The End is CerTEIRnly in Sight ...

[dancemom]

New thread, possibly the last?

@Scottishskifun I think there has been door to door testing in hotspot, or at least it’s been reported.

Personally I’d rather see resources directed to 24/7 vaccinations.

@Librarybooksandacoconut the under 14s is the 2nd biggest group of cases at moment so that may have something to do with it. I was quite shocked to see that today

We got our door to door tests this morning in Pollokshields. It's been widely publicised that that's what they're doing

That's in addition to the numerous test centres and mobile test centres around the G41 and G42 hotspot that have been operating for over a week

The main problem is we are tied to this 50 in 100,000 figure. Way lower than it was last year pre vaccine. It makes no sense.
I agree with the right to take action to suppress an outbreak at a very local level but if we are going to continue to apply this across whole, and often huge, counties then we'll never get anywhere.
It is hospital numbers and not cases that really count and while of course we have to track them for emerging patterns, they are not the whole picture.
For people panicking, there were 40,000 people in hospital across the UK earlier this year. There were 10,000 when schools reopened. We are now at 900.
Glasgow alone accounts for a third of all cases in Scotland today. Something is clearly going wrong there. The Scottish figures per 100,000 remain way above England despite the mass testing in Bolton and our slower release of restrictions here.
Same happened in October

What happens with the door to door tests @prettybird? Are many people taking them?

[quote WouldBeGood]@Scottishskifun I think there has been door to door testing in hotspot, or at least it’s been reported.

Personally I’d rather see resources directed to 24/7 vaccinations.[/quote]
It's good to hear!
Yes unfortunately they need to do both as you can't have a vaccination within 4 weeks of having covid so it becomes a catch 22 situation!

Definitely would love to see them speed up vaccines! If everyone has covid in an area though then they can't have it for several weeks.

Think we have been saying for months though that vaccine roll out needed to be sped up!

No @Scottishskifun I think that you're missing the point.

The Indian variant was most common in India unsurprisingly. They closed Pakistan off because of the Indian variant. Even though it was more prevalent in India. Which they didn't close.

Of course the variants can come from anywhere but surely it makes sense to focus our attentions on, you know, the areas with the highest prevalence?

No idea how take up is from the door-to-door testing kits but the mobile units(doing PCR tests) are highly visible and the local FB groups are encouraging people to use them. The mosque and gudwhara are also giving out lateral flow tests (as well as the door-to-door PCR tests).

The vaccination centre at the mosque is available to anyone 18+. I know ds' old school friends have either been done or have imminent appointments.

I'm not sure how much more they could do bar holding people down and forcibly forcing swabs up their noses and throats

[quote WouldBeGood]@Scottishskifun I think there has been door to door testing in hotspot, or at least it’s been reported.

Personally I’d rather see resources directed to 24/7 vaccinations.[/quote]

This was discussed when the roll out first began and I think it was established that so few people would turn up for a 3.50 am vaccination that it wouldn't be worth opening places up and staffing them. I know the Glasgow Central Mosque is open for vaccinators12 hours a day.

@forfucksakenett

No *@Scottishskifun I think that you're* missing the point.

The Indian variant was most common in India unsurprisingly. They closed Pakistan off because of the Indian variant. Even though it was more prevalent in India. Which they didn't close.

Of course the variants can come from anywhere but surely it makes sense to focus our attentions on, you know, the areas with the highest prevalence?

Variants aren't a reason to put onto the list necessarily though.

Bangladesh and Pakistan were put onto the list because the number of people testing positive on arrival was much greater than India - 4 times the amount in fact.
India also has more testing in place so numbers are known a bit better.

We don't block majority of European countries for instance because of the test rate because the positive on arrival is very low.
The UK did however react very quickly to the Denmark variant as it was linked to animal cross point.

All of it is factoring in risks and controls. We cannot shut our economy off any longer. The Indian variant isn't going to be the last either!

Of course westminster is to blame for this new varient, they didn't close borders soon enough and 20000 people came in from india in that time. Johnson was trying to do a trade deal at the time.

If people here are defending him ,i give up.

Some scientist was on the BBC news today saying she thinks the Indian variant is LESS transmissible than others and the Glasgow thing will blow over.

She'll be getting a stern phone call from Nic.

We weren't offered door to door testing in Moray, yet the cases have more than halved in the past week. Vaccinations were open to anyone over 18 who could just turn up till 10pm.
I'm still waiting for my second jag so maybe they're concentrating on giving everybody their first one before us getting our second.

If anyone hears of east Renfrewshire opening up jabs for over 18s please let me know.

They've not even opened them up in the majority of Glasgow - it's only 4 postcodes. A lot of people (me included!) still have a while to wait.

@Scottishskifun You're tying yourself in knots. On the one hand, you say that individual countries shouldn't be treated differently whilst simultaneously stating that India was not added to the red list at the same time as its neighbours as it had a lower positivity rate.
In any case, I know the UK Government said that was why they did it but they're lying. Two weeks BEFORE India was put on the red list, their rates were higher than Bangladesh and 1 per cent lower than Pakistan. See attached picture. Now do you think the UK Government should have put it on the red list at the same time as its neighbours?

And here's the variant data prior to India being added to the red list. Surely you see now that keeping India off the red list wasn't the right action ( or in action!) to take?

@ssd the one (only) benefit you may have of going back to level 3 in east Ren is they may open up vaccines to everyone over 18

Like you I can only go by what is reported!

They probably should have gone on the list sooner but its also very wrong and very dangerous to blame a country or people arriving from that country! It leads to targeted attacks on communities and people. Just like the initial spread of covid isn't a fault of the Chinese neither is the spread of the Indian variant a result of people from India.

People seem to want to blame governments, Westminster etc for the results of a virus. Its a highly transmitted virus and its very good at it! Anywhere in the world which doesn't have high geographical isolation and shipment only goods as a option such as New Zealand or Samoa is going to repeated cycles of this and variants. I'm sorry if you don't wish to hear that but that is the reality.

Until global vaccination gets numbers to a very low level which is going to take years we are going to stay in a cycle.
I'm very grateful for our vaccination programme all the money, hours and risk that has been taken. It is making a difference and long may it continue on a fast rate so we can then assist other countries as well.

Putting India on the red list wouldn't have stopped the Indian variant from arriving it was already here, genome sequencing lags behind.

Everyone seems to want a blame culture for a virus I'm sorry but it's a virus it will find a way its what they are good at!

We are a global economy (and have been since the 17th century with trade and spice routes) so unless your going to live on an outer island with zero visitors, become entirely self sufficient and grow everything you eat and create a eco house, then we are all subject to global fluctuations and viruses.

We are however damn lucky to have a very fast vaccination programme which if momentum is maintained then will have taken 7 months for all adults to be offered.
I don't always agree with Westminster but I am very grateful for the risk they took and how much they invested.

We are in a incredibly fortunate position!

[quote latissimusdorsi]@ssd the one (only) benefit you may have of going back to level 3 in east Ren is they may open up vaccines to everyone over 18[/quote]
Hopefully

@Scottishskifun

Like you I can only go by what is reported!

They probably should have gone on the list sooner but its also very wrong and very dangerous to blame a country or people arriving from that country! It leads to targeted attacks on communities and people. Just like the initial spread of covid isn't a fault of the Chinese neither is the spread of the Indian variant a result of people from India.

People seem to want to blame governments, Westminster etc for the results of a virus. Its a highly transmitted virus and its very good at it! Anywhere in the world which doesn't have high geographical isolation and shipment only goods as a option such as New Zealand or Samoa is going to repeated cycles of this and variants. I'm sorry if you don't wish to hear that but that is the reality.

Until global vaccination gets numbers to a very low level which is going to take years we are going to stay in a cycle.
I'm very grateful for our vaccination programme all the money, hours and risk that has been taken. It is making a difference and long may it continue on a fast rate so we can then assist other countries as well.

Putting India on the red list wouldn't have stopped the Indian variant from arriving it was already here, genome sequencing lags behind.

Everyone seems to want a blame culture for a virus I'm sorry but it's a virus it will find a way its what they are good at!

That's funny because there are plenty countries that have managed the virus much much better than we have.

I think governments absolutely should be responsible for that.

Vaccination rate is also brilliant but will be entirely useless if any of these variants become resistant to the vaccine which is a possibility.

It’s very rare for viruses to become vaccine resistant.

Yet the actual experts keep expressing their concern about it and urging developed countries to share their vaccine in order to avoid it.

Vaccine resistance is rare. It’s possible that the vaccines need to be tweaked for different strains as the flu vaccine is, but that’s a different thing.