October Becomes November Lockdown

[BlueThursday]

New thread

I suspect this will be the second of many

Especially as you don't need a crystal ball to see next term is likely online too...

I wonder at the firm ruling out of the 7 days cut here given all we don't know - it's not as though things are going so well that we couldn't risk trying a few things at this stage!

Maybe tier zero will be their prize to us if we vote for independence

For those that are worrying that the App is constantly "alerting" them about contacts, but doing so by going into Settings and then looking at the App, that's not you being alerted by the App

If you were being alerted by the App, then you would be alerted by the App - not by going into obscure settings . All you are seeing in those iOS/Android settings is how the App operates in the background: "pinging" regularly and occasionally "seeing" other phones that also have the app (in the middle of the night, in my case, that would be dh's phone).

I've not been alerted via the App but a friend has (she was able to work out who it was as she hadn't been out much - but it's otherwise anonymous).

Can any body explain why the rates n Lanarkshire abd Glasgow haven’t gone down like the other regions despite being in special measures for ages??

@WouldBeGood

There is still very little evidence that hospitality plays any significant role at all in transmission so I’m not surprised that the closures haven’t reduced cases.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised either if closing pubs has led to more gathering in homes.

Edinburgh was different in that it’s cases were very low before students arrived. The student outbreaks seem to have died down now which is reflected in the Lothian figures.

Could be any number of reasons for the "casedemic" in the west.

More people being tested so you are going to find more as you are now identifying people who would have never gone for a test? Like exponential growth. So the more people who test, means more track and traced, means more people going for a test, means more positive results and so on? Lets remember here that none of this means that there are any more or less % of people who might have/have had covid in each of the areas. All it shows is that there are more people who have had a positive PCR test.

The only way to actually tell anything is to go by the % amount of people in hospital ill or dying from covid. None of the other figures mean anything and the figures we need are not available to us.

Were we not promised that they would pick some places and test everyone (that agreed) so that they would actually get an idea of community prevalence? They never did that to the best of my knowledge, possibly because the tests don't identify this properly?

I think the big issue has to be schools. How long before they close them?

The bit that doesn't make any sense is Lanarkshire being worse than Glasgow. WTF is going on?

They did @WaxOnFeckOff

twitter.com/nhsforthvalley/status/1318966027972214785?s=21

I saw a thing on Twitter saying it was worse in Glasgow abd Lanarkshire because of the increased measures, so it had swept through the other areas and was dying a death?

@Bikingbear it can’t be schools or they’d all bed areas?

They better not shut schools

They’d all be bad areas

Yes I knew about that Lizzie but that wasn't really what I was talking about. Months ago (april/may) they were talking about testing everyone from a number of GP surgeries. This thing in Fallin and Cowie was more about a cluster of cases that seemed to be emerging and it was only a couple of weeks ago.

I am sure I'll get a pasting but I'm really not happy with the prospect of closing schools en masse again. Kids have missed enough and education is a basic right.

What is everyone else's experience with schools? It really doesn't seem to be rampant in the ones I know well - I know of one which has had a single case, resulting in a bunch of kids sent home to self isolate. This was in a very "red" part of Edinburgh.

Absolutely- schools must stay open. That is one of the few things Sturgeon is getting right at the moment.

As a teacher, I’m hoping we can keep schools open too. It’s been fantastic to be back with the kids (I’m secondary in Edinburgh).

However, I do worry given the age of my pupils (I have 50 pupils age 17/18) and the lack of ventilation. Also I really can’t distance and teach effectively. They need to show me something they’re stuck on and I need to help them.

Anyway, I really hope we can keep numbers down and keep schools open for my kids’ sake and for my own kids who are loving being back.

@StatisticallyChallenged what’s a red part of Edinburgh?

Sorry, by red I meant on the neighbourhood maps linked upthread - red is the highest colour (i.e. most cases/100k)

@StatisticallyChallenged oh I hadn’t seen that. I’ll take a look.

DS’ school has been so good. Measures in place but no mania. I am so impressed with the staff and management team.

Contact tracing has been involved at DD's school twice and all we've had is the message saying case in school but not a close contact. Parent FB page ( and I left due to some of the comments so not a place where restraint is always shown) has been very calm too. DD is happy with the way things are so therefore am I too.

@Lidlfix that sounds much like our school

@IwishIwasyoda absolutely agree. In addition to just number of positive tests, I would also like to see hospital saturation rates v rates for the same weeks each year for the past 5 years. We know that in some places where high hospital bed occupancy in being reported, it's still down on occupancy rates compared to previous years.

In general, we should not be sleepwalking into this never ending infringement on our lives without far more facts being public. We are being treated like children. The 2 week circuit breaker is now an indefinite set of restrictions for the whole central belt. No explanation given as to why this was promised as a "temporary reset" so we could go back to less strict rules sooner. I'm sick of the Sturgeon show. Does any other country in the world have a dentist in such a prominent role during this crisis? The National Clinical Director who said of himself - "not even the National Clinical of Scotland can cancel Christmas" What arrogance! Carried away with himself.

My personal view is that we get the stats right as per above in terms of actually tracking what is happening with hospital admissions etc and otherwise we just stop testing.

Everyone (including me) is getting obsessed with the test numbers and analysing them and speculating and it's also what is building up stress and worry and comparison and tiers and lockdowns etc when actually it's all irrelevant.

We track those who are actually ill with covid in hospital and count those as cases, nothing else is a case.

Those who wish to or need to shield are afforded the opportunity to do so and are allowed access to whatever it is they need to facilitate that and the rest of us just calm down?

Have you seen the suggestion that Lanarkshire might go tier 4? I can’t cope. In a total panic.

If she takes my gym away I’m done