Here come those tiers again.

[Cismyfatarse]

New Fred.

"An elimination strategy has been used successfully by lots of countries, including those with borders with China
They implemented that a year ago. That ship has long sailed now not just for the UK but any country that has had high infection levels."

This
We needed to do that last March.
These countries also remove people with Covid ( even mild) from their households and quarantine them in health facilities. Can't see the people of Scotland buying that.

@NotAnActualSheep

Is the article a reasonably accurate summary of your discussions? I remember you saying there were 5 options, and the majority view on the panel was the second "harshest", but it sounds as if the report has gone for the most restrictions in preference? (or maybe that is elimination, and there was an even more restrictive one that I've forgotten). Did you have other experts to argue the case for the other positions, as well as DS for elimination?

It'll be interesting to see how much the SG pushes this as "what the people of Scotland who have been informed about the issues want"... Not that I'm dissing you but 20 people who were interested enough to put themselves forward for the panel, and have been guided in their considerations by a chosen set of experts, each with their own opinions, is hardly representative.

It's fine

Basically all adults across Scotland should have got a flyer through the door about by his; I did and applied by text then got chosen at random. The panel is built to reflect Scotland as much as possible in terms of age, sex, region, income bracket.

There are five options:

Do nothing
Mitigate against the virus only for the most vulnerable
Suppression (what most European countries are doing including us)
Elimination
Exclusion ((which it's too late for but a few countries have done it, ie NZ, Mali)

I'm sure you can read the full report if you want to. It's got other recommendations; an independent pandemic oversight committee, research into UBI, green economic recovery, free public transport, isolation should be covered by normal salary, taxation should be looked at (insofar as Scotland can do that).

Oh and yes we heard from...I'm not sure at least 30 witnesses maybe? From all different sectors etc. Very diverse voices.

Here's the link to the Citizen's panel report. It's a really interesting process.

www.parliament.scot/newsandmediacentre/117115.aspx

Key conclusions in its report include:

• The panel believes the Scottish Government should focus on stopping the spread of virus, ideally by pursuing an ‘elimination’ strategy.

• The panel believes elimination would provide the fastest way back to 'normal', but also recognised that this needs maximum cooperation across UK, as well as accepting travel restrictions;

• If this is not possible, the panel recommends a ‘maximum suppression’ strategy should be adopted, with a reinvigorated Test and Protect to keep case numbers low once they have dropped. The panel concluded that by tackling the direct harm of the virus head on, other harms (economic, societal, other health problems) will also reduce;

• Priority should also be given to supporting a green recovery, young people’s economic opportunities, town centres, and continuing support for businesses;

• The Scottish Government must therefore define what it is aiming to achieve and tell us what its strategy is moving forward. Key to understanding this is what it deems to be an acceptable level of infection in the population, so that it is clear what restrictions will be effective in 2021.

The panel also considered wider issues associated with the pandemic within its deliberations. It agreed:

• Previous lockdowns happened too slowly – resulting in longer lockdowns and more deaths;

• Communication and explaining strategies is key to public acceptance and understanding. This is most effective when scientists and clinicians can take centre stage;

• Globally, no one is safe until everyone is safe.

@MaxNormal thank you! I felt I was going mad reading this morning. It's been a year. I am no way on board for "zero covid" given we have been restricted for so long.

the last point 'nobody is safe til everyone is safe' - what's the answer on the fact that pursuing different strategies around the world is the built in failure mechanism? That's where it falls down for me, all these pandemic options are illusory in an economy where people travel, and a closed economy is something we've never had.

I don't think they can close the border, can they, as it's not legally a border?! It's maybe politically a sort of border, emotionally we could maybe say it's a border but legally? I'm not sure. They only way they could do it would be under the same rules are not travelling to other LAs which did seem to be being enforced in January (but you don't hear a lot about it any more).

Would genuinely like to know how many on the panel were self employed, or worked in sectors such as hospitality, leisure and tourism. As opposed to the number who work in the public sector or are on full salary in the private sector?

20 people doesn’t seem a lot to represent the views of the many different situations people across the country are in

I would be absolutely on board with zero covid if we could time-travel back to this time last year. I’m not sure how it’s supposed to work now, though? Get cases close to zero and vaccinate everybody and then... what? Keep travel bans forever? Even NZ isn’t planning that.

Thank you @fioreun. I'll have a read later.

I think that was part of a discussion about helping other countries with vaccine roll-out and that counties like ours should help poorer countries which don't have the infrastructure (although lots of them do have the supply chain as NGOs vaccinate children around the world).

It was a recognition that it's not enough to have our own house in order, basically, because wherever you have uncontrolled virus you have mutation, and therefore vaccine escape, and with unrestricted global travel you're soon in deep shit everywhere.

@PostPopper

Would genuinely like to know how many on the panel were self employed, or worked in sectors such as hospitality, leisure and tourism. As opposed to the number who work in the public sector or are on full salary in the private sector?

20 people doesn’t seem a lot to represent the views of the many different situations people across the country are in

I don't know about everyone's jobs, there were a few young guys who worked in events and have been furloughed for a year, a couple of people who needed the Parliament to supply laptops as they didn't have any tech, some over 65s. It was a mix of deprivation levels to reflect Scotland as a whole.

I'm self employed and work in the tourism sector. I'm one of the excluded. My livelihood and income has been devastated by Covid. I am very sad that so many people have been affected, especially young people.

But the virus does not respect any of this. I find the citizens panel process very interesting given the way it works through the science. Nobody is claiming it represents the view of the wider public.

The full report, showing the make up of the panel, is here:

www.parliament.scot/20210218CVDCitizensPanelReportFinal.pdf

The Scottish Government should reinforce the need for restrictions even when vaccines are rolled out to the majority by explaining the reasons for this approach, such as, risk of mutation and vaccine escape. We feel there is a need to set expectations in relation to the consequences of eliminating the virus. We are concerned that members of the public who expect everything to go back to normal once the vaccination program is complete will be disappointed and potentially may not adhere to future restrictions.

That's exactly what we are seeing though @GoldenOmber

People going 'what the fuck, we have a vaccine so why do we need restrictions'

Which says to me that the government isn't communicating well enough why we do still need them for now.

For me it's what is the definition of elimination? We never got to zero cases for the whole of the country. If its back to Summer levels well that was achieved with allowing travel to England.

If elimination means zero then its just not possible now that ship sailed 12 months ago unfortunately.

@AudacityOfHope

That's exactly what we are seeing though *@GoldenOmber*

People going 'what the fuck, we have a vaccine so why do we need restrictions'

Which says to me that the government isn't communicating well enough why we do still need them for now.

I’m not seeing a lot of ‘for now’ in there AudacityOfHope? Seems to be saying that ^even ‘once the vaccination program is complete’, we still need to put up with restrictions? Sign me up to team ‘what the fuck’ on that one.

It's eliminate as much community transmission as possible basically. Zero isn't going to happen.

Restrictions could mean a lot of things: it could mean don't travel to countries where cases are high, or that people from those countries can't travel here, for example.

That's the case now with certain diseases so this isn't really necessarily any different.

@AudacityOfHope

Restrictions could mean a lot of things: it could mean don't travel to countries where cases are high, or that people from those countries can't travel here, for example.

That's the case now with certain diseases so this isn't really necessarily any different.

I’m not aware of any disease that currently has us cutting off travel from large parts of the developing world?

Travel is restricted to loads of places for loads of reasons. This is a new disease so we might see more restrictions for the first few years. I have no idea, but it seems possible that might be one way we deal with opening back up in a slightly safer way.

@AudacityOfHope

That's exactly what we are seeing though *@GoldenOmber*

People going 'what the fuck, we have a vaccine so why do we need restrictions'

Which says to me that the government isn't communicating well enough why we do still need them for now.

Agreed. We're at a very dangerous time in the pandemic lifecycle.

@AudacityOfHope

Travel is restricted to loads of places for loads of reasons. This is a new disease so we might see more restrictions for the first few years. I have no idea, but it seems possible that might be one way we deal with opening back up in a slightly safer way.

Well it might be, but obviously it comes with its own costs, and treating social restrictions more harshly than we do for say measles or polio seems wildly disproportionate.

I think the public need to have a bit more say on long-term restrictions post vaccine, not just having a scientist or clinician ‘explain’ to us what might ‘have to’ happen.

That's what the panel was for.

Not everyone will like what we agreed on but that's what it was designed to do.