Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Szamo's_Ammo]

24 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

31 minutes ago, Szamo said:

A 26% increase in cases in one day, and they are only going to keep heading in one direction.
Hopefully the pubs closing a couple of hours earlier will help though. 

Why do you keep referring to this mythical elephant when stats show it's clearly shite. You and VT keep plugging a line that the figures debunk daily. Schools are nowhere near the top vector for the current spike but you appear to be willing to perish on this mountain along with your pal from Greenock.

Just because a larger percentage of school pupils aren't being tested or testing positive for the virus, doesn't mean they aren't causing a huge increase in transmission.

For example, asymptomatic pupils going to the local bakers at lunch time, breathing on the glass when deciding what they want and wee Winnie comes in half an hour later for her French fancy, touches the glass and contracts the virus. Would all of the hundreds of school pupils who had been in the bakery the previous week be tested?

There are thousands of scenarios you could think of where school pupils being out and about on public transport, in shops, etc, more than they would be if the blended learning model wasn't scrapped which will be leading to a surge in cases.

Then there are parents and school staff mingling with each other. I doubt there is much social distancing at the school gates. 

Since the schools went back, cases have gone up to 5 times the level they were at previously. Whilst the increase isn't solely down to schools, you're being disingenuous if you pretend that their reopening has had very little impact.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Szamo's_Ammo

[s_dog]

23 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

You'd expect a high percentage of positives when you can only get a test if you have Covid symptoms, unless you work in a care home.

It's went from around 2% two weeks ago, 3.5% a week ago, and in the past couple of days its jumped to 7%. In that time we have went from 8k, to 7k and now to about 5k people being tested, so some increase is expected as it seems all the young school kids getting tested a few weeks back has now fallen. But it's still rising alarmingly.

BTW can't remember who was going on about giving someone a lift to work but Sturgeon has just said that Test and Protect shows a risk of transmission linked to car travel. "So we are advising against car sharing with people outside your own household."

I'd still give my mate a lift to work and go with the wear a mask and have your windows down instead of them getting the bus though!

[Al B]

4 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Were the schools closed when you were a kid, then?

Empty seat in front of you, behind you, to the right, to the left, each diagonal  and the one your arse is in.

That is not only 9 seats, but is also the lyrics to the novelty single mentioned earlier.

Edit: Actually you make a fair point, theres an overlap in empty seats in that the same empty seat will be counted for multiple people.

It's still not financially viable to operate a full stadium on those numbers though.

Edited September 23, 2020 by Al B

[Bairnardo]

Empty seat in front of you, behind you, to the right, to the left, each diagonal  and the one your arse is in.
That is not only 9 seats, but is also the lyrics to the novelty single mentioned earlier.

This is starting to remind me of a game of minesweeper

[Have some faith in Magic]

From today's briefing it is even more obvious that she is absolutely gagging to shut down hospitality. 

 

[ICTChris]

I went back and read some of the posts from six months ago when we went into lockdown, interesting.  A lot of people saying it was confusing and wasn't a change, some people saying it couldn't be enforced, a lot of talk about whether it was actually a 'lockdown' - IIRC they made a thing about not using that word.  A couple of posters suggestign that we would still be there in a year or six months time, prescient.

[Jacksgranda]

4 hours ago, madwullie said:

Thanks mate. Moved to ITU overnight.  

Not so good.

[effeffsee_the2nd]

On ‎24‎/‎01‎/‎2020 at 07:10, JTS98 said:

The government's main newspaper today still didn't have this as its prominent story. Journalists in China reporting that it's still a minor story on tv news in most of the country. We're now pushing 30 official deaths and close to 1,000 official cases, and as I mentioned previously, those are almost certainly low numbers. China's inaction here is criminal.

Local doctors have been quoted as saying that it's now too late to contain because they were told from above that it wasn't a big deal and no measures were put in place to deal with it. It has now almost certainly spread throughout China because people were not prevented from travelling or even discouraged from travelling, and we now have confirmed cases in multiple countries and examples of human-to-human infection.

Wuhan's airport has direct flights to Dubai, New York, London, Singapore, Seoul etc and the Chinese did nothing to stop people travelling around the world despite knowing what was going on. All to either cover their arse from their boss, protect their local economy or to avoid hitting a beamer. People are still flying around the world from other places in China as we speak and the virus has an incubation period of at least five days. This is grim.

I understand that lots of China-bashing goes on in the western media and that causes people to be naturally suspicious of criticism of China in our media. However, there is simply no question that China has made a complete arse of this, and it's not the first time they've done it. There is no reason to trust anything the Chinese government say about this. They have lied from the off, just like they did before.

China's warm-meat culture mixed with its rigid and corrupt government and flawed information-sharing processes is an international health risk. I don't know how many times this needs to happen before some people accept that.

This virus may or may not end up becoming a global emergency. But even if this one doesn't, this will happen again. Lots of things today are media scare-mongering, but an authoritarian country with a huge population, horrific food hygiene standards, and direct transport links to the rest of the planet is a risk to all of us.

If we're looking at posts from months ago then this one called it pretty much on the money,

 

It doesn't have to be a full blown curfew to be a lockdown, spain & Italy had that and it didn't help them any,  if you can only leave the house to go for exercise or the shops  because everythings shut and  that's all you can do , then you don't need the gestapo patrolling the streets to enforce it  and I find it amazing that some people actually wanted that in place.

[ICTChris]

I’m hearing that some schools in Edinburgh are having to close due to the number of teachers who are self isolating. Current guidelines are that schools should shut for a deep clean when they have two positive cases in a 14 day period but there are also requirements for the number of teachers per pupil for a school to stay open.

[Steven W]

15 minutes ago, s_dog said:

It's went from around 2% two weeks ago, 3.5% a week ago, and in the past couple of days its jumped to 7%. In that time we have went from 8k, to 7k and now to about 5k people being tested, so some increase is expected as it seems all the young school kids getting tested a few weeks back has now fallen. But it's still rising alarmingly.

BTW can't remember who was going on about giving someone a lift to work but Sturgeon has just said that Test and Protect shows a risk of transmission linked to car travel. "So we are advising against car sharing with people outside your own household."

I'd still give my mate a lift to work and go with the wear a mask and have your windows down instead of them getting the bus though!

I don't understand what the deal is with testing (lab capacity?), but no matter, after six months we should be seeing testing increasing rather decreasing.

My son's childminder has tested positive, so we (me, wife and son) are isolating at home (although to be honest my son is the only one who actually has to isolate). Until any one of us develops symptoms though, we are not entitled to a test, which I find odd. Particularly in my son's case as he's been in close proximity with a positive case for several hours at a time.

Fortunately no symptoms from the three of us so far though.

[renton]

28 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

Just because a larger percentage of school pupils aren't being tested or testing positive for the virus, doesn't mean they aren't causing a huge increase in transmission.

For example, asymptomatic pupils going to the local bakers at lunch time, breathing on the glass when deciding what they want and wee Winnie comes in half an hour later for her French fancy, touches the glass and contracts the virus. Would all of the hundreds of school pupils who had been in the bakery the previous week be tested?

There are thousands of scenarios where school pupils being out and about on public transport, in shops, etc, more than they would be if the blended learning model wasn't scrapped which will be leading to a surge in cases of the virus.

Then there are parents and school staff mingling with each other. I doubt there is much social distancing at the school gates. 

Since the schools went back, cases have gone up to 5 times the level they were at previously. Whilst the increase isn't solely down to schools, you're being disingenuous if you pretend that their reopening has had very little impact.

There is available literature that suggests that it's not that children are primarily asymptomatic, but that they just don't transmit the disease much:

https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/146/2/e2020004879

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0962-9

https://adc.bmj.com/content/early/2020/08/06/archdischild-2020-319910

It would seem the vast majority of child infections were from Adult to child, not child to adult, as per the first link, there.

So, assuming that literature is representative of the wider medical opinion, it would make the case that children, and particularly younger children are not good vectors for the disease.

That would suggest that kids mixing in classrooms is not A significant factor in transmission of the virus. If we take that, and place it in context with the PHE data and our own NRS data, both of which show that the transmission is being driven by older age groups, and further from the PHE data, that 'Education settings' - a general term that would apply to any adult contacts within schools as well as kids - was not the principal driver for weekly caseloads. We can also see more clearly in the English data than the Scottish data that their case loads were on the rise before their Schools were open.

None of this of course rules out schools as a contributory factor. As noted, the mingling at school gates or even just the return to work of people who were furloughed to provide child care may have generally increased social interactions, or even increased business for things like catering businesses, cleaning businesses and the like. There is a whole support eco system around schools that may be driving increased social contact. 

However, it would not appear to be related intrinsically to the concept of kids being in a class room (if you accept the literature supporting that view) and would surely be something that could be more tightly regulated.

More likely, it would be a case of us having increasing prevelance due to a more open society and that increase being hidden in the noise of the data until it hit its tipping point.

Generally, the measures put in place should help lower the prevelance of the virus by removing a lot of unregulated social contact in the short term. How they relax that again is going to be interesting: is the strategy going to be one of partial lockdowns at each, decreasing magnitude of wave? Or a more regular set of restrictions and an allowable, endemic preveleance through the winter?

 

 

Edited September 23, 2020 by renton

[Marshmallo]

44 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

50 minutes ago, Szamo said:

A 26% increase in cases in one day, and they are only going to keep heading in one direction.
Hopefully the pubs closing a couple of hours earlier will help though. 

Why do you keep referring to this mythical elephant when stats show it's clearly shite. You and VT keep plugging a line that the figures debunk daily. Schools are nowhere near the top vector for the current spike but you appear to be willing to perish on this mountain along with your pal from Greenock.

^^^ has 2 weans

[Steven W]

Just now, Marshmallo said:

^^^ has 2 weans

^^ has no weans

[Have some faith in Magic]

119 of the 383 cases in Scotland yesterday were in the 19 or under age category. 

 

[Billy Jean King]

Just because a larger percentage of school pupils aren't being tested or testing positive for the virus, doesn't mean they aren't causing a huge increase in transmission.
For example, asymptomatic pupils going to the local bakers at lunch time, breathing on the glass when deciding what they want and wee Winnie comes in half an hour later for her French fancy, touches the glass and contracts the virus. Would all of the hundreds of school pupils who had been in the bakery the previous week be tested?
There are thousands of scenarios you could think of where school pupils being out and about on public transport, in shops, etc, more than they would be if the blended learning model wasn't scrapped which will be leading to a surge in cases.
Then there are parents and school staff mingling with each other. I doubt there is much social distancing at the school gates. 
Since the schools went back, cases have gone up to 5 times the level they were at previously. Whilst the increase isn't solely down to schools, you're being disingenuous if you pretend that their reopening has had very little impact.

Total whataboutery. That scenario could occur in any shop anywhere whether schools were populated or not. You can only go by the stats available when making decisions not made up wee fairytales. That is literally an argument to support a full lockdown which I assume you approve of.

[Marshmallo]

1 minute ago, Have some faith in Magic said:

119 of the 383 cases in Scotland yesterday were in the 19 or under age category. 

 

All of these cases were picked up outside of schools unless you can prove otherwise!

[renton]

2 minutes ago, Have some faith in Magic said:

119 of the 383 cases in Scotland yesterday were in the 19 or under age category. 

 

Would almost certainly be driven by University halls of residence, no?

[Szamo's_Ammo]

4 minutes ago, Have some faith in Magic said:

119 of the 383 cases in Scotland yesterday were in the 19 or under age category. 

 

That must be some mistake!?

3 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

31 minutes ago, Szamo said:

Just because a larger percentage of school pupils aren't being tested or testing positive for the virus, doesn't mean they aren't causing a huge increase in transmission.
For example, asymptomatic pupils going to the local bakers at lunch time, breathing on the glass when deciding what they want and wee Winnie comes in half an hour later for her French fancy, touches the glass and contracts the virus. Would all of the hundreds of school pupils who had been in the bakery the previous week be tested?
There are thousands of scenarios you could think of where school pupils being out and about on public transport, in shops, etc, more than they would be if the blended learning model wasn't scrapped which will be leading to a surge in cases.
Then there are parents and school staff mingling with each other. I doubt there is much social distancing at the school gates. 
Since the schools went back, cases have gone up to 5 times the level they were at previously. Whilst the increase isn't solely down to schools, you're being disingenuous if you pretend that their reopening has had very little impact.

Total whataboutery. That scenario could occur in any shop anywhere whether schools were populated or not. You can only go by the stats available when making decisions not made up wee fairytales. That is literally an argument to support a full lockdown which I assume you approve of.

[Billy Jean King]

^^^ has 2 weans

Nope 1 of school age and only just at that as 6th year so not an personal thing but through work I do come into contact with sectors of the community where you know the kids would suffer in varying different ways if there was any semblance of out of school learning that would invariably come with blended models. Some people on here seem to live very sheltered lives or in Ivory Towers not to be able to see this.

[Marshmallo]

2 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

12 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

^^^ has 2 weans

Nope 1 of school age and only just at that as 6th year so not an personal thing but through work I do come into contact with sectors of the community where you know the kids would suffer in varying different ways if there was any semblance of out of school learning that would invariably come with blended models. Some people on here seem to live very sheltered lives or in Ivory Towers not to be able to see this.

My opinion is that schools should be the last thing to close other than essential shops or hospitals because of 1) impact on kids eduction and 2) impact to parents' time and employment.

Stop pretending there is zero transmission in schools. My issue is with messaging. Sturgeon seems to have softened on this a bit over the last week or so but we still get people on here such as yourself squealing about "proof" or "evidence" and kidding on it is risk free. 

Edited September 23, 2020 by Marshmallo