Just in tiers with it all now ....

[dancemom]

New Thread, same old situation....

[OldRailer]

LockdownBear I agree re border.

That's the political pay off. A perfect divisive issue and scapegoating opportunity.

My DH still won't believe it. Not sure I will upset him showing him NS response to what the people's panel demand, best let it slowly dawn as the weeks/ months roll by.

[NotAnActualSheep]

@MaxNormal

That does rather concern me though, that the panel of industry-specific experts were all from an academic background rather than industry leaders at the sharp end of the economic realities.

The infrastructure to support everyone in Scotland holidaying within the country is so, so far from there I don't even know where to begin with it. She'd better have some damn good ideas.

Yes, I agree.

I'm thinking the COP26 will be a completely damp squib with closed borders. That would have been a massive conference, with huge international focus put on Glasgow. OK, mass international travel to it probably isn't the best, given its subject matter, but I assume that will be largely online now. So proposed infrastructure improvements won't be seen to benefit Glasgow, the absolutely enormous tourism spend won't be there, the opportunities for Scottish companies and charities to exhibit won't be there in the same way, the chance for volunteers and local community groups to be present and build community a la commonwealth games won't be there... No, it won't have such a big carbon footprint, but you also wonder if it'll have such a global impact or capture the Scottish/ UK imagination to such an extent. It's a bit sad really, that the most major event to come to Glasgow in at least a decade will be basically only for Scottish people in person (if that) and the select few who can afford to quarantine.

[AudacityOfHope]

Yes, there were a lot of academics, I'm not sure why, as opposed to business leaders. Maybe business leaders aren't into giving up their time so easily, or maybe it was felt that they'd just recommend whatever was best for their own industry, and maybe people off to the side of the industry (i.e. not directly affected) might be more free to give their opinion.

There was a guy who was some sort of aviation expert, I can't remember his name but he said he was often on Good Morning Britain (which I wouldn't watch with a gun to my head).

I'm totally guessing though.

[AudacityOfHope]

@NotAnActualSheep all of the recommendations going into the report were decided on the final day, it wasn't that some were left behind. So it's really not that schools weren't important, it's just that we agreed we'd only include what we could find consensus on, so that nobody had to put their name to something they felt wasn't representative of their views.

So because the discussion about schools went on for quite some time, we ended up having to move on. It's nothing more than that.

[MaxNormal]

@AudacityOfHope I realise I'm sounding very critical and I don't mean to take away from your efforts and the fact that you're taking the time to feed back to us.

We're quite significantly personally affected by it all hence my concerns.

[AudacityOfHope]

Saying that @NotAnActualSheep I do wonder now how many of us were actually parents. One guy had a toddler who showed up on camera a few times, and I'm a parent of course, but I couldn't say about the others.

I'd say a good proportion of them had grown-up children, and I know some were grandparents.

So maybe it wasn't directly top of mind for everyone? To be honest it's not directly top of mine, I'm happy for school return to be slow and cautious so that might have shown up in my thinking on the issue.

[hilbil21]

I'm really not that smart when it comes to it all and take a lot of my "info" from you lot here (thank you). Can someone tell me if NS can decide on a hard border between Scotland and England? Or is it up to Bojo

[AudacityOfHope]

Meh it's all good by me @MaxNormal it's just a discussion

[AudacityOfHope]

It's silly to call it a 'demand' when they are explicitly recommendations which the government can take or leave as they wish.

[AudacityOfHope]

My 'quote' function seems to have disappeared....that last was to @OldRailer if it wasn't clear!

[OldRailer]

I was not being serious in tone, glad you picked that up!

[OldRailer]

Yes I got the message crystal clear!

[kurtrussellsbeard]

Very interesting! I'd like to see them do something like this on a slightly bigger scale. I like the idea of access to experts to help inform your view.

Totally fascinating @AudacityOfHope

[LizzieMacQueen]

Thank you @AudacityOfHope for being on the panel. The work you've collectively done is taking a bit of criticism on the BBC comments section. I'm sure you're not taking it personally.

My only criticism was why was the group so small? Was it always intended to be like that?

[AudacityOfHope]

I haven't looked @LizzieMacQueen

All I've seen is the BBC lunchtime pre-briefing thing, and the reporter said to a Virologist that a lot of people will say our recommendations are unworkable, and she replied saying no, she wishes it had happened a year ago, and now it needs Westminster to get on board

I'm not fussed, not everyone is going to agree, most people on here don't so it's not exactly a shock!

Oh, and yes, it was meant to be 20 people who were representative of the demographics of the country, but two dropped out before the first session, and only one was able to be replaced at short notice, so we ended up with 19.

This was the first one ever done virtually, I don't know if they usually have a higher number of people if it's face to face. Possibly not as that would be expensive - usually you get a hotel room the night before, dinner etc.

[AudacityOfHope]

@OldRailer

Yes I got the message crystal clear!

Ooh my quote thing is working again!

[Pootle40]

Anyone else freaked about by the elimination strategy? No international travel or visitors! My brother lives on the other side of the world and my parents are both deceased.

[MaxNormal]

Pootle very much so. We'll leave if it's implemented as DH would be unable to continue his career here.

[OldRailer]

It's like tilting at windmills Pootle40 but with some serious possible consequences to family life as we know it.

We were only discussing the longer term difficulties of a friend with an elderly parent in Australia.

Now maybe that's going to apply across the board.

[AudacityOfHope]

@Pootle40

Anyone else freaked about by the elimination strategy? No international travel or visitors! My brother lives on the other side of the world and my parents are both deceased.

Personally no, but I understand why others are.

The other side of the coin is that nobody will let us into their countries if we don't get a handle on it. There are countries that aren't letting us in now.

[TeenTraumaTrials]

While I definitely don't agree with the recommendation of elimination I just wanted to say thanks to AudacityOfHope for both her weekly updates on the process and all of the explanation today. It's been really enlightening.

I'm guessing that for most people reading the news reports they'll imagine a panel might cover more than 19 or 20 people.

I do think it's absolutely ludicrous that SG are essentially, from what NS has said today, basing their strategy (as informed by the public via the panel) on the views of 20 people. But to be honest it's probably the route they wanted to go down anyway, so if the panel had come up with a different recommendation I suspect their response would have been 'well, it's only 20 people, that can't possibly represent the views of everyone in Scotland, so we're going to go for elimination anyway'.

For me personally the elimination ship sailed a year ago and unless we cut ourselves off from even England, we are going to need real restrictions to try and manage to the low levels of last summer again - if it's even possible with the new variants. The idea of being stuck in Scotland for another summer not even able to visit friends and family in other parts of the UK is the final nail in my hopelessness coffin.

Suppression, yes. Really efficient test and trace, yes. Even masks I suppose, even though I hate them. But elimination is just a pipe dream for this country - much as NS wants us to be, we aren't New Zealand.

[OldRailer]

It sounds interesting to have participated in. It's interesting to hear from Audacity as to what it entails.

I've been musing that I'd be up for an education version and I'd just keep saying "can they have text books please!" After this week's instalment of trying to get to grips with one of my S4's courses.

Get sacked probably.😄

[GoldenOmber]

But even New Zealand aren’t planning to keep borders closed indefinitely. They seem to be planning to vaccinate everyone and then reopen international travel. But we are considering doing this even after vaccination, because... why? Because it would have been a good idea to do temporarily back in March, so it must be a good idea to do indefinitely starting now?

I think the government should really distinguish between “which strategy so we really wish we’d gone for back then, given that situation?” and “which strategy do we need to go for now, given the current situation?”, because it feels like they’re getting treated as exactly the same question and that’s a bit baffling.

[OldRailer]

Yes, GoldenOmber!

[kurtrussellsbeard]

I've been really busy today and so I feel I've missed something. I just keep catching snippets of threads. Are the SG definitely saying that even after everyone is vaccinated the restrictions won't be lifted?