Don't tier the pants out of it.

[Cismyfatarse]

Thread level 47.

I really do think we need to focus on getting the country on its feet and focus on going forward respect the referendums that we've had without having any more.

Get people in charge of schools that actually have children and understand family life.

Compliance is high with masks and with people wfh, but there are definitely people still mixing. Nearly every time we have a positive case in school, it’s whole extended families testing positive.

I’ve been in with groups of keyworker and vulnerable children this week and they’re all still talking about sleepovers, visiting nana and going to Auntie X’s house to see the new baby.

@Dinnafashyersel

That is a really interesting thread NotAnActualSheep.

Just shows lots of data can be interpreted in lots of different ways and generates a lot more heat than light. (Covid is doing a great job picking up the academic slack from Brexit)

Couple of thoughts:

1. Easy to get to 21 plus days isolation. Assume they asked based on ever having self isolated. Used to be 14 days from contact or 7 days from symptoms or longer if symptoms persist. So if you are self-isolating due to contact with someone you live with and start to feel unwell you have to add the 2 periods together. In larger households this effect multiplies. Also wonder if people add together different periods. I know several families where they all isolated due to t&t multiple times and then eventually one of them did test positive (one family I know has had 5 bouts of self-isolation) - again rules on this have changed as now it is only direct contact rather than whole household self-isolation. This may explain the "surprise" that younger people end up isolating longer than older - older households are generally smaller.

2. Also easy to see how people could report almost zero days self-isolation following either contact or symptoms. If contact then I know lots of people who were contacted so late by t&t that the self-isolation period had passed. If it was symptoms then testing negative ends self-isolation prematurely. If you end up in hospital or test positive while in hospital you won't be self-isolating (in terms of how you would answer a survey at least).

3. I also read the data on shopping centres differently. I assume the reason shopping centres are busier than high streets is because a) lots of essential retail including supermarkets are located in shopping centres but not high streets b) it is much easier to avoid people by taking a car to a shopping centre than by walking through a high street.

So whereas the tweeter implies shopping centre footfall relative to high street is higher due to rule bending I actually think the opposite.

Yes, your points do make sense! The subsequent periods of self isolation could easily happen for later-affected members of a multi person household. I had read the "symptom" isolation as being told to isolate because of a positive test due to symptoms (for which you should have self isolated from the onset of symptoms, even before getting a test) but depending on the wording of the question, yes it could be "covid symptoms that turned out not to be covid".

I don't think the tweeter was implying there was rule bending, though... In a shopping centre you can only go to shops that are open, which by definition have been deemed essential! Shopping centres and high street had seen similar amounts of decline - possibly because they both had a higher proportion of non essential shops that were closed - but retail parks (outdoors, big supermarkets, big car parks etc) hadn't. That seems logical to me, especially as people will be "purposefully" shopping, rather than picking up that evenings food in a tiny high street supermarket on their way home from work in a town centre, or similar.

[quote Y0uCann0tBeSer10us]@IncludeWomenInTheSequel my priorities post-COVID would be to focus on getting the key areas subject to the most damage up and running again.

So firstly that's education, with a clear plan of how to catch up pupils on everything they've missed, which could be tied in to an overhaul of education generally to address the weaknesses of the CfE such as patchy provision of certain subjects.

I'd also want to see real effort put into helping people to rebuild their businesses, particularly all those who have gone to the wall because of the restrictions and/or issues getting grants out to them (I believe billions were unaccounted for not that long ago).

I want to see the health service fully functional, with real effort put into treating people made to wait while large sections of the health service were shut down.

On a more hand wavy level some effort to boost a sense of community, after a year of being encouraged to shop your neighbours for COVID 'offences'.

What I don't want to see for a very long time is any kind of push for more constitutional change as that's the last thing we need.[/quote]
Agree with all of this

@Dinnafashyersel

You drafting the May manifesto then IncludeWomen?

My top priority would be pandemic resilience so we don't have repeat performances of this every other year.

That would probably mean 1) a move back towards more smaller community hospitals and looking at how to better manage infection control in the community care and nursing home sectors.

2. a big lessons learned exercise on education at all levels. Everything from building design to class size and structure to availability of on-line to supplement learning. eg If large amounts of Uni curriculum can be delivered on-line why do students have to travel between schools for S6 consortium arrangements? If infection control is a problem are open plan infant departments a good idea (our school has upwards of 150 DC between 5-7 in this environment)? If on-line resources can be provided why is there no routine facility for this for DC coping with illness etc?

Lots of scope for positive change which I fear will get dumped in the "too complicated" box once the rush to get back to "normal" takes over.

And this! I'm sure there was a pledge about 10 years ago to limit primary classes to 18(?). If that had been stuck to, with funding for more teachers, more classrooms in schools and so on, maybe we wouldn't be having such trouble with getting decent segregation between bubbles/ social distancing within schools now.

Also agree we should consider "good" things. I quite like having the option of phone consultations with a GP for example... Not every time, and not obligatory, but a bit more flexibility in health delivery could be a good thing to consider keeping. Also flexibility over home working (as much as that isn't really just up to the SG) but with associated consideration of employee wellbeing. Up til last year WFH was treated almost as an employee bonus, and while it obviously has its benefits, even those who like it still sometimes need help with eg home office equipment, loss of "soft" socialisation etc.

@WouldBeGood

Patronising claptrap. Gives me the rage

God, yes. I find going out for a walk immensely stressful at the moment, with all the family wrangling and decision making that involves. G and T brought to me on the sofa by DH, much less so. I still do the former, because it's good for us. But not as a fecking "mood booster"

They need support for teens and ensuring opportunities are there for them. The number of teens being shared on social media going missing is really frightening.

The government need to do something and not clap trap about going for a walk.

The ideal scenario is to send the family out for a walk while I zone out on the sofa for an hour - tea is fine in these circs .

Big bonus from last lockdown as DD3 can now take herself for a walk round the block and a run around the front pavement on her way in - all the teaching her to walk to school on her own is paying dividends. We have lived here so long that she generally gets lots of waves from the socially isolated neighbours watching out for her. I get to cover off the "caring and sharing" if you can manage to do so without "killing Granny" memes too.

@IncludeWomenInTheSequel

Guys, I'm part of a Citizen's Panel today run by ScotGov, to discuss ideas for priorities in Scotland in the post-Covid society. Ideas welcome :):):)

Hi they're doing this in the Highlands but can it be rolled out - extra currently activities for teenagers. Each family gets a voucher or whatever and they can go to different activities that are put on for free. Helps reduce teenagers alcohol , drug taking and also would help recovery post covid lockdown. Also I'd like to see vacant shops or shopping centres turned into sports centres. In places I've been such as Austria, people living in council flats have great access to sports facilities- swimming pools, tennis courts. Can we replicate here.

• extra curricular

@IncludeWomenInTheSequel sounds interesting! Report back!

That's a really cool scheme @Outsidemum1

Include schemes like this already operate all over Central Belt. Have been under severe budget pressure since Council funding squeeze from 2010 onwards.

Includewomen
One other thing that I'd like to see is equal treatment across schools. If children are to be given IT resources all children should receive them and it should be the same across the country.

It's wrong that there was blanket provision of chromebooks, in one council, iPads in another, and limited laptops in another. So many kids are still accessing Google Classroom via shared access to xbox and playstations.

Some systems seem to struggle with more than one user too.

One superb policy under Labour that the SNP quietly dropped was maximum class size of 20 in S1 and S2 for English and Maths.

It made a huge difference and ensured that pupils were much more focused on the basics.

I would also try to run a leaner, more focused curriculum for a few years. More time on Literacy and Numeracy in primary and drop the 2 languages which few pupils get properly in any case and is often poorly delivered.

Also, the Chromebooks in Highland and elsewhere should be rolled out nationally. By having one type of technology, and giving it to all pupils, materials can be designed to be used across schools.

And no referendum.

Given the CfE is causing Scotland to slip below England in the international tables. Why don't we just save a fortune and just adopt the English NC?

Controversial I know but when Scotland had the best education system I'd have said we are doing better why change it. But now we don't have time or money to waste faffing with the mess that's been created.
Ditch it and adopt something that works.

I'm sure I remember reading that there was a legal challenge to the maximum class size thing because a guy couldn't get his child into one of the Newton Mearns primary schools. He argued that because the legal limit was 30 they couldn't refuse his child a place based on classes of 20 and I'm sure he won.

I think a significant number of the problems in education could be lessened, if not fixed, by smaller class sizes.

@Outsidemum1 that’s a great idea. Would help on so many levels.

My friend's the Public Health Officer for the Highlands and it's one if the key strategies to tackle a whole host of problems. I'm not sure if it's just been agreed there or in action. I think to be most effective, it needs to be done right- a lot of activities on that children can go to, including at weekends as Fri/ Sat night can be a problem, not just through the week. I think as a society we've lost our communities coming together. I know in Bishopbriggs and other towns there's been a huge increase in anti social behaviour during the lockdowns. Children and young people need places to go to meet up at night and if there's none, the woods or parks and some alcohol becomes the meeting place.
Also older people could benefit from the scheme with age relevant activities, Painting, pottery, woodwork so older people can come together and stop the loneliness.

Well what I saw today just proves the tinkering around with "no going inside for a takeaway" is utterly pointless.

Lots of local shops were operating on a one out, one in basis. Go in, place your order, leave, wait outside for it to be delivered. Now they are not allowed people inside. So they have set up a table at the doorway so people can place their orders there.

Exactly the same levels of trade, exactly the same queues outside. And I don't blame the takeaways at all, they have to keep going, working in the ridiculous guidelines that the Scot Gov keep coming up with.

DHs birthday today and he wanted to go into Edinburgh city centre. Bus was quite busy because they haven't suspended parking charges this time. Pleased to find the farmers market open - although less so at the eye gougingly high amount I paid for one piece of hot smoked salmon and salmon pate - and reasonably busy through Princes St Gardens.

It's ironic as so many more people than the first time round when we went in about the start of May and town centre was practically dead, despite it being much warmer than now and the infection rates being much,much higher than first time round.

I think people are just tired of it and fed up feeling guilty for simply being outside.

We also let DS14 go and meet "a pal" at the football pitch.

I walked into our very small town centre today for a few “essentials” from the Tesco express. Noticed the usual queue for takeaway at the lovely cafe, and a group of four women, one of whom I knew, drinking takeaway coffees across the road 🤷‍♀️

Hi everyone

Dh scans have found a growth in his bile duct. He’s being transferred to the oncology team and they plan to do biopsies this coming week.

I’ve been allowed to spend an hour with him earlier and we’ve made a decision that I should continue to work for the time being as being at home will just make me more anxious.

It’s clearly a shock at the moment and so soon after my dad.

@Groovee How worrying for you both - but good that it's been found and he's in the right place for treatment.

I'm a lurker on these threads - find them the voice of sanity these days - but wanted to send you best wishes at this difficult time.

@groovee really sorry to hear that, how is your dh feeling about it?