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.

I saw in the news Germany were probably going to have groups of 10 at Christmas (children not included). Other countries are prioritising families and seem to understand the importance of people being together. On the other hand I get why businesses would be annoyed that they had to shut just to give us a Christmas Day. But I feel that closing businesses hasn’t had enough of an impact (if any) to justify them closing. I want to see clear comparisons with the predictions on hospitalisations vs the reality of what has happened and what the impact of locking down has actually had. Not just the very worst case scenario, realistic comparisons. We are not being provided with this information, and hospitals and care homes are still seeing high numbers of cases, which defeats the purpose, does it not?

Re Blackford I would have thought part of a politician's job, especially one selling "civic nationalism" would be to defuse constituent prejudices and not endorse and amplify them.

Next time he starts on the Central Belt I'll have to point out that the plane services etc to the Islands are run by my friends and neighbours in tier 4. I'm in no great hurry to take in his scenery if he truly is reflective of the locals (which I very much doubt tbf).

Defending the locals I know in his constituency, who hold no shared views with him, as well as the rest of us when he speaks on our behalf in Westminster. He gives completely the wrong impression of modern Scotland and sprouts such chip-on-Scots-shoulder-McFuckery, it’s embarrassing to hear. (He was trending on Twitter last night for related reasons from the past, anyone who knows why should be ashamed if they in any way agree with him).

Because cases aren't necessarily cases. A positive PCR doesn't show that you have covid 19, it shoes that you test positive for Sars Covid 2 which, along with symptoms could indicate that you do indeed have Covid 19. When used to test non symptomatic people, the test can give a positive (or indeed a false positive) for sars Covid 2 but that doesn't mean that you would necessarily ever get or pass covid 19.

A case is someone who is ill enough with covid symptoms to need treatment and who also has a positive PCR test. That's not what we are counting.

The amount or percentage of those testing positive can vary just because of who and how many people you test.

The only thing we should be basing lockdowns on is the amount of actually ill people.

There are many other killer viruses out there but we don't go mass testing to see who is positive or who might get it, we just do our pest to protect the vulnerable and get on with our lives.

Some of you might find this interesting, it's just showing how easy is it to go with the flow and the motivation of those who chose to say something different is:

(And now I have a seasonal typo of sprouts in that post. He spouts a lot of hot air, so ‘sprouts’ will do the job too)

Will forever see his confected outrage blustering away like a demented sprout from now on.

Just looking at latest ONS death stats (I had a misspent youth hanging out with actuaries).

No evidence that the various enhanced measures in various regions of England have had any impact whatsoever. eg The NW has had continuous arrangements similar to Glasgow and has significantly higher excess death in absolute terms as well as relative to population than London. Tends to dispel the notion that London is getting off lightly now due to being more severely hit earlier. May well be evidence that prolonged lockdowns in the NW (and also Midlands) are actually causing more death than they are saving.

They won’t go back on it now though. It’s gone too far, to admit this has all been for nothing

May well be evidence that prolonged lockdowns in the NW (and also Midlands) are actually causing more death than they are saving

That ties to Police, NHS and councils sending letter pleading to SG not to use Level 4.

L4 completely goes against human nature, so people will rebel and meet in houses with no mitigation. I don't think it will be big parties more small family visits

I kind of get the psychology though. Vaccine on the horizon so let’s just pretend we are doing everything we can to save lives in the mean time, when it’s actually making no difference...

The local areas would know - the nhs, social service and police aggregated stats lag to such an extent that we have even fewer measures of the non covid impacts of the tiers short of death.

This will be a fascinating case study for historians as we've got the appearance of so much information but in reality we're missing so many metrics for a real picture so the judgment part is huge.

I think people will be study this whole thing for decades.
It's been massive for what happens when you try to socially engineer people to go against nature.
There is an element of how people living in crowded densely (sp) populated areas have different stats to those in less crowded areas.

Even in interlinks between citys, like people going between Glasgow and Edinburgh daily, living in one, working in the other. But not so many go between the Central belt and Aberdeen.

Countries like France have large citys but they are spread out. So few people commutting daily between cities.

I also think people will be analysing the MH of those isolated at home and those working outwith the house.

London has a large population of working age and office workers. Who can probably WFH and socially distance that way.

Places like the NW, few big offices, higher percentage of people working out of the house. The NW probably also has a higher population of retired folk, whom we know are more likely to died from covid. Is that affecting there figure.

For any fans of the antibody test as a measure of previous exposure. According to the ONS Scotland may have even higher levels than England - so much for prolonged suppression micromanagement and "zero-Covid" strategy.

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/6318653/coronavirus-scotland-infection-rates-new-study/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebarweb

Very difficult to strip out demographic effects. Agree will make Doctorates for Decades. I have connections in London, NW, SE and SW. What is fascinating is the lower deaths in the SE and SW. Wealth and space may be factors. However I wonder if there is a point in the age profile where normal life expectancy starts to mask Covid - this could explain Japan somewhat, but also lots of other place in Asia where there is an ageing population but it is dovetailed due to years of net emigration.

I suspect on the mathematical modelling side we'll be using this as case studies for decades

Age, pre existing health, and wealth probably are factors.

Does Glasgow not already have the lowest life expectancy in the UK?

One of the things that has got me was a few months back it was basically you could meet any way indoors as long as money was involved.

People with less cash are more likely to ignore and take the cheaper option of pop round for a coffee - cheaper than Costa-plenty and what's the difference between meeting in Costa or the house.

Weather may also play a part, lovely sunny dry days people are happy to be outside. The weather recently has been rubbish. Nobody wants to be out in it.

That is so true biking.

A lot of us don’t have gardens as we live in stairs which must be the same for hundreds of thousands o& people in Scotland

We are lucky as we have a back green but we share it with about 30 other people

It was like that pair on the telly last night saying get creative with your spaces , be happy outside on Xmas day. , just have people round for one course. I think one was a scientist and the other was an ology person

Not a clue about how some of us live as they are in their wee bubbles of comfort and joy and cushioned by money

@Bikingbear

Age, pre existing health, and wealth probably are factors.

Does Glasgow not already have the lowest life expectancy in the UK?

It certainly used to, the Glasgow effect was well known in mortality stats and was even taken in to account for pricing some big pension schemes

20 or so years ago, I remember a friend telling me about and area around Partick where they were renovating tenements that still had the loo on the half landing in the close.

I'd hope that would be the last of them but could families still be sharing loos?

Can confirm that according to GlasgowLive Glasgow does indeed have the lowest life expectancy in the UK at 73 for men and 79 for women. Both these ages are below the average age for death with Covid, thus illustrating the point about overlap in my pp.

Scotland's population (including Glasgow) is at the same time ageing faster than the rest of the UK, despite dying younger, due to lower birth rates and net immigration levels.

Does Glasgow not already have the lowest life expectancy in the UK?

Yes, absolutely. I've been to many a talk on the 'Glasgow effect' trying to understand why Glasgow health/life expectancy is worse than even other UK cities with similar levels of deprivation.

From the ONS:

"In 2015 to 2017, Glasgow City was ranked 389th (the lowest rank) for life expectancy at birth for both males and females, with life expectancy at 73.3 years for males and 78.7 years for females."

Across Scotland as a whole life expectancy is the lowest of the four constituent UK nations too.

The vast majority of deaths have occurred in people who were already over the average lifespan. Over 90% of care home residents and elderly in hospital already have a DNR applied and would never see the inside of an ICU.

I'm not saying that these deaths are not sad and that these people didn't mean the world to their families and friends, just that people die every day, a lot of people die in care homes, my DM only lasted 2 days in her home after being isolated in hospital for over 6 months. She was 84, my dad died at 67. I've also lost siblings/siblings in law. I know how it feels to lose people I've loved, i'm not trying to say that the covid deaths don't matter.

We should of course do what we can to to protect vulnerable elderly people and people whose health might make them vulnerable to covid, but at what expense to other people whose health and welfare is at risk/being ignored.

It's extremely not nice to be making the judgements of essentially who should live or die but I think we are definitely missing the balance here and the cost of the restrictions is going to really bad I'm afraid.

I guess this is the age old question - why?

SG are clearly blaming alcohol but it has to be more than that.

Is it the weather, dampness, rain etc?

Biking I think most tenements are now renovated. However there are still slum landlords and overcrowding. Even modern flat living has "issues" when it comes to infection control - communal exits, stairwells, internal airvents, bins, gardens, drying greens, laundry facilities in high flats. There are a lot of flats in Glasgow. Lots of these issues apply equally to the expensive period conversions and modern blocks in the West End.

I once read something regarding a study where people who flossed their teeth had a longer life expectancy of about 5 years or more (iirc).

I puzzled for a while about why flossing teeth would have so many health benefits that it would increase life span so much. Then the penny dropped. It was more about the effort that people put into their health and that people who flossed were likely to be more health conscious, wealthy and have better health education/access to dentistry.

I think that poverty and access to basic skills such as cooking has such an impact.

I sometimes look at the stuff that we donate or are asked to donate to food banks and whilst one reason for tinned meals is lack of cooking facilities, it's also that people wouldn't necessarily be able to make a meal if presented with a pile of veg and a bag of lentils etc.

So the resort is generally to cheap ready made food and all the issues that come with it. I know that's a big generalisation, and many families acan and do cook, but a lot will live on microwave meals from farmfoods, oven chips and chicken etc.