in England. I honestly don't see a need for Govt intervention or Central collation assuming the individual trusts are releasing the info. The problem with Central collation is that each trust could be using a slightly different measure method.

[Michael W]

58 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Wow.

More right wing bonkerdom.

That's what Rees-Mogg was saying during the week.  The Tories' behaviour in no10 apparently showed how silly the rules were, rather than how despicable the party goers were.

 

Great to see such sentiment endorsed on here.

I found it revealing on two fronts: 

1) The rules are for the plebs. 

2) The virus is not quite the threat that the government was communicating that it was. If it was, these events wouldn't have happened. 

I think a lot of the rules were also overkill. This does not excuse or mitigate shitty government behaviour. 

[Blue Brazil Forever]

8 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

Absolutely, if the request is made (has it been we don't really know) then the trusts should now be collating the info. I would expect it to be available before this month is out but if this is the first time it has been asked for by the SG (safe to assume this) then it's no surprise it hasn't been readily available.

Would be interesting to see if any of the media go down the FOI route, I'm surprised they haven't although again that is no guarantee of a quick response.

ETA I'm almost sure the fact we only got a very limited data release on this subject was for the very reasons I stated. It was basically hastily flung together because they simply were not previously recording it. Pressure on the SG forced their hand and I think the SG thought that very limited release with their caveats might placate the public clamour but as you rightly point out it's merely raised the issue of mistrust. It could and should have been handled much better by all concerned.

The decisions on the pandemic have always been for politicians to make. Until recently,  SG strategy and actions, as far as the Scottish population know, have followed the key indicators of SAGE medical advice and up to date statistics/data. Both are now looking increasingly unreliable. If there is indeed a lack of confidence, what can the SG take into account to determine any further measure? The First Minister's  statement on 17 January will be interesting.

[101]

20 minutes ago, Snafu said:

Outside drinking areas on Cockburn Street upsetting the local residents who just want a good nights sleep.

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/council/edinburgh-residents-nightmare-because-of-outside-eating-and-drinking-areas-in-old-town-3529360

Council seems unwilling to bend toward temporary permits and seem happy to ruin the street to make the decking permanent, what choice do businesses have if they want to survive?

The Old Town community council, Edinburgh World Heritage and the Cockburn Association have all come out strongly against the outdoor seating areas.

John Mitchell, a member of the community council, said: "They're being used at night as late-night drinking places, so residents being kept up till 3 or 4am.

 

Haven't been to Cockburn Street for years but last time must have been around 2012 the street was moving away from the student/alternative image it had for years towards more tourist orientated shops and small eating places.

The planning easement of restrictions for Covid won't end until September so suspect they might as well suck it up.

[Dons_1988]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Really?

I find that astonishing, unless you've suddenly become a libertarian nut-job.

Object to the current level of restrictions in Scotland if you like - the evidence behind doing so is strong. 

To let that lead you, however, to hearty agreement with a position that states "I didn't ask for their 'protection', I don't need it and I don't want it. Neither does my family.I want to be left the f**k alone" is just bizarre.

I do absolutely ask for the protection of the state.  I can think of little worse than being "left alone" in the face of a public health threat.

The individualism that gets a foothold on this thread among unlikely posters is extraordinary.

Yes really, in the context of where we are now in the pandemic. 

Im not saying governments don’t have a responsibility to protect people in the face of a public health threat. I’ve been largely supportive from March 2020 through to maybe summer 2021, albeit I was frustrated at the pace of opening up after vaccinations. I was obviously supportive of heavy investment in vaccinations and inoculating the population. 

But as we sit right now, everyone has had the opportunity to be vaccinated, the vast vast majority of people will suffer mild symptoms, if you’re asking me do I want government intervention to keep me safe? No, I do not. It’s over reach and frankly it’s not very believable that it’s being done just to keep us all safe. 

this was always going to reach a point where life had to go on and we’re pretty much there. 

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

Dons1988 is maybe capable of viewing pandemic response strategy as a single issue though, and of uncoupling it from party political allegiances. This is something many on here have shown themselves to be incapable of doing, or even comprehending.

Agreeing that you no longer want or need protected from covid 19 hardly makes you a mental libertarian.

Once again, the post from Oaksoft did not refer specifically to the latest restrictions in Scotland.  It reflected a much wider antipathy towards the state and its right to intrude in his life.  

It's amazing that people who don't generally see things that way, are prepared to dive in to support a wider view that is destructive.

[Lyle Lanley]

1 hour ago, Snafu said:

Outside drinking areas on Cockburn Street upsetting the local residents who just want a good nights sleep.

https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/council/edinburgh-residents-nightmare-because-of-outside-eating-and-drinking-areas-in-old-town-3529360

Council seems unwilling to bend toward temporary permits and seem happy to ruin the street to make the decking permanent, what choice do businesses have if they want to survive?

The Old Town community council, Edinburgh World Heritage and the Cockburn Association have all come out strongly against the outdoor seating areas.

John Mitchell, a member of the community council, said: "They're being used at night as late-night drinking places, so residents being kept up till 3 or 4am.

 

Haven't been to Cockburn Street for years but last time must have been around 2012 the street was moving away from the student/alternative image it had for years towards more tourist orientated shops and small eating places.

Think they should be kept just to annoy John. 

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, Snafu said:

Maybe they are just a little more accepting than you are that someone whom has a different point of view of the world can be respected for expressing themselves clearly on a thread intended for just that or maybe there is something within that post that relates to the persons who gave greens.

 

"Accepting" or gormlessly gullible?