Tiering up the Covid elimination strategy

[dancemom]

Sadly the end was not as close as we thought so new thread required ....

Numbers are still important until it's 100% established that the link between cases and deaths is firmly broken. It looks like that is the case or at least it's at a manageable level from a hospitalisations view, but I guess if I was SG I'd be nervous about that leap of faith.

And as the genie is out of the bottle in terms of release of lockdown, I think it's right to be nervous about SG reactionary measures with summer school holidays just round the corner.

And I say this although it's completely expected that cases would rise as lockdown eased.
I'm also worried about DS potentially missing school and/or any of us missing much anticipated holidays and weekends away due to track and trace.

@SoMuchForSummerLove

Great for you guys, I know you're all very much 'fuck cases, they mean nothing' but I'm not and it's psychologically not great to watch numbers going up again.

I think I'm somewhere in the middle tbh I know how horrible this disease can be and still trying to recover from it. It's not pleasant if your in the unlucky group it really does suck and has taken a lot out of me the last few months.

But the figures don't worry me too much as many of these are asystomatic cases and has been widely reported as being so.

No context is given unfortunately in just providing figures.
Asystomatic cases don't spread as easily (because they aren't coughing) and most of us are so conditioned now that even the thought of hugs leads to a bit of a awkward moment with many!

Day in day out for the last year we saw numbers of cases reported then generally a news report of people in ICU. So it's completely normal that to see a rise in cases it automatically links our anxiety to that image. We have to remind ourselves that the vaccine has broken that.

It's difficult though which I completely get we have all been conditioned very well!

@Icannever

I agree it’s hardly fun to watch the cases going up every day and while hospitalisation are fairly stable they have gone U.K. and have stopped going down so I don’t see there’s Much to be cheerful about.

I agree with @Scottishskifun though that a lot of that will be due to extra testing but it’s still doesn’t feel good. It feels
Like we are going backwards. I also can’t help worrying there will be an outbreak at school before we get to the summer holidays and i really can’t be doing with that at all

Or maybe like we are going forwards, as increased cases were the inevitable consequence of opening the country back up. The numbers were never going to stay as low as they were.

I've just been looking up the definition of a hospital 'admission' as I realised I didn't actually know:

"Number of new COVID-19 admissions to hospital each day where the patient first tests positive for COVID-19 in hospital or in the 14 days prior to admission is published daily by Public Health Scotland."

So it looks as though the hospital admissions figure includes those who were already in hospital but subsequently tested positive. As community levels inevitably increase, it seems logical you might also get some of these cases popping up in hospitals anyway perhaps via outbreaks on wards or just people visiting. I don't think we have a break down of whether these people in hospital who test positive are actually ill with COVID, or just happen to be positive while in hospital for another reason like routine surgery. This is an important distinction though because it speaks to the extent to which COVID is causing disease or is incidental. In this respect ICU admissions might be the better measure, and these really don't look like they're creeping up.

But more cases isn’t going forwards if it results in areas being locked down, or school classes isolating or not being able to go in holiday because of a case at work or school etc. It’s not like we can just ignore the consequences as we have no control over them.

When the case numbers keep going down you feel like restrictions will be lessened and it’s safe to book things. When they go up everything gets clamped down on again.

Switch off the news and try to live.

Who's watching the news and not living life? Just because I expressed concerns over rising numbers doesn't mean I'm cowering in the house bleaching my shopping.

Crikey 835
Wonder how many in primary schools?

Second highest they've ever been, it looks like.

the BBC have picked up the story regarding children in hospital Essentially, while not directly calling Swinney a liar, they present data which echoes what the RCPCH says that there is no cause for alarm. They also raise the point that being in hospital while testing positive doesn't necessarily mean being in hospital because of COVID.

From the analysis piece:
"The paediatricians I've been speaking to say they don't believe there is any cause for alarm. There are lots of reasons why we might have seen a small increase.
Kids are back doing more activities now - with an increased risk of bumps or broken bones putting them in hospital. Other children might be in for routine operations delayed by the pandemic.
And with more coronavirus spreading in the community again, and widespread testing, some of these children admitted for other reasons might test positive in hospital, even with no symptoms."

Ms Sturgeon should be on reassuring people that what Humza and Swinney said is pish.

I also think we need to stop with the school closures etc now. Cases don’t need to cause chaos now.

I can certainly imagine that if my DC were in "isolation" ie stuck at home there would be a massive likelihood of injury from bouncing off walls, leaping off something or insane behaviour in the garden! Even in lockdown 1 they got walked once a day plus time on trampoline etc!

I'm concerned by the numbers because I'm worried my DS May miss school or I'll be under house arrest for 10 days despite being double jagged.

We may wish things were different but that's the reality.

But it makes no sense!!

It seems like we need to make a distinction between being concerned about the case numbers per se (which I'm not personally, as long as there isn't masses of serious illness) and being concerned about the consequences of case numbers in terms of government policies in response to them. I agree that I'm always a little nervous that one of the kids is going to be named as a 'contact' and we're all going to have to isolate for a fortnight as I work full time and have a toddler and the first lockdown was hell. I also worry that the SG doesn't seem to be able to let go of 'cases' despite their protestations to the contrary, and what they might do to us as a result of them rising (if they took indoor meeting away again I'm not sure I could cope). But I also agree that at this point in the pandemic these measures are stupid/harmful and we should be moving away from them.

Yes, @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us I see the distinction, that makes sense.

I’m just not going to cooperate with any more of it.

I don’t see how you can’t cooperate if your child is told to stay off school you just have to do that.
I think people who say get on with life and ignore the numbers are living in a fantasy world where the government aren’t going to take any action. I have a life, I have things booked. That’s exactly why I don’t want cases to rise. If I was just staying at home watching the news there would be nothing to worry about now would there

Exactly @Icannever

It's all very well going 'I'm having none of it' but, well, yeah, you are. We all are.

Masks, isolating, sanitising, booking tables at pubs, whatever other rules still exist. We're all stuck with them, and we don't want cases to rise because we don't want stricter rules back!

If your child is contact traced the school are told by Public Health Scotland and will not let them in.

Regardless of personal views on the systems I cannot see many parents willing to put their DC through that sort of embarrassment.

My S1 child came home today saying that someone in his class's mum has tested positive, and that if the child does too, he'll have to isolate. Obviously i can't demand they take him.

But I won't be confining him to one room and isolating him from the rest of the family either.

To be fair @SoMuchForSummerLove some of the stuff you mention are not law/rules. An individual pub might ask you to book tables others are happy for you just to turn up. You don't have to sanitise anything if you don't want to. Masks in indoor places unless you're exempt, but not outside.

I also agree that cases don't matter, hospitalisations do. And the hospitalisations are flat. But that the government IS concentrating on cases as a way to keep us compliant and scare people about variants and long covid and all the rest of us. I think that tehy have realised that many people have run out of fucks to give.

I'm pretty desperate to have my main sport back as it's the only thing that's "me" rather than "mum of" as middle of homeschooling/ dealing with a 2 yo didn't strike me as a good time to start paying £££ for childcare and get back into employment. Starting to really hurt seeing my English and Welsh friends back training while we don't have a proper date. Although lack of local outdoor training is part of the problem - the main option for outdoor training is too early and too far to be realistic.

Running is OK but my favourite bits of that aren't properly back in Scotland either (races/parkrun)

If it were up to me we'd be doing lateral flow tests but DH has vetoed until he's required to by work and to be fair I don't go anywhere other than food shopping/school pick up and I'd not be doing the kids...

Everyone needs to tell them to do one, they can only continue as long as people comply.

On a cheerier note, great Twitter thread by paediatrician Alasdair Munro today explaining how the various vaccines work and how very effective they are. Worth reading. Most reassuring.

Just seen there's going to be something on Reporting Scotland shortly about kids and Covid

But not everyone feels the same as you @WouldBeGood