Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[8MileBU]

I don’t know why they don’t just deliver the good news and the less good news excuses at the same time instead of holding back a few days.

https://news.stv.tv/politics/freeman-vaccinating-over-50s-by-spring-depends-on-supplies?top

[Bairnardo]

1 minute ago, Wee Willie said:

How stupid are you? What has the current Scottish government have to do with independence? After independence then you and anybody else can vote for any political party. If enough folk agree with you then it will be a totally different political party that will be the government in an independent Scotland.

What has that got to do with what I posted? If you bother to read what I said again, you will see that I said I wont vote for the SNP despite my desire for Indy, (that would be my primary reason for voting them) if it means voting for a party who are intending to continue with restrictions that I believe to be an overstep. You have totally misread what I said. 

[Thereisalight..]

2 minutes ago, virginton said:

In what alternative universe are restrictions for another six to seven months 'getting your knickers into a twist over nothing'? Your handy reminder that the SG's tier system was set up as the minimum restrictions that would be needed until there was a treatment. There are no less than three fucking vaccines as well as treatments within hospitals for the more seriously ill patients. There's therefore zero justification for drumming our hands for another half year until Sridhar and a bunch of other clowns decide when restrictions must end.

All of the tiers should be launched into the bin as soon as the ICU levels are on a sustained downward path. 

It’s fcking frightening how willing people are to have these restrictions in place for what will have been over a year, all because of what the “experts” say. By experts I mean Devi and JL with their utopian zero covid bullshit. Once the elderly/vulnerable are vaccinated restrictions should be binned. For 99% of people outwith those groups covid is either a mild inconvenience or they don’t know they've got it at all.  I’m stunned at people seemingly being content to write off 2021 as another shit year with no enjoyment 

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

2 minutes ago, Wee Willie said:

How stupid are you? What has the current Scottish government have to do with independence? After independence then you and anybody else can vote for any political party. If enough folk agree with you then it will be a totally different political party that will be the government in an independent Scotland.

I think his point is that the SNP have made a complete arse of the response to the covid pandemic and despite being pro indy he doesnt necessarily think he could bring himself to vote for them regardless of their stance on constitutional issues. If that is his view then i agree with him. 

[welshbairn]

6 minutes ago, 8MileBU said:

I don’t know why they don’t just deliver the good news and the less good news excuses at the same time instead of holding back a few days.

https://news.stv.tv/politics/freeman-vaccinating-over-50s-by-spring-depends-on-supplies?top

Maybe she wasn't told how many doses we're getting till now. Initially we were promised about a million Phizer by today, I think it's less than 100,000.

[Granny Danger]

43 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

524,439 over 80s have had the vaccine in England.  This is 18% of that age group.

Chop chop.

According to Nicola Sturgeon quoted on the BBC 92,000 people in Scotland had been vaccinated by Sunday.  

[Todd_is_God]

15 minutes ago, Wee Willie said:

How stupid are you? What has the current Scottish government have to do with independence? After independence then you and anybody else can vote for any political party. If enough folk agree with you then it will be a totally different political party that will be the government in an independent Scotland.

"What has the current Scottish government have to do with independence" has to be one of the most deranged statements ever. The answer is "everything" as it is the current government who would have to deliver it, and for that to happen they need to keep people voting for them until that happens.

The ongoing response to the pandemic has the possibility of cutting into their vote share.

The typical nasty streak present in every Übernat is present in you in abundance.

Way to win over those swing voters...

Edited December 31, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Carl Cort's Hamstring]

8 minutes ago, Michael W said:

You can already picture Hancock being sent to deliver the bad news, can't you? 

I hope it's nothing more than pessimism after the last nine months, but I can't help but feel there's one more major howler still to occur. 

It just seems like such a needless risk to take, especially now the AZ vaccine is ready to go. 

[Paco]

You'd certainly hope this would happen but this hasn't been confirmed anywhere.

It can’t be ‘confirmed’ until we arrive there. The PM and Health Secretary of the UK have said in the last 24 hours that things will be ‘over’ by Easter, and the First Minister here has said ‘Spring will bring better times’. All subjective quotes but it clearly points to the majority of restrictions binned by then - if, and it remains an if, the vaccines work as planned and nothing major changes.

Only an idiot (enter Johnson, B) would claim to be able to say with absolute certainty how it’ll play out. But I think the likely path is limited restrictions at the start of summer, none by the end. I agree it’d be nice to see a new ‘route map’ to that sort of thing but Freeman tried plotting a vaccination schedule and Pfizer ruined it almost before it was out of her mouth. Easy to see why governments would be reluctant - I’m not sure anywhere in the world has done such a thing, because there are too many unknowns.

In what alternative universe are restrictions for another six to seven months 'getting your knickers into a twist over nothing'? Your handy reminder that the SG's tier system was set up as the minimum restrictions that would be needed until there was a treatment. There are no less than three fucking vaccines as well as treatments within hospitals for the more seriously ill patients. There's therefore zero justification for drumming our hands for another half year until Sridhar and a bunch of other clowns decide when restrictions must end. And Tier 1 is not even remotely back to normal either.
All of the tiers should be launched into the bin as soon as the ICU levels are on a sustained downward path. Not when the current vaccination program gets round to doing every single person in a vulnerable category.

On a personal level I don’t disagree with you. I said Tier 1 ‘at worst’ by Spring, because I don’t see politicians binning everything at that stage. But they might.

It relies on the data coming through. Van Tam said yesterday two people out of nearly a million vaccinated with one dose in the UK have needed hospital treatment for Covid. If it continues on that line, we probably will end up with full normality by April. But we’re about to use a new vaccine for the majority of the population, in a haphazard and untrialled way into the bargain. We don’t know with certainty how it’ll play out.

People are a bit on edge, but clearly we’re in the end game here. That’s all I meant. We’ll get there, a few weeks faster or slower isn’t something to be monumentally upset about.

[101]

16 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

I get your point then, but it can be so much easier, say you want to vaccinate 5,000 people at Faslane base or 5,000 people at BAE then they could repurpose some of the incident management vans or use police/fire hgvs too. There are ways and means to get it done it just needs them to stop thinking like NHS managers and more like competent people. 

Tbh I think this is where the military come into their own they don't have the same ties to paper pushing and pointless meetings they come up with the most effective way of doing something and get it done, why the NHS don't have people capable to do that I have no idea but clearly the NHS management is fairly average at best.

[Trackdaybob]

2 minutes ago, 101 said:

I think this is where the military come into their own they don't have the same ties to paper pushing and pointless meetings

You've not much experience of the military have you? 

 

[renton]

24 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Some encouraging news.

And some not so encouraging.

If the military can deliver 100,000 vaccinations a day, then I'm not sure why the NHS gets a vote on whether to use them.

In a Scottish context that's an extra 180,000 odds vaccinated in a month.

[yoda]

3 minutes ago, 101 said:

Tbh I think this is where the military come into their own they don't have the same ties to paper pushing and pointless meetings they come up with the most effective way of doing something and get it done, why the NHS don't have people capable to do that I have no idea but clearly the NHS management is fairly average at best.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

Just now, 101 said:

Tbh I think this is where the military come into their own they don't have the same ties to paper pushing and pointless meetings they come up with the most effective way of doing something and get it done, why the NHS don't have people capable to do that I have no idea but clearly the NHS management is fairly average at best.

Of course they have, im no flag waving yoon or anything remotely of the sort but ive worked with military planners and on exercises and the ‘just get it done’ type attitude is absolutely brilliant and something that civi public sector workers just cant get. They are methodical, they do things to a high standard under extreme pressure and deliver well, thats why they are so useful in floods etc here, where health authorities and agencies and councils here feel the need to have meetings about meetings and agreeing ‘strategies’ which dont equate to anything to do with the task at hand, when it comes to using military engineers etc you tell them the problem and they get cracking. 

[vikingTON]

1 minute ago, Paco said:

 

It can’t be ‘confirmed’ until we arrive there. The PM and Health Secretary of the UK have said in the last 24 hours that things will be ‘over’ by Easter, and the First Minister here has said ‘Spring will bring better times’. All subjective quotes but it clearly points to the majority of restrictions binned by then - if, and it remains an if, the vaccines work as planned and nothing major changes.

Only an idiot (enter Johnson, B) would claim to be able to say with absolute certainty how it’ll play out. But I think the likely path is limited restrictions at the start of summer, none by the end.



On a personal level I don’t disagree with you. I said Tier 1 ‘at worst’ by Spring, because I don’t see politicians binning everything at that stage. But they might.

It relies on the data coming through. Van Tam said yesterday two people out of nearly a million vaccinated with one dose in the UK have needed hospital treatment for Covid. If it continues on that line, we probably will end up with full normality by April. But we’re about to use a new vaccine for the majority of the population, in a haphazard and untrialled way into the bargain. We don’t know with certainty how it’ll play out.

People are a bit on edge, but clearly we’re in the end game here. That’s all I meant. We’ll get there, a few weeks faster or slower isn’t something to be monumentally upset about.

 

We're not talking about a few weeks here, we're talking about a few months' difference between what can be done and what van Tam and assorted government officials are now giving it. That has a huge impact not just on individuals but on the economy as well. Every lost week in 2021 due to restrictions means more businesses not coming back and an even larger bill for younger generations to foot for decades to come. It is the opposite of getting your knickers into a twist over nothing then.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

1 minute ago, renton said:

If the military can deliver 100,000 vaccinations a day, then I'm not sure why the NHS gets a vote on whether to use them.

In a Scottish context that's an extra 180,000 odds vaccinated in a month.

See even if they did 10k a day up here its still a good chunk done. 

[Granny Danger]

2 minutes ago, Paco said:

 

It can’t be ‘confirmed’ until we arrive there. The PM and Health Secretary of the UK have said in the last 24 hours that things will be ‘over’ by Easter, and the First Minister here has said ‘Spring will bring better times’. All subjective quotes but it clearly points to the majority of restrictions binned by then - if, and it remains an if, the vaccines work as planned and nothing major changes.

Only an idiot (enter Johnson, B) would claim to be able to say with absolute certainty how it’ll play out. But I think the likely path is limited restrictions at the start of summer, none by the end.



On a personal level I don’t disagree with you. I said Tier 1 ‘at worst’ by Spring, because I don’t see politicians binning everything at that stage. But they might.

It relies on the data coming through. Van Tam said yesterday two people out of nearly a million vaccinated with one dose in the UK have needed hospital treatment for Covid. If it continues on that line, we probably will end up with full normality by April. But we’re about to use a new vaccine for the majority of the population, in a haphazard and untrialled way into the bargain. We don’t know with certainty how it’ll play out.

People are a bit on edge, but clearly we’re in the end game here. That’s all I meant. We’ll get there, a few weeks faster or slower isn’t something to be monumentally upset about.

 

I would prefer, and expect, our politicians to closely monitor the effectiveness of the vaccine as well as the myriad of other factors before making predictions as to how and when restrictions will change.  That would be a mature, considered approach that any rational person would support.  I certainly wouldn’t want predictions made that had to be rowed back as a further unforeseen complication came to light as already has happened as we address the most serious health issue in our lifetimes.

Of course some folk will be baying for early predictions from the SG and will be the first to denounce them if further complications make the predictions impossible to meet.

 

[DiegoDiego]

60% of Ohio nursing home staff are refusing the covid vaccine according to the state governor. Words fail me.

[Billy Jean King]

Local health official for Shetland was saying on the Radio Scotland news that the outbreak there had been "fuelled" by visitors to the Islands giving false contact details at local hospitality venues !

[101]

8 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

Of course they have, im no flag waving yoon or anything remotely of the sort but ive worked with military planners and on exercises and the ‘just get it done’ type attitude is absolutely brilliant and something that civi public sector workers just cant get. They are methodical, they do things to a high standard under extreme pressure and deliver well, thats why they are so useful in floods etc here, where health authorities and agencies and councils here feel the need to have meetings about meetings and agreeing ‘strategies’ which dont equate to anything to do with the task at hand, when it comes to using military engineers etc you tell them the problem and they get cracking. 

 

10 minutes ago, Trackdaybob said:

You've not much experience of the military have you? 

 

My only experiences have been similar to ICR. I don't doubt that there are pen pushers and such but there are a lot of people who are good and getting something done.