Nicola Sturgeon's announcement - not sure I follow the logic of the latest COVID openings / restrictions?

[IwishIwasyoda]

So if I have got this right - 77 confirmed cases today which is the most for a while - but NS has announced that gyms and swimming pools can open on 31 August (not 14 Sept as previously indicated). Also bingo halls, amusement arcades and casinos can open yet people still have to SD indoors when meeting other households. Number positive cases in schools (but at pains to say no transmission in school).

Don't get me wrong I think schools should be open but not entirely sure it is a good idea to open lots of other things until the situation has settled a little. I also don't really understand how swimming pools /gyms shared facilities / equipment can be safe ...

Meanwhile powers being given to the police to break up house parties but no ability as far as I can see to enforce/ensure quarantine for those returning from abroad from high risk areas.

The more this goes on the less it all makes sense to me. I am assuming the main driver now is the economy and there has been lobbying from various interest groups to allow them to open up.

I know, it no longer makes any real sense. Bingo halls! What could go wrong in a hall full of old people? 🙄

They’re making it up as they go along.

It’s interesting for a control freak like NS that the SG have continued to threaten limitations on the area that they cannot control (people socialising in their own homes). Unless they intend to start massively overreaching state controls and getting the police to enforce what people do.

Yes it doesn’t make sense at all. I think the SG must have been under pressure to get economy moving further but it seems like a whole lot all at once when we are already seeing a resurgence in cases.

There is little sense to the hodge-podge of restrictions and openings up, but I think it's important to look at the numbers of cases in context. The numbers are the highest since May, but that's from a lot more tests (we were quite slow to get testing up to speed) and the % positive remains pretty stable. It's also worth remembering that this is largely because we're actively looking for cases now, many of which will be asymptomatic, whereas a lot of this would have been under the radar a few months ago. There isn't really any sign of an exponential increase in cases that would indicate things getting out of control.

I'm no fan of Nicola Sturgeon, but I do think that cautious reopening is the best thing to do overall, and we can't be put off by small rises in detected cases. It's absolutely right that the harms to the economy and people's wellbeing are also in the equation somewhere. I can see why people are uneasy though, and I think I lot of the blame for this can be laid at the door of NS herself, who has spent much of the last few months scaremongering about the virus and talking about how Scotland was on track for zero COVID (and doing SO much better than England). Now of course, when faced with reality, we have to make the same sorts of compromises as Westminster, which will inevitably lead to cluster outbreaks, and people are understandably questioning this.

I have no idea what message is being sent. Doom and gloom first, highest no. of cases, R>1 and then, pretty much in the next sentence, reopening of pools and gyms - before than it was expected! - and what not.
Don get me wrong, I am all for reopening, but I am really getting mixed messages here.

Thanks everyone @Arkadia that's exactly how I feel. Too many contradictions for my liking.

Finally found my people. The inconsistencies in what is and isnt allowed have been driving me nuts. I'm a "non-essential" office worker. Despite our building now festooned in tape, distancing signs,hygiene signs,hand sanitiser and all desks more than 2m apart, we are STILL not allowed back to work. We can go to the pub, to the bingo, to casinos, to gyms,to play CONTACT sport though because these things are safe!
I cant cope any more with working from home/living at work. I just cant.

Swimming and gyms are far safer than pubs! They should have opened before hospitality...that was an economic decision.

I saw someone say that it's more like a budget.

You can stand a certain number of cases before things go too pear shaped.

When you know that number you can add activities to that budget. So things are added on the basis of the value they bring. Schools are seen as really important, despite the large sum they add to the budget. Adding offices as well would take us over budget, so can't be done. I'd guess the number of bingo people is far less than the number of people who work in offices so adds less to the budget.

@LoopyGremlin

Swimming and gyms are far safer than pubs! They should have opened before hospitality...that was an economic decision.

I agree, but economics need to come in to it.

At one end of the scale you keep people almost entirely safe from CV by having a very strict lockdown. But then the economy completely tanks.

At the other you have a healthy economy but a lot of people dying.

A balance needs to be found somewhere, but everyone will disagree where that balance is.

I keep reading gyms / swimming pools are safe but can anyone point my in the direction of why this is the case? I used to go to the gym a lot and my experience was that few people wiped down equipment properly, there was extremely high football so hard to keep on top of the cleaning and ditto swimming pools.

@IwishIwasyoda

I keep reading gyms / swimming pools are safe but can anyone point my in the direction of why this is the case? I used to go to the gym a lot and my experience was that few people wiped down equipment properly, there was extremely high football so hard to keep on top of the cleaning and ditto swimming pools.

I follow the amazing Devi Sridhar (Edinburgh Uni Professor of Global Health) on Twitter and she tweeted a photo of activities from least risky to riskiest and pubs were at the top whilst swimming was deemed moderate. I can only imagine that pubs are riskier because as people drink more and more, social distancing and hygiene go out the window. Whereas in swimming pools chlorine will kill the virus. The main issue is changing but risk here can be mitigated by not changing and showering but sticking a robe or onesie on and getting in the car. Sport is important for physical and mental health so should be high priority in my opinion especially when the evidence suggests Covid is more serious in the overweight. But, everything needs to be balanced and I don’t envy having to make these decisions and trade offs.

Sturgeeon's been distracted by the Salmond inquiry. She'll be worried she is stretching the credibility of the sheep, with the SNP chairman shutting down questions, refusing to hand over evidence and today's big lie that she knew nothing about female civil servants being told to never be alone with Salmond.

I follow the amazing Devi Sridhar

She's lost a lot of credibility in the last few weeks with her very pro-government tweeting and has made it clear she's far from impartial in political matters.

Anyway. I totally agree that the briefings are completely inconsistent. At the start they're reporting the number of people in hospital who have test positive at around 200 odd but that figure doesn't mean anything as a lot of those people are chronically ill and would have been in hospital anyway. New admissions are the key and those are very, very low.

The cases in Scotland are so low at the moment, apart from numpties who go to house parties, footballers, and people who stand too close to others in the pub. Closing the pubs but ditching face masks everywhere apart from hospitals would be a far more effective method of getting the economy back on its feet.

Oh and they need to ditch the 45 minute daily SNP party political broadcast on the BBC. When was the last time there was a 5pm briefing in London? Why do we need her up there for 45 minutes each day lecturing people?

Once a week, or even once a fortnight, is PLENTY. Especially when she really has nothing new to say.

Im afraid I don’t rate Devi Sridhar either and what she has to say after her political tweets. I think she is just too political for my liking in her capacity as an advisor, I would prefer if she should keep that to herself and stuck to her remit. I think she has her eye on future global promotions anyway.

I too am confused between the Scot.gov actions and their rhetoric.
I haven’t tuned in to their daily broadcast for ages though. I just check numbers on travelling tabby at 3pm, much easier to understand and digest.
I think they were stupid to open up pubs so early but then they will have been lobbied by the drinks and hospitality industry which feel they have been so hard done by with the alcohol minimum pricing slapped on them in recent times and a lot of folk are employed by breweries, distilleries and pubs. Surely a compromise would have been better my closing the pubs at 6/7pm, they have to go around checking the pubs as part of their beat anyway. I think people drink less with food. Did the Scot.gov seriously not think folk would go on a pub crawl? Are politicians really that remote from us?

I would like to know if companies (like 2 sisters chicken factory) have an outbreak will they be investigated by HSE to check they adhered to guidelines and PPE?

It would be easy to open pubs sensibly. You book a table like you do in a restaurant. Track and trace applies. Either table service, or one person at the bar at a time.

Bars with very little seating and where everyone crowds standing around the bar just can't open.

I have rarely felt so disappointed in a fellow scientist as I do with Devi Sridhar. There's nothing wrong with holding political opinions, we all do I'm sure, but in her very public capacity as a scientific advisor she should leave her politics at home and stick to the science. Some of her tweets about pro-UK people being 'Anti-Scottish', and lately her well publicised comments that Scotland and NI are facing waves of infection from England and Wales (which isn't even supported by the facts) are nothing short of disgraceful.

I also agree that the daily broadcast has gone too far - release the daily stats as a press release as the UK does and be done with it. It's gone far beyond a health briefing and often diverges into areas like business support packages, education policy, and not so subtle digs at Westminster. I actually complained to the BBC that the SNP were getting so much air time to put forward their policies, and sometimes completely misleading statistics, without challenge, but no reply yet. At such a politically volatile time it is absolutely unacceptable.

Clearly I’m in a minority! I think she comes across very clearly in interviews and also has some good points.

I think gyms being open is a bit different from gyms operating as normal.

DH and DS are members of a large gym. They've been told that membership will continue to be paused but that they will be opening up some pay as you go slots only for members. So there will be sessions but they will be limited in numbers and not include all facilities.

They are not opening the pool at thus point due to work being undertaken which limits the access. The work was due to be completed by the summer but has obviously been delayed.

However, I agree that the mixed messages and daily political broadcasts are tiresome.

We are no longer in the peak of a pandemic. There are things we need to keep doing and life is not normal yet but we need access to data and information that there are plenty other routes to deliver.

Agree to above - the gym by us used to have a cap of 25 people in classes like zumba or yoga. That's been dropped to 10 for the reopening. People are being asked to book a slot to use the pool. It's far from normal.

Are you talking about council or private gyms/pools?
I was reading about Bannatyne's and except a limitation on numbers there doesn't seem a great deal besides token gestures.