Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[dirty dingus]

5 hours ago, Elixir said:

I thought the Scottish Government had already jumped the shark by this point, but surely they're not going to end up going full-on Hitler's bunker and double down on the elimination nonsense.

[Steven W]

6 hours ago, Lyle Lanley said:

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will address Holyrood today but is not expected to outline plans for potential Hampden crowds — or even if Scots will be allowed to travel over the border by June.

Imagine no fans at Hampden but England games are with full capacity in June  

I'm pretty sure she'd be entirely comfortable with that.

[Detournement]

Sturgeon is in a tricky place. 

What Boris said yesterday about accepting spikes as part of the cost of returning to normality hasn't been controversial at all most people recognise it's inevitable and necessary. Sturgeon has spent 12 months talking about elimination and now she either ditches that to follow England or sticks with it and pisses a lot of people off. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

1 hour ago, Bairnardo said:

7 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

I’d believe Ad Lib before anything that came out a fucking Tory’s mouth.
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but..... hes a Lib Dem isn't he?

I believe he is.

[mizfit]

Yeah I’m not expecting much today.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

43 minutes ago, Detournement said:

Sturgeon is in a tricky place. 

What Boris said yesterday about accepting spikes as part of the cost of returning to normality hasn't been controversial at all most people recognise it's inevitable and necessary. Sturgeon has spent 12 months talking about elimination and now she either ditches that to follow England or sticks with it and pisses a lot of people off. 

No, most people believe it won't affect them personally and are quite willing to throw a few more crumblies and blimps under the bus so that they can get a pint/game of golf/haircut. 

At this point, the majority are at the "I'll take my chances - just let me out of the house!" stage, which is more than understandable.  In fairness, I believe the vaccine is over delivering to such an extent both in efficacy and uptake that the tunnel is getting shorter and the light brighter almost by the day. A year of missed targets and broken promises (mainly from Johnson) has led our leaders to be very circumspect as to what we can expect and when. Whatever, as long as we are travelling in the right direction I can contain my enthusiasm. 

I may be well wide of the mark here, but the first step appears to be the one most likely to go wrong - surely a vaccination for allschool workers could be arranged in the time between now and re-opening? Might not help all that much (I'm not an expert), but surely can't do any harm?

[Melanius Mullarkey]

7 hours ago, Elixir said:

I thought the Scottish Government had already jumped the shark by this point, but surely they're not going to end up going full-on Hitler's bunker and double down on the elimination nonsense.

Glen Minter.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

 

2 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Glen Minter.

He might as well be. An utter shambles of a poster. I can only assume he's trying more desperate material as the greenies must be drying up 

[mizfit]

Having sat and thought about it, I believe well follow England’s route map but perhaps be a week or 2 behind, and will see a return to school of P4-7’s on 8th March.

Secondaries won’t return until Easter.

Non-essential shops to reopen from 15 March including Barbers, Bookies, Clothing and electronic shops.

5th April sees a return to outdoor hospitality. Lifting of travel restrictions within Scotland also lifted.

3rd May, inside of restaurants and pubs to reopen.

1st June - stadiums and sports arena to allow in a limited number (let’s say 300 as that was the pilot and to be safe.)

30th June - lifting of social distancing.

I would add that a right to move local areas back or forward a step dependent on infections can also be allowed.

This is also dependent on the vaccine rates staying as such that every adult will have had their first dose by the 31st July also.

[Ron Aldo]

Having sat and thought about it, I believe well follow England’s route map but perhaps be a week or 2 behind, and will see a return to school of P4-7’s on 8th March.

Secondaries won’t return until Easter.

Non-essential shops to reopen from 15 March including Barbers, Bookies, Clothing and electronic shops.

5th April sees a return to outdoor hospitality. Lifting of travel restrictions within Scotland also lifted.

3rd May, inside of restaurants and pubs to reopen.

1st June - stadiums and sports arena to allow in a limited number (let’s say 300 as that was the pilot and to be safe.)

30th June - lifting of social distancing.

I would add that a right to move local areas back or forward a step dependent on infections can also be allowed.

This is also dependent on the vaccine rates staying as such that every adult will have had their first dose by the 31st July also.

As someone in desperate need of a haircut that would be great but I can't see us opening barbers etc. a month before England.

[Jambomo]

Boris has created a rod for everyone’s back here. Certainly a lot of people on social media are taking these dates as ‘dates that things are going to happen’ and ignoring the ‘not before’ part. 

I don’t think it seems a bad timeline though, probably around what you’d expect given where the timetable of the vaccines will be if everything stays on track.

It’s just a bit unfortunate he’s used set dates to do it because it isn’t giving him, or any of the devolved nations, space to allow for any issues arising, even in things such as vaccine supply. 

[Billy Jean King]

Having sat and thought about it, I believe well follow England’s route map but perhaps be a week or 2 behind, and will see a return to school of P4-7’s on 8th March.

Secondaries won’t return until Easter.

Non-essential shops to reopen from 15 March including Barbers, Bookies, Clothing and electronic shops.

5th April sees a return to outdoor hospitality. Lifting of travel restrictions within Scotland also lifted.

3rd May, inside of restaurants and pubs to reopen.

1st June - stadiums and sports arena to allow in a limited number (let’s say 300 as that was the pilot and to be safe.)

30th June - lifting of social distancing.

I would add that a right to move local areas back or forward a step dependent on infections can also be allowed.

This is also dependent on the vaccine rates staying as such that every adult will have had their first dose by the 31st July also.

Most of that is ahead of England never mind a couple of weeks behind.

[Steven W]

Not sure if he was opening his mouth and letting his belly rumble, but Leitch said on Radio Scotland that a return to the tier system was likely, based upon, in comparison with England, Scotland's different geography (Islands, sparsely populated in some areas, heavily populated across the central belt). However he did moot that it may not be based on local authorities anymore, highlighting that the three distinct island groups,  the North West of the country, and a sprawl from the central belt up to Dundee and Aberdeen.

I think reading between the lines a tier system based local authorties may be scrapped, perhaps in favour of doing it by health board?

Edited February 23, 2021 by Steven W

[Billy Jean King]

Boris has created a rod for everyone’s back here. Certainly a lot of people on social media are taking these dates as ‘dates that things are going to happen’ and ignoring the ‘not before’ part. 
I don’t think it seems a bad timeline though, probably around what you’d expect given where the timetable of the vaccines will be if everything stays on track.
It’s just a bit unfortunate he’s used set dates to do it because it isn’t giving him, or any of the devolved nations, space to allow for any issues arising, even in things such as vaccine supply. 

They were interviewing a hair salon owner there saying just that. Deluged with folk wanting to book for 12 April and them then being furious when she advised them she wasn't taking bookings until dates were confirmed which will be min 7 days before. People unsurprisingly given the media coverage have seen the banner dates and taken them as gospel as opposed to what they basically are ie earliest indicative dates.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

I saw a quote somewhere on BBC's website that Scotland and the other devolved nations were largely going to be following the English roadmap, so I'd expect much the same with a few minor tweaks here and there. Hopefully vaccine supply can keep up. I reckon they'll just the the J&J one-shotter to batter through any adults not already been vaccinated before punting the spares abroad. Assuming it works well enough (I haven't seen the figures for it) the J&J will probably be the weapon of choice should we need annual jags.

I feel cautiously optimistic tbh. 

[Dunning1874]

7 hours ago, Lyle Lanley said:

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon will address Holyrood today but is not expected to outline plans for potential Hampden crowds — or even if Scots will be allowed to travel over the border by June.

Imagine no fans at Hampden but England games are with full capacity in June  

There are two different ways you can read that. One is that plans for any level of crowds at sporting events or people crossing the border aren't even being considered as possibilities or are being explicitly ruled out for June, which would cause an understandable meltdown.

The other, and far more likely IMO, is that the difference in the SG's approach will be not committing to firm dates for these things and others, which brings with it a degree of vagueness and leaves the summer up in the air, but keeps a 'data not dates' approach open.

That would leave them open to a response of 'they're not planning for any specific dates, how can we have certainty?!' which will be understandable in some sectors, particularly those still dependent on furlough if they don't know if it's going to continue while restrictions are still in place for them. However considering how badly pretty much every previous attempt to base plans around "we'll lift restrictions on this date" has gone over the last 12 months that's probably more sensible than ending up with another set of restrictions which were to be in place for three weeks rolling on for months, and with how good the data looks so far with the success of the rollout and how many people are expected to be vaccinated by then, taking that approach shouldn't be seen as writing anything for June off.

A whole lot of this is going to come down to tone though. Even if we don't have specific dates or trigger points of 'when X number of vaccinations have happened and hospitalisation figures are at Y, doing Z will be safe again', please just give us some optimism and acknowledgement that vaccines are working and are at some point going to end this, even if you understandably don't want to commit to saying exactly when that's going to happen.

[Rodhull]

43 minutes ago, Day of the Lords said:

 

He might as well be. An utter shambles of a poster. I can only assume he's trying more desperate material as the greenies must be drying up 

I try not to read this thread too often for my own sanity but it’s genuinely hard to tell those that are just on the windup from those that have actually lost their minds.

Edited February 23, 2021 by Rodhull

[Dunning1874]

6 minutes ago, Steven W said:

Not sure if he was opening his mouth and letting his belly rumble, but Leitch said on Radio Scotland that a return to the tier system was likely, based upon, in comparison with England, Scotland's different geography (Islands, sparsely populated in some areas, heavily populated across the central belt). However he did moot that it may not be based on local authorities anymore, highlighting that the three distinct island groups,  the North West of the country, and a sprawl from the central belt up to Dundee and Aberdeen.

I think reading between the lines a tier system based local authorties may be scrapped, perhaps in favour of doing it by health board?

As you'd expect a greater focus on hospitalisation figures over cases as vaccination progresses then it makes sense to do it by health board, but if this came to pass then seeing the logic in it wouldn't stop me being seething that Inverclyde could probably be sitting with the lowest local authority figures outside Orkney and Shetland then get punted into the highest level anyway due to sharing a health board with Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire and Renfrewshire.

[Benjamin_Nevis]

4 minutes ago, Rodhull said:

I try not to read this thread too often for my own sanity but it’s genuinely hard to tell those that are just on the windup from those that have genuinely lost their minds.

Ad Lib's stuff over the last few days is absolute top notch wummery. Had a few posters seething without really overplaying his hand and making it too obvious. 

[vikingTON]

59 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

No, most people believe it won't affect them personally and are quite willing to throw a few more crumblies and blimps under the bus so that they can get a pint/game of golf/haircut. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56165929

Hundreds of thousands more unemployed per quarter - three-fifths of those losing their job during the pandemic being young adults - and more than six million others on a daft furlough scheme that everyone else is paying through the nose for. But aye it's all about pints and haircuts you self-righteous walloper.