The Tierany of Tiers

[dancemom]

Teirtastic times ahead ....

SG meeting with football people this afternoon to seek assurances that fans won't break the covid rules. Well obviously the clubs will promise to tell fans not to break the rules. As well f that's going to make any difference. In the unlikely event that the government cancels the old firm match on 21st I'll be impressed with them, for the first time in ages.

It will be a trickier decision (in my opinion ) if the clubs claim they will meaningfully sanction fans or players who are seen to be breaking the rules.

If it were up to me it would be cancelled. How can the police effectively deal with crowds of thousands of drunk football fans? They can't, they're hugely outnumbered for starters.

They've already proven they can't behave like decent human beings so fuck em.

@WaxOnFeckOff

A few weeks ago the active cases numbers for UK wide v Scotland were broadly similar and both were high. Now UK is sitting at 6% and Scotland at 9% which is obviously better than them both being at 30 something percent but I'm not sure why there is now such a disparity.

Different ways of counting?

The counting will be the same but UK wide has a bigger dataset then Scotland wide so more people which would bring a active percentage down if large areas have low case numbers (surprise suprise there are large parts of England with low case numbers) compared to Scotland which is lower numbers into the dataset so you don't need that many active cases for the percentage to be greater.

@UnderHisAye

If it were up to me it would be cancelled. How can the police effectively deal with crowds of thousands of drunk football fans? They can't, they're hugely outnumbered for starters.

They've already proven they can't behave like decent human beings so fuck em.

@UnderHisAye totally agree. This fucking country and its football. I’m Glaswegian, lived here my whole life and I loathe it. I hate how it takes over everything at the best of times but giving them extra leeway right now is beyond bullshit.

If anyone is interested, the judicial review on church closures is underway just now. Hearing from the ScotGov counsel today there's been some very pointed questions from the judge along the lines of proportionality, "why can England open churches" etc and no particularly convincing answers... There have only been two cases in Scotland traced to churches and their response was "if there was a risk of any cases whatsoever it's proportional to close them" Main arguments from them have been "you can do it online" and "we had to keep the messaging clear".

I appreciate some of you don't wish to avail yourselves of places of worship, but I think that this will be an interesting challenge to the government and maybe open the door for other challenges.

(Live tweeting today from @cconcern and for yesterday and part of today from @spesscotorum)

@polarisation thanks, I’m very interested in that. It could have ramifications for other restrictions if they are successful which would be great.

@polarisation I think a lot of churches whilst could be open in England have chosen not to through lock downs because it sends the wrong message to the community.

I really hope that the churches win their case, because meeting online really just isn't the same.
I believe in God but I'm not particularly religious. Truthfully I find church boring but churches and religion in general can be a massive support to people, especially in the hard times.

Yes @Scottishskifun I think there were churches here that chose to stay closed, especially when the numbers were reduced to 20 as it was hard to find fair ways to decided who could attend. I think churches in England have been allowed to open for private prayer throughout at least.

It is a difficult one, we definitely accepted it the first time round as we didn't know what we were dealing with. But given the number of other things which have remained open and how many measures have been put in place to keep churches safe, it does seem disproportionate that the restrictions have been so harsh for so long, against all scientific evidence... As they have been across the board, but here we are.

I hasten to add, as well, that the people bringing the judicial review have all acted independently of their denominations - as far as I know, none of the church leaders have spoken in favour of it. The Catholic bishops did ask for the scientific evidence to support the closures but I'm not sure if they got a response.

I thought the JR was being brought by the smaller churches (wee frees, Tron Church and other smaller churches) rather than the CofS or the RC church.

Thanks for the thread dancemom.

I guess we've shown that P1-3and nursery isn't driver of infection if we're no worse than levelling off after best part of 3 weeks back. So barring a massive change in the virus it will be tough to justify closing the youngest (and most difficult to work around) years. Which might be handy next winter if blended learning rears its ugly head again next autumn/winter.

I think that the entire central belt has to stay together because it's so interlinked as far as work is concerned.

My corner of East Dunbartonshire is under 5 miles from Stirlingshire, Falkirk and North Lanarkshire. As for the situation around Twechar/Auchinloch, being linked to Greater Glasgow rather than Lanarkshire (or vice versa) is entirely arbitrary. Likewise if there were a strict health board lockdown the situation around Strathblane and places like Fintry and Killearn would be difficult - realistically you would have your life/commute centred around Glasgow and not Stirling from there.

I'm also not sure how long people will stay away from the more remote (but still road accessible) areas from the central belt especially if you could go out for dinner if you drive a bit further... Nowhere on the mainland is that far away in the grand scheme of things.

I've just made Brownies with my P4 DC to celebrate the end of home learning. Can't wait for Monday.

The "levelling off" of cases is very annoying. I assume it's to do with increased and asymptomatic testing associated with opening nurseries/schools etc, as the percent positive is still pretty low. And possibly some party related stuff, though the decrease stopped about 10 days ago, so I'm not entirely convinced. But I really hope they DO start considering hospitalisations etc rather than cases soon. That would seem to be a recognition that we are in a different place to where we were earlier in the winter. Yes, the more cases the higher risk of mutations etc, but surely vaccinations should counter that to a large extent.

Also, I'm very confused that the reported R number actually went down today...from 0.8ish as a central estimate to 0.7 ish . Not sure how that can be if cases are remaining constant. I thought that was the definition of R =1?! Shows how little I understand, frankly.

Fingers crossed for the church thing too. I've only been to one proper service since last March, and that was so miserable with no music etc I promised myself I wouldn't do it again til it was back to normal. So I don't think there's any "favouritism" being shown to places of worship really. It's nothing like a normal service, and no one is allowed any form of socialisation or joy or anything. Plus it's much easier to enforce that in a church than a cinema, for example. And, in my church at least, ventilation is really not a problem at all! It's fucking freezing 365 days a year, with draughts coming through wherever you decide to sit. People who do go to the service will do so because they express their faith through the physical act of worship/ mass or whatever - so no "you can do it online" isn't a reasonable adjustment for many. They haven't worked out a way of transporting the elements over zoom yet, so for people for whom that is a crucial part of their faith, there is no way their right to religious practice can be expressed remotely.

I know it seems a bizarre exemption for many who don't have that need, though, and I do think that other "support organisations" where people go for a chat or to discuss books or films or whatever should be given the same exemptions for the same number, according to the venue capacity/ risk assessments and so on.

my DH came up with a good plan re football - add a surcharge onto each ticket sold, or season ticket and make it go into a special pot to support the NHS - an NHS surcharge bit like the hotel tax.

I'm not sure how optimistic I'd be about early years of primary school and covid. Two primary schools in and around Stirling have moved to online learning because of cases in the schools.

According to the BBC, JF announced:
"A new service designed to identify unpaid carers and make sure they are registered for vaccinations has been set up."

@ResilienceWanker I hope your right that its more testing rather than an effect of the Rangers Supporters.

DS sent home to isolate today. We're both absolutely gutted.

Only 2 classes left in school out of 6. The parents' whatsapp group is practically melting my phone.

So are we any clearer about transmission routes if lots of children are having to self isolate from school? Is the issue that Covid is being brought into the home from key workers/ workplaces and then taken into school, or is it adults at school driving the transmission or is it childcare related i.e. mixing because of informal childcare or at nurseries? You would've thought a year in we would know some of this stuff ... although I am well aware people aren't entirely truthful to people trying to track and trace.

There seems to be two different but simultaneous outbreaks at DS' school.

A class of P1s and P3s were sent home because of a brother and sister both testing positive, everyone knows everyone here so we also know that the entire extended family had a birthday meal together last weekend

The second one I think is keyworker related.

Wales opening up for travel internally from the 27th March. Has that always been roughly their plan? I'm wondering whether their situation is comparable enough to ours that the SG might reconsider their travel restrictions within Scotland sooner 🙏

Oh please!!! @speedtalker

Yes, from memory, I think you're like me WouldBeGood, with all the important people in your life beyond your council area.
Four people in a garden really doesn't help anything.