Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Honest_Man#1]

3 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Hope they're doing alright. Maybe worth tagging some of them to check in on them.

My favourite was @Billy Jean King who had post after post refusing to accept it and demanding evidence that’s schools were a cause. Then evidence was posted and he was tagged, and never been seen since.

[Robin.Hood]

20 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

It is really bizarre.

I've noticed the "schools must stay open" brigade on here have gone quiet or disappeared completely in the last few days but when it is the government that is burying its head in the sand it is very strange.

It is a very inconvenient truth for a number of reasons but a huge increase of coronavirus infections correlating exactly with the unrestricted reopening of schools in the UK and other countries cannot continue to be overlooked.

They either accept they have got it badly wrong or be honest with us and tell us that every other part of our lives is going to be restricted going forward until there is a vaccine so that children can be crammed into classrooms for 30 hours per week.

Maybe a journalist will ask a decent question at one of the briefings by the end of 2020.

Dingies.

The schools can stay open , eh can enjoy meh week off and then you can stand outside in the rain and wait until its time for you to be allowed to come in and get yer shopping.

Keep meh fives open also. 

Cinema in all.

Cheers 

[itzdrk]

7 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

It is really bizarre.

I've noticed the "schools must stay open" brigade on here have gone quiet or disappeared completely in the last few days but when it is the government that is burying its head in the sand it is very strange.

It is a very inconvenient truth for a number of reasons but a huge increase of coronavirus infections correlating exactly with the unrestricted reopening of schools in the UK and other countries cannot continue to be overlooked.

They either accept they have got it badly wrong or be honest with us and tell us that every other part of our lives is going to be restricted going forward until there is a vaccine so that children can be crammed into classrooms for 30 hours per week.

Maybe a journalist will ask a decent question at one of the briefings by the end of 2020.

It's just really disheartening, I don't expect any government to do everything right.  I think telling the truth is the minimum you can ask for.  I think they mostly do that and hold their hands up to mistakes of their own making and attempt to rectify.  

I think they need to address the issue one way or the other as more and more people are finding the restrictions pointless while they remain adament in a vague way that it's not an issue, perhaps they could offer up some figures to counter this or like you say, tell us it is an issue but one we need to live with.  

[Glen Sannox]

I can’t help but think Prof Leitch is enjoying his new found fame. For every Prof Leitch, there is another equally qualified scientist suggesting that at some stage, we are just going to have to live with this virus. The latter don’t seem to get the ear of politicians for some reason.

[Detournement]

3 minutes ago, Glen Sannox said:

I can’t help but think Prof Leitch is enjoying his new found fame. For every Prof Leitch, there is another equally qualified scientist suggesting that at some stage, we are just going to have to live with this virus. The latter don’t seem to get the ear of politicians for some reason.

That's  basically what's happening in most places though. Fans coming back into stadiums all over Europe, even in Scotland the vast majority of businesses are still open. 

Everyone has accepted that we have entered the second wave of the pandemic, lots of people are going to be infected and the way to combat it is social distancing, hygiene, test and trace and isolating. For some reason Sturgeon seems to want to imply that we can avoid this.

[D.A.F.C]

If they locked down to drive down cases and drive up testing then I can see the point but its just like a running tap and a bucket. It will fill up unless we test and isolate to large numbers.
100k tests in scotland every day minimum

[Steven W]

7 minutes ago, Detournement said:

That's  basically what's happening in most places though. Fans coming back into stadiums all over Europe, even in Scotland the vast majority of businesses are still open. 

Everyone has accepted that we have entered the second wave of the pandemic, lots of people are going to be infected and the way to combat it is social distancing, hygiene, test and trace and isolating. For some reason Sturgeon seems to want to imply that we can avoid this.

A look at social media. The comments on the BBC Scotland page. That rammy in Holyrood today. Even Pie and b*****ding Bovril. Wherever you look really? - To use a football term (something that would probably agitate her somewhat) she's' lost the dressing room'.

But looks like ploughing on regardless with a  2 week lockdown, that will turn into a 2 month lockdown.

[Marshmallo]

3 minutes ago, Steven W said:

A look at social media. The comments on the BBC Scotland page. That rammy in Holyrood today. Even Pie and b*****ding Bovril. Wherever you look really? - To use a football term (something that would probably agitate her somewhat) she's' lost the dressing room'.

But looks like ploughing on regardless with a  2 week lockdown, that will turn into a 2 month lockdown.

They'll get numbers down over the October holidays by destroying every other aspect of our lives, get the weans back in school and then shut everything down for two weeks over the end of December/January (timing purely coincidental of course).

[D.A.F.C]

Put schools on nighshift

[renton]

1 hour ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

It is really bizarre.

I've noticed the "schools must stay open" brigade on here have gone quiet or disappeared completely in the last few days but when it is the government that is burying its head in the sand it is very strange.

It is a very inconvenient truth for a number of reasons but a huge increase of coronavirus infections correlating exactly with the unrestricted reopening of schools in the UK and other countries cannot continue to be overlooked.

They either accept they have got it badly wrong or be honest with us and tell us that every other part of our lives is going to be restricted going forward until there is a vaccine so that children can be crammed into classrooms for 30 hours per week.

Maybe a journalist will ask a decent question at one of the briefings by the end of 2020.

I wouldn't describe myself as being in the 'at all costs' camp, at the same time I'm sceptical of the conclusion that schools are driving infection clusters to a high degree. 

I suspect if the conclusions in the data were that obvious, that even the Galaxy Brains over at Scottish Labour would be all over it.

In order for schools, and particularly  classroom environments to be demonstrated as primary infection clusters, you would need to have evidence of children as index cases (i.e. onset of symptoms prior to that of adults) in a majority of household cases - since that's likely who they would pass it to. In the case where most or even all children were entirely asymptomatic  (unlikely) track and trace would still be able to piece together a picture of a class room cluster from the fact that a bunch of households in a catchment area, all with children the same age and with a little further digging, showing them from the same school and indeed the same class even, well it'd start to look fairly obvious right?

The problem is, that while the PHE data showed something like a third of all cluster incidents in educational settings (and clusters were defined as two or more cases) it didn't go as far as identifying the demographics involved in those clusters (I.e. it could have been two staff with infections) the Scottish weekly data, which admittedly only breaks down by age group still showed only 8% of positive cases forvthat week from school aged kids, and it broke down something like 0.5% of nursery age kids, 2.4% of primary age kids and 5.1% of secondary school age kids.

Now, that data would seem to correlate with various studies done in the last few months that show a strong correlation between age and viral susceptibility. Kids just don't seem to get it as much, and when they do, it's usually in a lighter form. That has implications for their ability to transmit the required viral loads to others to act as vectors.

The various news reports about schools usually ends up being handfuls of cases, in the region of 3 to 4 cases for a whole school, and often staff make up a good fraction of positive cases. The other thing we need to show that classroom clusters are driving large case loads is evidence that the classroom becomes infected, most or all kids get it and pass it out into the wider world. Yet with the limited evidence we have it's just as likely that the cases are imported into schools via staff, but that the general lack of susceptibility of kids prevents widespread infections.

I get the timing issue, I really do. At the same time, that went hand in hand with a geneal further opening of society. Tracts of households that had one or more adults furloughed or off work to cope with childcare were suddenly able to go back into the workplace, for example. You'd have adults congregating around school gates. Maybe schools are contributing to infection rates in an indirect way, at the same time why haven't we seen one or more schools get absolutely riddled with the thing? Why haven't we seen large scale positive testing in school staff in one school at one time? We know it spreads like wildfire through closed environments. So even if the kids were all asymptomatic, assuming they were good vectors for the disease why wouldn't they have passed it onto every staff member they came into contact with?

At the end of the day, my scepticism around school blaming is simply that I think beyond the timing, the general trends of infections would be so obvious to everyone. The idea that the media, who have their own sources in the civil service and science groups wouldn't have some visibility of such an issue seems unlikely to me.

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by renton

[Hedgecutter]

Could it be an economic thing where the government thinks (to put it bluntly) "productivity was going to be at its lowest during the holidays, so let's do any lockdown then to minimise the damage to those that weren't involved in tourism and f***ed anyway"?

[Hedgecutter]

1 hour ago, Snafu said:

Bungling food thieves who fled Scots restaurant without paying bill snared by track and trace

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/bungling-food-thieves-who-fled-22773942

The two women arrived at Ziggy's in St Andrews, Fife, on Monday evening along with two children and fled the scene without paying their bill.

A popular Scots eatery has shamed two ‘rockets’ who ran away without paying their bill were snared after leaving their contact details for Covid-19 tracing.

Ziggy’s in St Andrews, Fife, told how the two dine and dashers even left behind a pair of kids’ wellies in their rush to flee the table.

The two women, who were accompanied by two children and a dog, arrived at the restaurant on Monday evening without a reservation.

But they were soon seated and provided their contact information for coronavirus tracing before tucking in to a delicious meal.

The duo then made a hasty exit without paying the bill and blasted staff with abuse when they were called on the phone number they had graciously left behind.

One of the women even managed to get into a heated row with a passing Deliveroo driver who snapped a picture of her car registration plate.

 

In a statement, Ziggy’s explained: “Thickest Thieves! Watch out for this pair of rockets, straight out of Viz!

“They came to the restaurant on Monday evening without a reservation (two girls with two young children and a dog!), we had space so we took their details and sat them at the table.

“They finished their meal and before we had the chance to clear their plates, one left with the kids leaving the other to ‘pay’.

“Of course the Apple Pay didn’t work, so she had to run to the car to get her bank card.

“Meanwhile the friend was already in the car trying to drive the wrong way out of Murray Place (a one way road)!

“She was met by a Deliveroo driver driving the right way, he politely tried to make her aware of this however, she preferred to get out her car and have a screaming match with him.

“Luckily the Deliveroo driver took a picture of the licence plate which has been passed on to the police along with her name and contact number (thank you track and trace).

“We phoned, she phoned back so we asked if she planned on paying her bill? We were given a load of abuse!! - Class!

“In the haste to leave they left the weans’ wellies! Maybe you can pay the bill when you come to collect them! You couldn’t make it up!”

 

Judging by the consistent lack of closing quotation marks throughout that piece, I'm not particularly convinced that the owner of Ziggy's actually said "thickest thieves".

#dailyrecord

[DiegoDiego]

Does it f**k down with rain on a daily basis in Turkey

Yup, places like Hopa get more rain than Fort William.

[Szamo's_Ammo]

6 minutes ago, renton said:

I wouldn't describe myself as being in the 'at all costs' camp, at the same time I'm sceptical of the conclusion that schools are driving infection clusters to a high degree. 

I suspect if the conclusions in the data were that obvious, that even the Galaxy Brains over at Scottish Labour would be all over it.

In order for schools, and particularly  classroom environments to be demonstrated as primary infection clusters, you would need to have evidence of children as index cases (i.e. onset of symptoms prior to that of adults) in a majority of household cases - since that's likely who they would pass it to. In the case where most or even all children were entirely asymptomatic  (unlikely) track and trace would still be able to piece together a picture of a class room cluster from the fact that a bunch of households in a catchment area, all with children the same age and with a little further digging, showing them from the same school and indeed the same class even, well it'd start to look fairly obvious right?

The problem is, that while the PHE data showed something like a third of all cluster incidents in educational settings (and clusters were defined as two or more cases) it didn't go as far as identifying the demographics involved in those clusters (I.e. it could have been two staff with infections) the Scottish weekly data, which admittedly only breaks down by age group still showed only 8% of positive cases forvthat week from school aged kids, and it broke down something like 0.5% of nursery age kids, 2.4% of primary age kids and 5.1% of secondary school age kids.

Now, that data would seem to correlate with various studies done in the last few months that show a strong correlation between age and viral susceptibility. Kids just don't seem to get it as much, and when they do, it's usually in a lighter form. That has implications for their ability to transmit the required viral loads to others to act as vectors.

The various news reports about schools usually ends up being handfuls of cases, in the region of 3 to 4 cases for a whole school, and often staff make up a good fraction of positive cases. The other thing we need to show that classroom clusters are driving large case loads is evidence that the classroom becomes infected, most or all kids get it and pass it out into the wider world. Yet with the limited evidence we have it's just as likely that the cases are imported into schools via staff, but that the general lack of susceptibility of kids prevents widespread infections.

I get the timing issue, I really do. At the same time, that went hand in hand with a geneal further opening of society. Tracts of households that had one or more adults furloughed or off work to cope with childcare were suddenly able to go back into the workplace, for example. You'd have adults congregating around school gates. Maybe schools are contributing to infection rates in an indirect way, at the same time why haven't we seen one or more schools get absolutely riddled with the thing? Why haven't we seen large scale positive testing in school staff in one school at one time? We know it spreads like wildfire through closed environments. So even if the kids were all asymptomatic, assuming they were good vectors for the disease why wouldn't they have passed it onto every staff member they came into contact with?

At the end of the day, my scepticism around school blaming is simply that I think beyond the timing, the general trends of infections would be so obvious to everyone. The idea that the media, who have their own sources in the civil service and science groups wouldn't have some visibility of such an issue seems unlikely to me.

There was a report on the BBC this morning in regards to Italy and their low infection rates during the second wave compared to the other big hitters from the first wave (UK, France, Spain).

They did mention- but only as a footnote- that the schools have only just gone back in Italy (2 weeks ago). In the UK and France the schools were reopened in August, and at the beginning of September in Spain. It will be interesting to see what the case numbers are in Italy in 4-6 weeks. They did manage to get their case numbers down in the summer far more successfully than France and Spain.

New Covid cases on 18 August:

UK- 1,089
France- 2,238
Spain- 5,114
Italy- 401

New Covid cases on 30 September:

UK- 7,108
France- 12,845
Spain- 11,016
Italy- 1,850

As far as I can tell, these nations didn't experience a huge spike in cases when pubs, restaurants, cinemas, etc, opened months earlier.

I think it's clear that younger age groups are less likely to pick up the virus and transmit it. The other factors you mentioned that go hand in hand with the reopening of schools are part of the problem. There are loads of different branches of possible sources of infection that are opened up with a section of society as large as education being reopened.

If schooling had went ahead with the blended learning model they prepared for during the summer the number of opportunities for these transmission events to occur would have been greatly reduced. Parents aren't going to be congregating at the gates, transport with no social distancing isn't going to be packed out, shops aren't going to be mobbed at lunchtime, etc, if the kids aren't there as much.

I expect the UK and Scottish governments will keep their fingers crossed and leave it another couple of weeks before taking any action.

[Detournement]

They didn't experience a huge spike in cases immediately when things reopened because that's not it how works. It takes a few weeks of the R number being above one to properly kick off the second wave. 

If schools were the issue you would definitely have a few huge local clusters around the country. 

[GordonS]

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

Also is it not possible for anyone else apart from NS to lead the briefing?
SNP seems like a one man band.

She's doing well at presenting it but she must need a rest?

The evidence on public health communication is that people prefer to hear one voice.

And you know what would happen the minute someone else did it - "Sturgeon bails out, FM runs from question, Who's Really In Charge, bet it's about Salmond, Has Nicola Cracked?" all that shit. She has to keep doing it until things become much calmer.

[Szamo's_Ammo]

1 minute ago, Detournement said:

They didn't experience a huge spike in cases immediately when things reopened because that's not it how works. It takes a few weeks of the R number being above one to properly kick off the second wave. 

I'm aware of that, thank you.

That's why I've compared case numbers over 6 weeks. Pubs, restaurants, hairdressers etc reopened in England on 4 July.

Cases in England on 4 July:

624

Cases in England on 15 August (6 weeks later):

1,077

[RiG]

The Edinburgh Christmas market has been cancelled which is especially disappointing as I now don't know where I am going buy a hot dog for £8 or a small cup of mulled win for £5  

[madwullie]

This on full fact covers the story that only 3% of cases involved restaurants or pubs. 

 

https://fullfact.org/health/its-wrong-to-say-that-only-3-of-covid-19-cases-are-caused-by-restaurants-and-pubs/

[Szamo's_Ammo]

1 minute ago, RiG said:

The Edinburgh Christmas market has been cancelled which is especially disappointing as I now don't know where I am going buy a hot dog for £8 or a small cup of mulled win for £5  

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas xx ❤" Instagram is going to take a big hit this winter.