Dancing with tiers in my eyes, Weeping for the memory of a life gone by

[dancemom]

New thread, a very appropriate title I feel ...

@Scottishskifun Tim Spector on twitter was pointing out that Scotland has the highest rate of increase in the UK, and wondering (I assume in jest) whether we should be added to England's red list....Can't help thinking after all the shit Sturgeon was saying last year, the English are entitled to a bit of schadenfreude now the pandemic has caught up with us.

although the SNP are just waiting for England to have a spike related to schools going back to start the finger waggling about not jabbing 12-15 y.o.s in time.

Wrong question, wrong focus for Scot gov: we should be asking about the plans to roll out winter boosters so the retired and vulnerable people who've been worrying themselves into a frazzle throughout can have some renewed peace of mind.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us that's the thing can you imagine the outcry if they reciprocated the measures that SG put against them!
Thankfully it seems that WM is smarter then that with the independence debate!

I'm honestly thinking about changing my passenger location form for holiday to my parents address in England though!

You know - I quite fancy self isolating myself in a hotel down in England for 10 days. As long as I'd be allowed to use the spa and have my pick off the cocktail menu after dinner.

The Scottish government adverts for covid are bloody awful. I thought the football one where the guy will be in goals next week cos he's isolating was the worst, until the Janey Godly one came out. Jesus christ, she must have a good agent

Someone in the SNP press office clearly thinks she is some sort of universally-beloved character

7 kids out of my daughters class today, that she knows of, including her. PCR test awaits. Joy of joys.

@ssd yes! She really must! 🤣

• 7,065 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 52,193 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 14.5% of these were positive
• 0 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive (noting that Register Offices are generally closed at weekends)
• 71 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 771 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,126,263 people have received the first dose of the Covid vaccination and 3,736,762 have received their second dose

That's a bit of a jump, and on Monday too... Perhaps we haven't peaked/plateaued yet after all (unless it's a backlog issue).

And another 50-odd people in hospital. In a couple of weeks we could be back at the peak of hospitalisations. Meanwhile we can all go to work/schools/pubs etc while others in our households have active symptoms.

It's feeling like a long and bleak winter is on the cards. How can there be no lockdowns?

Those numbers are scary. I went on to travelling tabby and I guess the only reassuring indicator is that death rate seems fairly low and stable. I wonder if the increased hospitalisations just means that more people who wouldn't necessarily have been hospitalised first or second time round are getting a space. Trouble is that unless that number goes down there will be big pressure on hospital beds and that might lead to actions.

I actually don't think we can or should lock down at this stage unless the NHS is at imminent risk of being overwhelmed. It's just kicking the can down the road - better to deal with this and get to equilibrium, preferably before flu takes off and COVID vaccines wear off. Arguably it was not dealing with it in a timely manner (by which I mean allowing natural infection in a controlled way once the vulnerable were vaccinated) that has lead to the super high cases now (although I confess I'm surprised that there are this many people left to infect! I'm guessing a lot of these are mild breakthrough infections). I think we just have to hold our nerve and get through to the other side.

I don't necessarily advocate locking down. There are other measures that can be taken. Although from Scotsnet it seems like very few would adhere anyway. All we're doing is creating a perfect environment for new strains to develop, and exposing thousands of people every day to Long Covid. I feel quite pissed off actually!

Yes - I'm confused by the numbers too. From the media/ anecdote it sounds like basically everyone should have had it by now. But the data on eg travelling tabby says that only approx 8.5% of everyone in Scotland has had it (1 in 12) and only about half of us have ever had a PCR test. I know the proportions will be different in different age groups - biased towards the young-uns - and not everyone who has had it will have been tested (asymptomatic?). But there does seem some discrepancy - especially when the ONS are saying that eg 1 in 80 of us have it this week - 1 in 100 the next. Surely we must be reaching the point where there aren't enough "weeks" for us all not to have had it! And there is so little chance of being reinfected at the moment, which is a relief at least...

Half a million cases in, what, 18 months? Bodes well for the next, er, decade or so.

Yes @ResilienceWanker I do think I read somewhere that cases should drop within the next 1-2 weeks, because basically most people will have been infected by now, I really hope so and I guess SG does too otherwise now would be the time to bring in restrictions again ( NB I'm not saying I agree with that) .

That's just the tip of the ice berg though @OhWhatsTheDifference, most cases go undetected, especially in the young where they are often asymptomatic. Antibody tests suggest about 50-75% of children have had it for instance, most didn't notice. Over 90% of adults apparently have antibodies too. My gut feeling is most of us have some level of immunity now, but not enough to stop infection entirely.

That can't really be true though, can it? If we have about half a million confirmed cases, how many could there have been in reality? 1.5 million, 2 million? That's not most people by any stretch.

@OhWhatsTheDifference the good news is that double vaccination significantly drops the risk of long covid by over 50% and the risk to children is much lower then originally estimated.

The studies are showing the best weapon against covid variants is double vaccination and natural immunity. So in a weird way it is better that people get a variant that isn't too nasty before another one comes along (which it will) and before winter.

It is difficult though when we have been told for so long to avoid it at all costs it's peoples fault that it circulates etc etc etc.

@OhWhatsTheDifference the good news is that double vaccination significantly drops the risk of long covid by over 50% and the risk to children is much lower then originally estimated.

The studies are showing the best weapon against covid variants is double vaccination and natural immunity. So in a weird way it is better that people get a variant that isn't too nasty before another one comes along (which it will) and before winter.

It is difficult though when we have been told for so long to avoid it at all costs it's peoples fault that it circulates etc etc etc.

No idea why that has posted twice!

I think they also recently found that the incidence of long covid in children was a lot lower than had initially been thought or lower than it is in adults or something.
There is a lot of merit in effectively letting it rip in schools now, which is what's happening but obviously not so good for CEV DCs or adults so it feels like they're pretending that's not what they want, but unofficially it is.

I'll say again. We don't know that the people in hospital WITH covid are being treated BECAUSE of covid. Higher incidence in the community with inevitably mean that people admitted to hospital/ICU for ANY REASON but test positive will be included in the stats.

@rookiemere yes much lower than in adults.
It still completely sucks and I'm still angry that there is so little support! I was fuming at the chest heart and stroke report last week. I didn't even know that had started in Feb and I was diagnosed with long covid in May! Now I'm too late into it to get help from them as they were supposed to be a bridging service! I asked my GP about it at my last appointment they said they weren't aware of it until the BBC article!

and that's before we get to the reliability of a test that was designed to be used as a diagnostic tool for people with symptoms, not a diagnostic on it's own.