Scunnered .... *insert tier pun

[dancemom]

New thread, couldn't think of a title 🙈

I would be happy with the plan laid out by BJ today, and I think they're right that it's better to take the opportunity to get the wave out the way now in the summer rather than kick the can down the road so that cases coincide with autumn/winter seasonal viruses. I agree that whenever you open completely there will likely be an increase in cases, so best to try and do it over the summer. With England opening three weeks (at least) earlier than here, and with their school holidays being later, cases could potentially be coming back down by the time the schools go back which is better for education etc. as well as the health service. By this point they will also probably have pretty much double jabbed the whole adult population too.

My worry is that past decisions in Scotland have gotten us in a bit of a pickle. We have the highest rates in Europe currently because we locked down harder and are thus less immune, and that's without the boost jn numbers you'd expect from removing all restrictions. We're not due to open completely until three weeks after England, so our opening peak is already kicked down the road, and will coincide with schools going back. If NS is persuaded to delay even further in the name of 'caution' we push the exit wave back into the autumn/winter, to coincide with what is expected to be a bad winter due to poorer population health and waning immunity to flu (again because of restrictions).

[quote rookiemere]@Scottishskifun that's reassuring I guess.

On the sitting outside thing, I'm not completely convinced it makes a difference from a contact tracing perspective, so then you have the double whammy of having inconvenienced yourself by being outside ( fine in nice weather rubbish in the rain) and still having to self isolate despite doing the "right " thing.

@ssd yes the shopping thing is weird I've thought that myself. I guess it's because most people are in and out within 15 minutes whereas in a restaurant there's a longer contact period.

Got the weekly email of gloom from well known Edinburgh restaurateur. Yes we all know it's an impossible situation for them, but railing at your customer base seems like a somewhat counter productive way to go about it. I haven't stopped them as I read for sheer comedic value.but I'm unlikely to frequent their restaurants any more as a result.Maybe she needs to join this thread,[/quote]
I know exactly which restauranteur you mean - the emails are a bit ridiculous and they have put me off the restaurants!

@FourSeasonsTotalLandscaping if you're looking for a replacement, I can highly recommend Terra Marrique - service and food are both lovely, and there's an itison voucher for them at the minute.

@FourSeasonsTotalLandscaping loving your username

I think I know who you mean now too, lovely place but only so much customers can listen to before the sympathy wanes.

So an article for Wales on the BBC obtained by freedom of information showed that a quarter of deaths picked up covid whilst in hospital for another reason......
Wonder if SG would release the information if requested for here! Wouldn't suprise me if it was similar it's long been said that many people catch covid whilst attending health care settings!

I am even more worried about school children and HE/FE students who have either not been vaccinated or have only had one jag. And there's international students coming to Scotland in September who may not have been jagged either.

I'm really angry at BJ for risking our young people. They may get less sick but they still get sick. I don't want DD getting Covid.

I really want children jagged, then I'd feel more comfortable with all restrictions going.

This illness isn't going anywhere though, it can't go back in a box or where it came from or treated like measles as it mutates too quickly.

Young people are actually more likely to be asystomatic rather than sick. I was also very worried when my DS got it he's prone to very high temperatures etc he didn't have any symptoms whatsoever.

International students are likely to be offered a vaccination as well.
As for children I think they are watching the US carefully it's not right to give a vaccination if there is a risk of harm for young children for a illness which very few are effected by. I think they will get around to vaccinating teenagers but more of the world's adults need doing first.

[quote latissimusdorsi]@FourSeasonsTotalLandscaping loving your username [/quote]
Me too Had forgotten about that whole debacle...

I was also a bit about agreeing with BJ and his "if not now, when" argument! There is always going to be the worry that if things had been held back a bit longer it may have prevented some hospitalisations, or if some restrictions had been kept, x more people could have been double vaccinated/ boosted... But at some point politicians surely have to put their money where their mouth is and accept that the vaccinations have been a huge success, that hospitals won't be overwhelmed even with huge "case" numbers, and that deaths will pootle along at a seasonal level.

Young people I accept are a bit of a concern. 18 seems a reasonable cut off, as an adult, with an expectation you will be mixing in society, working and so on, and therefore may be exposed to the virus, which could potentially be a problem to others, if not you. But there's obviously not much physically or even socially different between an 18 year old and a 17 year old... Or even 16 (allowed to vote etc in Scotland).. And then when do you draw the line younger than that?! I imagine at some point teens who want to will be able to have the jag (especially eg uni students) , but it gets a bit dodgy to "require" anything of them or their parents for the benefit of society when the risk to them is still higher from the vaccine than the disease. And if they do get infected, they will benefit from higher immunity when they get the jag when they turn 18.

Though I'd feel happier about all of that logic if long covid was taken a bit more seriously by the SG. Rather than it being used as a "justification" for delaying relaxations, without any actual resources being devoted to people that may be affected as a result of the policies advocated!

I agreed with boris the clown too, it's worth a try at this stage with over half the adults double jabbed. Looks like the SNP are backing Boris too given they're not increasing restrictions.

This crisis is knocking on for 18 months now and I don't think he'll be proven to be a fool if we do end up increasing restrictions - where did the long unending restrictions of last summer get us? A winter lockdown anyway.

• 2,363 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 25,123 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 10.2% of these were positive
• 6 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 32 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 346 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 3,879,458 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 2,791,071 have received their second dose

224,776 vaccinations in 🇬🇧 yesterday

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 63,859 1st doses / 107,977 2nd doses
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 10,235 / 16,935
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 1,082 / 15,504
NI 1,786 / 7,398

Looks like numbers are going down a bit. Fingers crossed we're over the peak.
I'm trying to celebrate being the Covid capital of Europe, but there's not much fun to it and puts me off going out.

16yos can work in supermarkets unvaccinated and get exposed to covid there in their saturday jobs and exposed in schools through other students. Whether they die or not, its not good to get it and I really hope jags for teens is introduced quickly.

When will we get more clarity from the SG on what they are doing?

@yedancer they have to wait for the JCVI recommendation to go ahead. So far although it's licenced the JCVI is examining data from the US very carefully before they make their recommendations for teens.

I think it will come but not for a while yet and they need to get more of the world vaccinated. Its not a good moral dilemma to be in which vaccinates children who are very low risk of serious illness whilst allowing other countries adults to die in large numbers because they are not in a position to afford vaccines in large quantities.

I think both the UK and Scottish administrations are waiting for finalised advice from the JCVI as to whether teenagers should routinely be vaccinated against COVID. The chat so far seems to be that vulnerable teenagers (or maybe those living with vulnerable adults) could be offered it, but not teenagers as a whole, at least not yet. The issue seems to be that because on the whole teenagers aren't badly affected by COVID, the safety threshold for the vaccine is quite rightly higher, and there isn't enough data yet to say that it is safe enough for this group. I would agree with this - it doesn't seem ethical to put teenagers at risk in order to protect others (which is the primary reason it would be done) if we're not absolutely clear on all the safety implications. Trials are relatively small and won't detect the rarer adverse events.

Exactly. Vulnerable 16 and 17 year olds are already offered the jag here, as are those who are unpaid carers or work in frontline health or social care. The risk to others of that age, while present, will be really tiny - and outweighed by the also tiny risk of the vaccine. Agree it's often not a nice thing to have, just as you don't want a teen getting flu or anything either - but it's really very unlikely to be anything worse than that to them. And I understand in about half the cases, they won't even know they have had it!

I would like an idea of where and when we might still need to wear masks or if she will go full BJ and remove them completely. Also what the WFH guidance will be. Its all a bit vague at the moment.

@YeDancer

16yos can work in supermarkets unvaccinated and get exposed to covid there in their saturday jobs and exposed in schools through other students. Whether they die or not, its not good to get it and I really hope jags for teens is introduced quickly.

When will we get more clarity from the SG on what they are doing?

Young people have risks in their social and work lives. STDs, drugs and alcohol, more seriously mental health conditions, even mild depression has a serious impact. All far more of a risk than catching covid from a Saturday job. We can’t start legislating on a young person’s right to earn money or denying them in-class learning based on whether they’re vaccinated or not. We balance the risk with what could happen to our children, surely? A gap year travelling around the world (with money saved from a weekend job) would probably require vaccinations and some savvy thinking for most DC. They learn life lessons from having responsibility, not being wrapped in cotton wool waiting for the vaccine.

When will we stop projecting our own fears on the young people who’ve already endured enough this last 18months?

Totally agree @Bytheloch.

There’s no need for healthy children to be vaccinated. It’s time to stop the lunacy.

I despise Johnson but I agree with him on this.

Happy for children/teens not to get the vaccine- although CEV and vulnerable should be given the choice - provided SG gets rid of isolations in the event of positive cases in schools.

At the moment vaccination seems the lesser of two evils as DS goes into S4 next term, I'd rather he had a fairly useless ( to him ) vaccine with a tiny risk, than the real risk of another messed up year of schooling.

I haven't had much of a chance to look at the English schools announcement today, but replacing school bubbles with contact tracing doesn't seem like a massive improvement.

Listening to the English announcements on isolation today, I get the impression that close contacts will not have to isolate if they are double jagged or under 18, which to me implies school children will also be exempt (unless they themselves are positive, obviously). There seems to be wide spread acceptance that we can't have another disrupted education year so I expect only positive school children will be excluded going forward.

That’s how I read it, @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

Oh that's good then @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us that will teach me to just read the headlines .