Hogmanae

[rookiemere]

This is an ongoing thread for Scottish mumsnetters - or indeed non Scottish mumsnetters such as myself, to comment on ongoing covid matters pertinent to ourselves, in a hopefully not too partisan and friendly fashion.

@Rae36

Do you think a Christmas hug is really that dangerous? If you're having a right big hug then your faces are going to be over each others shoulders so you're not breathing in someone's face? And most hugs are less than a minute long surely. So is it any worse than breathing the same air in a smallish room across the table from each other for 90 minutes?

We're taking the kids out of school 7 days before Christmas Day, seeing my parents only, and giving them a hug.

I agree with this. If the reports of "bubbling" are true, I understood you treated the other members of your "bubble" as your household. So there is no need to socially distance, but if anyone tests positive you all need to isolate, even if you are no longer with them. I could be wrong, as we haven't formed a "bubble" with anyone so far, so not up with the actual rules.

God, I hate the use of "bubble" in its 2020 sense...

Obviously this isn't going to affect the actual risk if DPs do get infected, but it does kind of make sense. I would think hugging every now and again isn't going to massively increase the risk of spread compared to living in someone's house, and so sharing food, door handles, room air etc for 3 or so days, even if you try to socially distance as much as possible in that time. But then, not seeing anyone else for those 3 days (work mates, school mates, people in the supermarket etc) should reduce risk.

@Bikingbear

Hogmanay I'll be sharing it with Phil and Aly. Best program of the year.

That’s when all this crap year started.....nae Jackie Bird last Hogmanay!

@Rae36

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just really stupid.

Why would a government, advised by the best scientific minds, set out criteria for levels then completely ignore them? Why would you do that? Why go to all that effort then just do what you like anyway? Surely your clever advisors would say "Hang on folks, this might piss people off, maybe think again?"

It must be me that's thick because surely the government are not this stupid?

Haha! Yes, I feel the same. They have spent all this effort in establishing 5 criteria, modelling likely spread and so on, and set numerical thresholds for each "protection level" based on values for these 5 criteria. Areas are put into whichever level is highest, depending on where they fall with these thresholds. I can cope with that kind of thinking... it seems a bit inflexible, maybe, but at least it would be consistent.

But the SG have seemingly thrown them aside to do what they want... so a few weeks ago they used the "rate of increase in cases" to put some areas (dundee/ P&K?) up a level. "Rate of increase" isn't one of their chosen criteria (unless it would lead to a set number of cases or result in exceeded hospital capacity over a few weeks), and none of the actual thresholds were met. Fair enough, "rate of increase" may well be an appropriate thing to look at, but in that case why not admit they have missed out an important factor, and add it into the overall list of things they look at for each review round. Otherwise it DOES give the impression they are doing what they want, no matter how many justification charts they publish.

This has been a real bugbear of mine over the past few years months. They claim they are "following the science" and making decisions/ policy based on data, but in practice they ignore whatever process they have put in place and do what seems expedient at the time. They love their "evidence based policy making" but more and more it seems to be sliding into "policy based evidence making".

What happened is that firm vaccine news flurried in after all these 'levels' were set out, plus furlough extension and it made risk aversion until the vaccines are available shortly more attractive to politicians.

If we had no vaccine prospects we'd have seen more of a stink about these restrictions, most of us are holding on with the prospect of relief in the new year.

I can't help thinking the downside of vaccines will turn out to be percentage they're ineffective for is the percentage most at risk. Hope I'm wrong.

Isn’t it strange that some people are waiting for politicians to announce how we should behave around our families for a few days in December? I sadly don’t have a mum to hug, but back in October we went to visit an elderly relative, south of Berwick. On arrival in her garden she came straight up to us and hugged me so tight- I really didn’t know what to do at first, but it was the most natural way of greeting us having not seen us in a year and it was her choice to do so. It was over in a few seconds and none of us commented on it further. We went on to enjoy a lovely afternoon in her garden together we didn’t go inside, not even for the toilet I don’t believe an initial hug greeting or a quick hug contributes significantly to the spread, or at least I haven’t seen any stats to support that. Has anyone? Grown ups should be free to make their own risk assessment, based on their human emotional needs too.
My hope is the majority aren’t waiting for government permission to hug relatives at Christmas, especially those who live alone.

@NotAnActualSheep I love “policy based evidence making”!

Me too, it so accurately describes the, ahem, logic.

@NotAnActualSheep to your final comment on the previous thread. Knowing this SNP gov you'd probably get away with it.

@anon444877 you're right - the parameters should be changed now that a vaccine is in sight and furlough is available. Why not then say that a cautious approach is being taken due to that, and as a result the Tier or level guidelines are no longer valid ? It would be a lot more honest and resonate with more people.
w

Maybe I'm dreaming, but I'm sure t HD at way back, months ago, NS explained the factors that would determine the various lockdown levels, "plus judgment". At the time, I took this to mean that humans would interpret the data and trends and make a final decision, rather than just crunch the numbers and go by what the algorithm spits out. I found this reassuring, at the time.
However NotAnActualSheep has rumbled them.

Sorry for random typos

Yes @rookiemere I suppose they don't want to over promise on the vaccine availability and outcomes but it's obvious this is a strategy game changer.

I'll be working nightshift

[quote icanboogieboogiewoogie]@NotAnActualSheep to your final comment on the previous thread. Knowing this SNP gov you'd probably get away with it. [/quote]

Dammit - I hoped I'd just sneaked it in there before the thread closed and no-one would notice. I'm too scared to get involved with that debate.

I think anon may be right with the timing of the vaccine thing too. Given it seems that March is the next crunch point (when the regulations expire, furlough ends and (fingers crossed) we are seeing the benefit of the vaccine and the end of the winter flu season) it is likely that they are just trying to get to that point without anything else blowing up. It's an entirely understandable tactic and I think most people would understand if they did as rookiemere suggests and said "look, we're wanting to keep levels as low as possible over the winter, so being more cautious with our implementation of the tiers than we anticipated. But by March hopefully (and justifiably so) we'll be in a much better situation to review where we're going with getting back to "old normality"."

We would still criticise and gripe no doubt, but at least there would be a date in mind and a reasonable path that we'd be following towards that. At the moment it's the feeling that we're in a never-ending cycle of more restrictions that no-one in power has admitted we have any hope of coming out of - ever - that is getting people down. (Level 0, anyone?). In my opinion, anyway.

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

Maybe I'm dreaming, but I'm sure t HD at way back, months ago, NS explained the factors that would determine the various lockdown levels, "plus judgment". At the time, I took this to mean that humans would interpret the data and trends and make a final decision, rather than just crunch the numbers and go by what the algorithm spits out. I found this reassuring, at the time. However NotAnActualSheep has rumbled them.

I don't think I've done any rumbling...I agree they should be using judgement, and having some human involvement is better than trusting the algorithm implicitly (the exam fiasco proved that, surely!). But I do think they would have more respect from the public if they admitted their overarching aim, what they're going to do to get there, and how they will react if the processes they have put in place to reach that aim need to be altered. (And ideally have some democratic input into whether that aim and the processes are reasonable from public health, economic and equity perspectives - though I realise that may not be possible).

So if the aim is to get R below 1 and keep it there until March, they should explain how they are tracking R, what they will do if it increases and what they will do once it is below 1 to keep it there. (I know R may not be the best example to use, but hypothetically...). At the moment I feel they are just moving the goalposts "ah, R is now 0.9 but that's not low enough so we want to get it to 0.7".

They love their "evidence based policy making" but more and more it seems to be sliding into "policy based evidence making".

DH & I have decided that they identify as following the science...

I’m really glad for people on their own that they will be “allowed” to go to others for Christmas but I dread the stronger lockdown we may get to pay for it in January —& gutted we may have to see more family for Christmas than we had thought—

Checking in - shitty day at school with kids being noisy and having to be told things 100 times. Could be something to do with the town Christmas lights being switched on at the weekend and most kids having trees and decorations up. Despite this I don't want to finish early. I'd rather soldier on until the 18th than finish a week early and do pishy online classrooms again.

@Gibbonsgibbonsgibbons “identify as following the science” 😂😂

R becomes less important if cases drop really low.

Sheep - agree, would love to see objectives and an actual strategy, not just moving goalposts. It's like being in an M C Escher painting.

We are rattling through these threads at a rate of knots, we need another thread just to discuss what the next one is going to be called :o

Checking in can report that my local tier 4 Morrisons was rammed this morning. First time me and DS have had to queue to get in since summer! And Lidl was v busy too.

These threads are very instructive more so than the daily briefings.I didn't realise the name of the artist who did the illusion pictures was M. S. Escher.

Being trapped in an Escher painting is how I described my nightmares. I never thought it would be real life too!

@RaraRachael definitely high Christmas excitement with the dc here, they're counting down the days til the advent count starts....!