Tieribly angry wee fannies fannying about with the tiers

[dancemom]

Things moved quickly so I just started a new one ...

@latissimusdorsi 😆😆

@GoldenOmber

NS giving another update at 12.15 today:

“📺 I’ll give a Covid update today at 12.15pm - covering the latest figures, and asking all of us to play our part, through compliance with basic mitigations, in slowing down the rapid transmission we are seeing just now. I’ll be joined by @jasonleitch - please tune in if you can.”

Doesn’t sound like she’s announcing anything drastic, fingers crossed.

Well that sounds entirely pointless then. Another lecture and/or series of threats isn't going to change anyone's behaviour - people likely to listen are already being cautious while everyone else is doing what they're legally allowed to regardless of what Nicola decrees (perhaps more than usual if liberties might be removed at any second).

She might say "do xyz or restrictions will be back", meaning when she does bring back restrictions, we'll conveniently get the blame.

Fly

Oh god I feel sick! 😢

6835 new cases!!

More patronising crap about doing our part. 😡
Iv done my part and no better off from it

Case counts are literally just numbers to me now and I'm not going to stop living life as much as I'm allowed to. The health service is not overwhelmed with COVID (and I can't do anything about the other pressures). We're all vaccinated and expect to get it at some point, hopefully the vaccine takes the edge off, I certainly don't expect to be seriously ill, but there's no avoiding it. Now is as good a time as any (and possibly better as vaccines are fresh).

• 6,835 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 50,493 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 14.2% of these were positive
• 4 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 47 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 479 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,095,463 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 3,629,482 have received their second dose

So Scotland has 18% of uk cases today
More than double our share of uk population

Silver lining is that it looks like it’s starting to level off in the 20-24 year olds (probably because they’ve all had it by now).

Find it a bit frustrating that the popular explanation is going with “well OBVIOUSLY it’s all down to schools” given that age distribution.

If they blame it on schools they can then blame it on unvaccinated children, claim there's nothing they can do about that, then keep mitigations in place as an easy way to look like they're doing something. If they concede that it's older age groups driving it they have to concede that it's opening up that was the primary driver, and then either bat off all the calls to reimpose restrictions (and lose their 'cautious' handle) or go backwards and reimpose restrictions (they already floated, sorry 'leaked', that plan and it went down so badly it was completely disavowed).

I think they are actually basically doing the right thing now in accepting the super high cases and concentrating on hospital numbers instead, but the optics are pretty shocking, especially as it was only a few months ago we were apparently still aiming to virtually eliminate COVID! Had they not made such a thing of having low cases previously they wouldn't be scrapping around to save face now that the pandemic has finally caught up to us. It's just a shame that previous decisions on strategy and timing have led to these extreme peaks and troughs that could potentially threaten capacity, and that Scottish government rhetoric to date has trained people to fear cases rather than accept them as a part of life now, but we are where we are and need to push through.

That's looks like it's past 30 days @GoldenOmber
But if you look on SG dashboard there's been big increase in 0-14 group last week.
It's now the 2nd highest cases following after 25-44

Per 100k, it's still the same as it's been for weeks, highest in 15-19 year olds closely followed by 20-24. It's been like that at least for the latter part of school holidays. Always looks like more cases in the 25-44 group, but that spans 20 years instead of 5 like the younger categories, so to get a proper picture you need to flick the button to do by 100k instead. Every age group has decreased as vaccination has increased. But then "cases" don't really matter.

• 5,858 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 43,450 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 14.2% of these were positive
• 8 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 49 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 494 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,098,078 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 3,640,865 have received their second dose

• 7,113* new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 55,543 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 13.5% of these were positive
• 0 new reported deaths of people who have tested positive (note that Register Offices are now generally closed at weekends)
• 52 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 507 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,101,311 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 3,655,287 have received their second dose

• Please note that today's figure of newly reported cases includes a larger than usual proportion of specimens that were processed more than 48 hours ago. This is due to the high volumes of tests currently being received.

Holy shit. Where is this going to end? New records each day.

It includes numbers from a delay.
Unfortunately it's likely that delaying easing by a few weeks with the clash in school returns is the perfect storm along with lack of immunity from strict lockdowns.

But majority of these cases aren't serious and in the young.

NS self isolating.

Still coldly furious about masks and rules in schools.50000 at a football match. Yet I have to deliver complex explanations through a piece of cloth.

DD went to a club last night and no masks in sight. Which is good. But why everywhere else?!

Yes. And cinema seats back to normal spacing (had a slurping cruncher next to me today). Lots of people not wearing masks.

Yet school pupils. No one seems to care about them at all.

If NS can deliver a speech without a mask, why can't I deliver a lesson?

It’s all nonsensical

Because they knew the case rates would go crazy when schools reopened and they wanted to be seen to be doing something. I have colleagues who would go ballistic if they removed masks in schools (obviously I'm not one of them). There are still a lot of people out there who feel more should be done to stop the spread.

I'm still bewildered by the decision on masks in schools. I suppose we'll just wait and see what happens in England in a couple of weeks without masks/ SD/ bans on Fun. If they have a big jump in cases SG can say, "well, it would have been even worse here without our extra measures" but if they don't, what will the justification be??! FWIW I think there may be some spread (but by no means all, or even the majority) attributable to high schools, and primary to a lesser extent - but the way they are treated (teachers and pupils alike), compared to the rest of society, is awful. Almost like education isn't actually their first priority, because surely it is a policy with proven/ provable detriment to education! And if the measures aren't preventing disruption due to isolating or sick staff or pupils, where is the benefit?

Well they backed themselves into a corner over face masks. Made such a point of believing it was so important it had to be put in law to wear masks in crowded indoor places for health and safety reasons.
So the teaching unions, quite rightly under those circumstances, will insist they are kept for schools which, funnily enough are crowded indoor places🤷🏼‍♀️

True! Though so are nightclubs and offices (maybe not so much now!) and restaurants, where mask use is much more limited. Because it would be unreasonable and problematic to insist on them. I don't understand why pupils sitting down in a class are any more risky to the teacher than customers sat in a cafe a similar distance from another table, or a waiter moving between tables.

I mean, I would also be delighted if they removed the mask requirement in other indoor places, but given it is there, it doesn't mean that schools can't have the same exemptions made. So masks on when moving about, but off when seated in a lesson, for example. Which would reduce a lot of the discomfort and distraction, I would have thought. I don't see a classroom as a "busy indoor place" as much as a corridor at home time or the canteen at lunch.

I think they kept the mask thing in law rather than voluntary to look as though they were still being 'cautious' and to appease those who are still very scared about COVID cases (and maybe to make a point about 'reckless' Westminster who were about to make them voluntary while they opened up, which the FM, and everyone else tbf, expected to lead to massive COVID spikes).

I do think the general public are in the main acting as though it's voluntary anyway though - everywhere indoors I've been over the weekend has a good proportion of people not wearing masks (1/4 to 1/2 in some cases) despite the sky high cases. A minority have lanyards, but no-one is really batting an eye about it. And of course no-one is wearing them at all when in restaurants or cinemas. It does make the school thing seem even more out of step with society - I feel so sorry for the children who have to try and learn with impeded communication and sweaty/uncomfortable faces. It would have been so much better to make it advisory but not compulsory - the net effect would probably been the same and they wouldn't have then had to keep them on school children all day.