Tiers until the end of time

[runningpink]

Quickly putting this up as last thread is full

Would love to hear the views from @kurtrussellsbeard and others who have been in strong support of NS.

Are you still supporting elimination strategy? Or like many on here actually coming to realise its going to do more harm than good......

It’s all the lies and backtracking I can’t stand. Just be bloody honest with us and give actual reasons for changes and decisions

I've concluded there are no actual reasons, it's all political spin, what they think voters want to here. But at the same time I sometimes think NS is some sort of Hitler who enjoys the control over other people.

Well, I guess this is the elimination strategy in action.

Someone said upthread that we are one nation and that the science doesn't change at the border. What is ignored every time it's mentioned is the Imperial College modelling that shows tens of thousands of extra deaths if restrictions are lifted too quickly.

Also that:

"vaccination alone will not be sufficient to keep the epidemic under control" due to "eligibility and vaccine hesitancy".

"Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) must be lifted slowly and cautiously to minimise the number of deaths and prevent high hospital occupancy, with some baseline NPIs remaining in place (and adhered to) throughout 2021 and beyond," it said.

"Relaxing too quickly… will result in peak hospital occupancy considerably higher than the current wave and substantial additional deaths. "This holds regardless of vaccine efficacy, roll out, adherence to baseline NPIs, and impact of seasonality."

The difference in approaches isn't really about 'the' science but about what the government in the respective countries decide is the best approach. England's has been to open up fairly quickly all the way through, and we've seen Scotland go in the opposite direction towards elimination.

It's really hard. My son now can't play football until at least May. My daughter has been out of school for so long that she is worried about going back. I've had to turn down a better paying job because it was full-time in an office and I'm worried about the safety of that.

It's hard. But my preference is for a government that tends towards keeping more people alive.

And yes I'm sure we're all about to waste a full day going round and round on how there's more to life than simply existing...

@WaxOnFeckOff

The thing is that folk not being tested also risks figures going up as the % positive always goes up when testing levels are lower. We are focusing on the wrong thing again.

I asked about this last week and couldn't get a straight answer. I was working on Saturday and had a Covid test on Friday - a proper PCR swab down the throat one. Negative. There must have been 500+ people on that set on Saturday, not just actors and extras but crew, catering, security. All of whom had tested negative because you would not have been allowed to work with a positive or inconclusive test.

But because we were tested in a private facility, with tests presumably covered by the film company, do all those negative tests not make it into the percentage figures?

That Imperial advice though didn’t take account of the vaccine however! It is using old data. It’s completely irrelevant to the current situation.

Not correct.

It's hard. But my preference is for a government that tends towards keeping more people alive.

From Covid?

Further restrictions will be causing more deaths and set poverty levels down and that will bring more loss of life and loss of healthy life and also the loss of life years from a covid death tends to be quite small (ave 6 months) whereas deaths from other factors are losing many more years of life per person.

I'm sorry but Imperial have got it wrong right from the beginning so I'd be using anything they produce as toilet paper.

If they were PCR tests then I guess they should Raspberry but I don't know for sure. I'm pretty sure that private testing facilities will have to report their results?

The LF tests are also recorded but i believe they don't go towards the figures.

Ok, so Imperial are a waste of space then. It's not like they are, y'know, qualified or anything.

This is why I generally don't bother my arse posting my opinions any more really, but they were asked for today. Literally any evidence which is contrary to the belief of the majority on here is just completely dismissed.

Think I'll just leave it there and get back to homeschool/writing a press release/breaking up arguments of small children.

I'm done with restrictions. I'm not on board with a zero covid strategy.

Once we are all vaccinated and had time to build up immunity then I will be seeing my family as normal.

Are they still banging the drum fur zero covid?

I've stopped watching.

@GirlLovesWorld I don't ignore imperial modelling but I used to do modelling and data analysis and now review different modelling daily in my job (not health related). I would say the majority of models take a conservative approach (so worst case) and the reality doesn't reflect "real life" results.

SG modelling predicted the NE Scotland would hit 400/100,000 in the space of a week or so put into stricter tier. It takes 2-3 weeks for restrictions to show an effect yet still it never hit anywhere near this because a model is rarely bang on.

I would agree that I want a government which protects lives but do not agree with an elimination strategy because those who are at greatest risk of death are now vaccinated and the WHO interim levels didn't factor in vaccination rates and neither is the SG which for me is massively flawed.

You control outbreaks with testing sadly I think peoples realisation now the media has released an article on it will put people off testing.

Imperial did the initial forecasting based on half a dozen people tested on 6 flights from Wuhan, This was proved wrong and then there were further incidents.

Anyone can claim to be an expert, most focus on the narrow area that they think they know about and take no regard for any others.

I lost track of the last thread but popped over after seeing the BBC news this morning on Twitter. I feel like weeping! If I read it right we have less than 30 cases per 100,000 here right now.

My feeling is that compliance is still good ONLY because people have no choice in terms of everything being closed - most people I know in real life are pretty done now.

So, one person on here (me) disagrees with you about Imperial and toys chucked out the pram - oh dear...

Modellers often get the flack because governments present it as fact. The reality is any modeller will tell you that it's based on current data, is dependent on different variables and models can't predict human behaviour.
All models with come with caveats unfortunately governments rarely present these!

I don't think you realise quite how hard it is to walk the line on Scotsnet if you're not hugely constantly anti-SNP.

Wax you've chucked your toys out the pram plenty on these threads. Maybe someone else is allowed a turn of getting to the end of their tether too.

@Scottishskifun

Modellers often get the flack because governments present it as fact. The reality is any modeller will tell you that it's based on current data, is dependent on different variables and models can't predict human behaviour. All models with come with caveats unfortunately governments rarely present these!

Well, of course. I wasn't suggesting it was a crystal ball with 100% accuracy.

But it's maybe got more merit to it than someone saying it's only good for wiping their arse on, and given that they're experts and I'm not, I think I'll give it a chance.

@girllovesworld I definitely had praise last year for NS and SG/SNP approach it made sense was easy to follow had clear gates.
Then the tier system came in and it kind of made sense and could be followed but sadly it became clear they weren't following their own guidelines or what area levels were.

Sadly then vaccination slow ramp up, identifying vaccination centres in January when they had over 6 months previously to do this (they were working on vaccines), elimination strategy which sadly the ship has long sailed on and many scientists are stating is unachievable has completely changed my support.

For info I voted SNP in the last election (even though I don't believe independence is the right route but that's my personal opinion) but I won't be repeating this again.

I recognise its a very very difficult line to balance covid vs economy and other health. But I do believe that lock down restrictions for long time periods are now doing more harm then good and actually the WHO recognise that lock down restrictions should only be a last resort. Which is ironic when the SG is using WHO as justification for their approach when actually when you read the WHO report you realise it's not what the SG are planning to apply at all and is cherry picking/using it as justification which really pees me off. Either you follow it in its entirity or not.

I've posted previously about the challenges with modelling - we seem to have a situation where complex stochastic models are being portrayed to the general public as giving far more simplistic answers than they do in reality.

I do statistical modelling too, also in a different context so I done pretend to know the ins and outs of their specific models but the general challenges of designing, paramaterising and explaining complex models are fairly consistent

Rumours circulating on Twitter that the SG are about to postpone the election.

Of course they'll say it's down to Covid.

They really do take us for fucking idiots.

@RaspberryCoulis 😱

I do see your point girl definitely a lot of firm debate.

the scot gov did do a good comms job early on in the pandemic - but the glacial unlocking last summer and push for zero covid was where it all fell apart for me and I can't quite believe we've got an amazingly effective vaccine and we're still here, talking about tiers + and no travel outside of Scotland.

I don't think they will - political suicide. Although it may well be "well if I'm going down i;m taking the rest of you fuckers with me".