Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Marshmallo]

1 minute ago, Day of the Lords said:

"Turning into"?

It's funny watching him try to ape posters that are simply much better at this sort of stuff than he is. I say funny, perhaps pitiful is more appropriate. 

He's the pits. Rapidly approaching Ignore List territory for me.

[101]

Just now, Billy Jean King said:

3 minutes ago, 101 said:

The exit from lockdown will be one of those "4 nations" things mainly because England will want to go faster but Scotland's numbers will already be lower so win win, problem being is what Wales and N.I want to do, I could see us all being extended until April 1st with maybe some relaxations on meeting outdoors which is hardly ideal.

I doubt that in Wales going by Drakefords comments this morning. Furlough is the key to it all, it more than anything else forces the agenda.

It has to be extended tbh I would extend it until the end of the EU easements which is 31st Dec. 

Because even once things start to ease it's not all sectors.

[doulikefish]

Just been reading the last few pages theres some people that need to step away for a few days for there own wellbeing as its heads gone all over the place.

Go for a walk and listen to some tunes  and get some fresh air folks

[The Moonster]

@The_Kincardine every time a "Nat" says something about a Tory.

[Honest_Man#1]

23 minutes ago, MuckleMoo said:

Being reported that furlough will be extended into the summer

https://www.cityam.com/rishi-sunak-to-extend-business-rates-relief-and-furlough/
 

Will see if it actually happens and if it’s sector specific or blanket, but if it’s a blanket extension into summer then that is gutting.

[Honest_Man#1]

1 minute ago, doulikefish said:

Just been reading the last few pages theres some people that need to step away for a few days for there own wellbeing as its heads gone all over the place.

Go for a walk and listen to some tunes  and get some fresh air folks

Devi Sridhar alias found.

[Bairnardo]

Will see if it actually happens and if it’s sector specific or blanket, but if it’s a blanket extension into summer then that is gutting.

Surely theres no way they are up for paying for a blanket extension.... Absolute nonsense if so.

[Paco]

It struck me this morning about the messaging in England when Johnson cancelled Christmas for the South days beforehand, having literally the day before said it would be ‘inhuman’. It was reported as ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t find Boris Johnson actually saying those words, but Robert Jenrick did and it was on dozens of front pages.

The thought was that since Christmas was punted, things would be much better by Easter and the traditional Christmas gatherings with your whole family could take place then instead. ‘Normality by Easter’ is a direct Johnson quote (plus Hancock and Dowden).

The reason I bring this up - Nicola Sturgeon has said holidays by Easter simply won’t be happening. Mark Drakeford is ‘hopeful’ Welsh people will be able to go to caravans in Wales by Easter. Johnson will release the government plans on Monday but I think one thing we can all be sure of is that there will be no allowance for multi-household, multi-generational indoor gatherings in order to ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t understand why there’s no outcry about this down South, it’s almost Stockholm Syndrome type stuff. They just seem happy to let Johnson run along to his next ‘target’ with no consequences or even murmurs of discontent.

The UK minister quotes came in late December when the direction of travel of the virus was known, the vaccinations were known, the delivery schedules for the vaccinations were known, variants were known and the possible impact of the variants on the vaccine were known. In other words, nothing particularly unexpected has happened since then. I think we’d all agree that up until this stage, the vaccination programme has been a huge success and credit must go where it’s due to the UKG for it. It couldn’t really have went much better realistically.

So what did Johnson, Hancock, Dowden and Jenrick expect to have happened by now, that hasn’t? What’s changed since these comments were made, that has impacted them so significantly? Or, whisper it. Did they just say what people wanted to hear?

Sturgeon would quite rightly be getting hounded on these pages for the same thing, just look at the reaction to the Freeman ‘million vaccinations by the end of January’ comment, made before delivery schedules were known (the number was hit on Feb 9th). Her tone on Tuesday was miles off and has me concerned she’s lost touch with reality, the pelters were deserved.

But don’t let the murmurings of doom fool you into thinking the UK Government end result will be much different. It’ll be broadly the same, and no amount of Johnson or backbench morons telling you what you want to hear will change that.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Paco

[dirty dingus]

7 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

Cheap and ignorant posting..  Almost as bad as the idiotic posting over on the politics thread wherein the Natter Massive were speculating over the reintroduction of capital punishment.

No wonder that a failed and morally bankrupt administration in Holyrood gets so much credit for its incompetence when we have pish like this.

[ayrmad]

7 minutes ago, Paco said:

It struck me this morning about the messaging in England when Johnson cancelled Christmas for the South days beforehand, having literally the day before said it would be ‘inhuman’. It was reported as ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t find Boris Johnson actually saying those words, but Robert Jenrick did and it was on dozens of front pages.

The thought was that since Christmas was punted, things would be much better by Easter and the traditional Christmas gatherings with your whole family could take place then instead. ‘Normality by Easter’ is a direct Johnson quote (plus Hancock and Dowden).

The reason I bring this up - Nicola Sturgeon has said holidays by Easter simply won’t be happening. Mark Drakeford is ‘hopeful’ Welsh people will be able to go to caravans in Wales by Easter. Johnson will release the government plans on Monday but I think one thing we can all be sure of is that there will be no allowance for multi-household, multi-generational indoor gatherings in order to ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t understand why there’s no outcry about this down South, it’s almost Stockholm Syndrome type stuff. They just seem happy to let Johnson run along to his next ‘target’ with no consequences or even murmurs of discontent.

The UK minister quotes came in late December when the direction of travel of the virus was known, the vaccinations were known, the delivery schedules for the vaccinations were known, variants were known and the possible impact of the variants on the vaccine were known. In other words, nothing particularly unexpected has happened since then. I think we’d all agree that up until this stage, the vaccination programme has been a huge success and credit must go where it’s due to the UKG for it. It couldn’t really have went much better realistically.

So what did Johnson, Hancock, Dowden and Jenrick expect to have happened by now, that hasn’t? What’s changed since these comments were made, that has impacted them so significantly? Or, whisper it. Did they just say what people wanted to hear?

Sturgeon would quite rightly be getting hounded on these pages for the same thing, just look at the reaction to the Freeman ‘million vaccinations by the end of January’ comment, made before delivery schedules were known (the number was hit on Feb 9th). Her tone on Tuesday was miles off and has me concerned she’s lost touch with reality, the pelters were deserved.

But don’t let the murmurings of doom fool you into thinking the UK Government end result will be much different. It’ll be broadly the same, and no amount of Johnson or backbench morons telling you to want to hear will change that.

Is a lot of that not just down to how the media treats both governments? 

[Bairnardo]

Quite an odd theme starting to develop here of folk going with "its going to take as long as it takes and you're not as switched on as me if you dont realise that" and using it as some sort of straw man against people questioning WHY it's going to take as long....

[Aladdin]

I'd be interested in whether any survey of opinions about lockdown ever differentiated between groups who had been furloughed for the duration of the pandemic and those who have worked throughout.

[Todd_is_God]

15 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Quite an odd theme starting to develop here of folk going with "its going to take as long as it takes and you're not as switched on as me if you dont realise that" and using it as some sort of straw man against people questioning WHY it's going to take as long....

These people look like this

[madwullie]

7 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

These people look like this

As opposed to

 

Edit: people actually have pretty similar opinions imo. Everyone wants (and thinks) restrictions will start to be eased as we move into the summer. Noone wants them further than that, and only a solitary poster or two actually believes they will be in place into the late autumn

Edited February 19, 2021 by madwullie

[Jan Vojáček]

23 minutes ago, Paco said:

It struck me this morning about the messaging in England when Johnson cancelled Christmas for the South days beforehand, having literally the day before said it would be ‘inhuman’. It was reported as ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t find Boris Johnson actually saying those words, but Robert Jenrick did and it was on dozens of front pages.

The thought was that since Christmas was punted, things would be much better by Easter and the traditional Christmas gatherings with your whole family could take place then instead. ‘Normality by Easter’ is a direct Johnson quote (plus Hancock and Dowden).

The reason I bring this up - Nicola Sturgeon has said holidays by Easter simply won’t be happening. Mark Drakeford is ‘hopeful’ Welsh people will be able to go to caravans in Wales by Easter. Johnson will release the government plans on Monday but I think one thing we can all be sure of is that there will be no allowance for multi-household, multi-generational indoor gatherings in order to ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t understand why there’s no outcry about this down South, it’s almost Stockholm Syndrome type stuff. They just seem happy to let Johnson run along to his next ‘target’ with no consequences or even murmurs of discontent.

The UK minister quotes came in late December when the direction of travel of the virus was known, the vaccinations were known, the delivery schedules for the vaccinations were known, variants were known and the possible impact of the variants on the vaccine were known. In other words, nothing particularly unexpected has happened since then. I think we’d all agree that up until this stage, the vaccination programme has been a huge success and credit must go where it’s due to the UKG for it. It couldn’t really have went much better realistically.

So what did Johnson, Hancock, Dowden and Jenrick expect to have happened by now, that hasn’t? What’s changed since these comments were made, that has impacted them so significantly? Or, whisper it. Did they just say what people wanted to hear?

Sturgeon would quite rightly be getting hounded on these pages for the same thing, just look at the reaction to the Freeman ‘million vaccinations by the end of January’ comment, made before delivery schedules were known (the number was hit on Feb 9th). Her tone on Tuesday was miles off and has me concerned she’s lost touch with reality, the pelters were deserved.

But don’t let the murmurings of doom fool you into thinking the UK Government end result will be much different. It’ll be broadly the same, and no amount of Johnson or backbench morons telling you to want to hear will change that.

Excellent post.

I got a comment from the leader of West Dunbartonshire Council for an article on Covid on Monday, that said: "Lapses in judgement can have serious consequences for those not yet inoculated, and we need to get the rate down to give us the best possible chance of returning to something closer to normal by the end of the year.”

I wonder how much longer people will take seeing industries they work in wiped out, being told not to see friends and family, not to go to gigs and sports events and not to shop for clothes on the basis that "it will help us get back to normal by X". As far as I'm concerned, once my grandparents have their second dose I'll wait three weeks and then I'll be visiting them like normal. I've barely seen them for a year and (lets be brutally honest) they don't have much longer left. I'm not going to wait until April 2022 to see them - because they might not be here.

Keeping us in tight restrictions all the way until at least the end of 2021 (as he suggests could be the case, albeit only as a council leader) would be a total failure of government. 

Personally though, and it may be me trying to be too optimistic, I feel like all this messaging is designed to stop people getting complacent. If they said the vaccine was working and the most vulnerable were now in a really decent position, then there would be intense pressure to open up pronto. Both governments want to be cautious to avoid another spike, so they have ramped up the fear messaging. Or at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself.

[Todd_is_God]

Young man became tired. It can happen to anyone

Maybe i'm in the minority, but I feel the SG have missed the boat by an absolute mile with these adverts.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[ICTChris]

https://unherd.com/2021/02/the-fantasy-of-english-freedom/

Quote

The British are, in fact, quite conformist and placid. The French riot about literally anything, while after epic levels of political incompetence and 120,000 deaths, the worst that’s happened here is someone projecting “Boris is a wet wipe” on Parliament.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by ICTChris

[Honest_Man#1]

7 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Young man became tired. It can happen to anyone

Saw that one earlier. At least it’s not a beached whale this time, but when the extent of it was “I felt energy drained” it again actually seems to be pushing the opposite message to what I think they’re aiming for. 

[Bairnardo]

I feel energy drain with a cold tbh, so I fail to see how that sets the benchmark for all the businesses across Scotland being torched. 

What an embarrassment from the Scotgov pearl clutchers. 

[djchapsticks]

Isn't the line 'with more infectious strains emerging' on that tweet just a blatant lie as well? 

We've only been told that the 'Kent variant' is more infectious and that isn't emerging, its now fully established and embedded.

I mean we hear constantly of a possibility of more variants coming in time but that's purely hypothetical at present. 

So what are these other 'more infectious' strains that are emerging? 

Edited February 19, 2021 by djchapsticks