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

[dancemom]

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

But if those measures haven't stopped the large peak which we did have then it pretty much raises the issue of what is the point in them if they don't make a difference other than to be seen to be trying?

I have never opposed mask wearing (although the discrepancies around where and when they are worn irritate me massively) but yesterday my S1 announced that he now knew what his science teacher looked like because she wore a visor. It’s so sad that kids and teachers don’t know each others faces. I just wonder how much longer this will go on for and at what point do we need to get to for this to stop. It seems that no one actually cares about the kids.

Well, mainly what SG are doing is coercing the population to be vaccinated. Vaccinating children who have no need to be vaccinated just so they can keep the "numbers" down. It's abhorrent really. Get vaccinated or you'll have to keep wearing a mask, get vaccinated or you can't go to events or venues. I'm not anti vaccination, we've all been done in my house but if I had young teens then I'd not be automatically doing them to be honest and the coercion aspect really annoys me.

I'm not sure people believe the coercion any more though
Being double vaccinated, which the vast majority of students are, has not stopped social distancing and face masks being compulsory in universities. AND loads of classes still online.
Colleges are the same.

DS1s face to face at uni transpires to be one hour per fortnight and not 2, though he is allowed to use the labs after for a wee while. However the lecture he had was basically nothing specific to his course and was basically about study techniques. Fine, but he's in 4th year. He also had to bin going to the labs as they are not configured the same as the system he's using at home so by the time he sorted that, it was time to come home.

I think I remember that on the railing thread coercion (i.e. the threat of passports) by Westminster was hailed as a good strategic move to boost vaccine uptake.

I never believed Boris would bring in vaccine passports.
He's far too much of a libertarian, would definitely be a step too far for him.
He gave so much notice of the date it was obvious it was it was just a ploy!

• 2,459 new cases of COVID-19 reported
• 21,032 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results
◦ 12.4% of these were positive
• 24 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 46 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 869 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,291,650 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination and 3,881,744 have received their second dose

And cases and hospitalisations are up by 10% in a week. I remain baffled by how this doesn't seem to be any sort of issue.

I don't remember that being the general view at all @BlameItOnTheBlackStar though it is obviously possible that someone said it.

As far as I can see, most posters also sit on the libertarian side and were against the stated objective of ScotGov when they said that increasing vaccine take up was the reason for passports for hospitality. Given that the target market was in an age group that was already over 70% (maybe over 75%) take up.

DH has just got back from Germany, and said on two consecutive nights "NS would absolutely love it here..." followed by "God, this place would give NS a heart attack..." They apparently have a two-tier super complicated system to get into pubs/ restaurants. Some places accept a neg test, or proof of vaccination or recovery, but you also need to wear masks unless seated and distance within the venue. But other places only accept vaccination or recovery to get in, but once there, as everyone is assumed to be immune, it is seemingly obligatory to lick everyone else in the venue. No distancing/ masks at all, tables crammed in, tables buying each other drinks and so on. He said it was fab!

Despite what Swinney promised us, the codes on the paper vaccine passports didn't work at all - they couldn't be read by the German scanning app (DH never got the Scottish app to work at all). Though it turned out it didn't matter as long as the venues could see he had something that looked like a vaccine passport. Just waiting for the results of the day 2 test to see if all the carefree socialising was a good idea or not.

I wonder how many people are in hospital with flu or bronchitis or whatever? Why don't we know this or have deemed it necessary in the past to know this? And we are still not being given the figures of those actually ill because of covid. Hospital figures rise in the winter, more people have covid, it's not exactly rocket science that more of the people in hospital will be positive for covid.

A shortage of beds/staff is what is fuelling the ambulance issue, it's very little to do with covid or brexit, it's about mismanagement and funding.

@BlameItOnTheBlackStar

And cases and hospitalisations are up by 10% in a week. I remain baffled by how this doesn't seem to be any sort of issue.

Because if you compare it to for instance cancer hospital figures it's way lower. For instance there were 64,000 inpatient diagnosis of cancer between Oct and Dec for England that's ten times higher than the current hospital rate of covid.

It's also not going anywhere! It is never going to go anywhere and there will always be people in hospital with covid like there is for many illnesses.

I don't share the pessimistic view that cases will spiral and hospitals become overwhelmed again because of COVID. It was always expected that cases would rise going into the winter, and this was basis of the logic of getting the cases out of the way in the summer. Hospitalisations are what matters, and while they're going up these are still well down on previous peaks and not in the realm that the NHS in England might be overwhelmed. This is according to Westminster spokespeople, and I agree with them, for now anyway.

It is disappointing that vaccine immunity seems to be waning faster than hoped, and this seems to be the cause of the current increases (and poor performance relative to other countries who weren't so quick off the mark), but boosters should deal with this problem. Fairer criticism might be that the booster programme could be quicker, but even this seems to be going at a decent pace and there is already evidence of cases dropping in the older age groups relative to the rest of the population. The 12-15 year old roll out seems to be slow in England, but this matters little in terms of preventing hospitalisations as children are unlikely to be seriously affected anyway. Plus, one of the major problems seems to be that large numbers of children can't get it because they have COVID, so they will have gained a decent chunk of natural immunity instead, which might well turn out to be more robust long term.

I hate this rhetoric that unless you're wearing masks/restricting venues/doing whatever your favourite restriction is, that you're letting rip and doing nothing though. (Not necessarily here, but there's plenty of it about.) Everyone who wants a vaccine has now had the opportunity to get one, boosters are being offered to the vulnerable now that it's clear that the vaccine wears off relatively quickly (AZ especially), and I don't see any other reasonable end point in terms of allowing people to live their lives. I really think that everyone is eventually going to get it so protect the vulnerable as much as you can (which we are, with vaccination) and let people move on.

The Westminster govt is trying to get some of the inevitable covid hospitalisations out of the way before the inevitable winter viruses and flu hospitalisations start. To manage hospital capacity.

Also if you're going to get covid it's preferable to get it separately from catching flu. It's thought that the effects of covid will be much worse in conjunction with a bout of flu.

Ach x posted.

I agree youcannot

Testing in itself is a preventative measure. No other infectious diseases require people to quarantine until they test negatively if a household member or close contact has tested positive. And testing for other infectious viruses is usually to diagnose symptoms or rule something out for the benefit of the individual not as a public health measure.

@mibbelucieachwell

The Westminster govt is trying to get some of the inevitable covid hospitalisations out of the way before the inevitable winter viruses and flu hospitalisations start. To manage hospital capacity.

Also if you're going to get covid it's preferable to get it separately from catching flu. It's thought that the effects of covid will be much worse in conjunction with a bout of flu.

Yes we've been saying that for a loooong time now. Funny how literally no other nation seems to have to use this 'strategy' to handle the sheer volume of infections.

Oh there's no doubt that hospital capacity in the UK is crap. I think I saw that we spend about $4000 per head compared to $6000 in Germany. The whole system needs an overhaul, and maybe investment from sources other than the tax payer to make it fit for purpose. It seems to be an impossible conversation to have without turning massively political though, so I'm not that hopeful.

Yes, if there was any, and I mean any attempt to ready the NHS given what we know now, then I wouldn't be so angry and frustrated. But there is literally no extra effort being given to saving lives now, or Covid patients or people with any other illness or disease. It's fucking shameful, and yet almost nobody even blinks any more. We just go 'what did you expect from BJ' and 'well they need to get cases out of the way' as if that's a normal way to govern!

Forcing people to get sick and/or die is psychopathic and there should be some new charge created that is the political equivalent of corporate manslaughter.

At least Westminster started increasing funding for the NHS years ago. They gave the equivalent money to the SNP who chose to spend it on something else. Less beds available in Scotland than when SNP came to power.

I don't feel like I have a good grasp of the facts here, although believe it or not I have a Politics degree but I graduated a long time ago and over the last few years my politics obsession has gone over the pond.

@BlameItOnTheBlackStar

Yes, if there was any, and I mean any attempt to ready the NHS given what we know now, then I wouldn't be so angry and frustrated. But there is literally no extra effort being given to saving lives now, or Covid patients or people with any other illness or disease. It's fucking shameful, and yet almost nobody even blinks any more. We just go 'what did you expect from BJ' and 'well they need to get cases out of the way' as if that's a normal way to govern!

Forcing people to get sick and/or die is psychopathic and there should be some new charge created that is the political equivalent of corporate manslaughter.

Couldn't agree more. There was a good article (European magazine, can't remember which one) on the UK public's acceptance of high deaths and continued support for the UK Government. The covid report - nothing from Labour , the press. I didn't even see it referenced on here. Also, at thr time of the report, the PM went on a ( free) luxury holiday. His party had also just removed £1000 a year from the poorest in our society. Oh, and caused food and fuel shortages ( which I've never experienced before in my lifetime). Yet, he'd still be voted in tomorrow.

And had Christmas with his mates while I saw not a soul. Nobody gives a shit, we are so downtrodden by it that we don't protest the most blatant lies and injustices.

@starryeyesuprise there wasn't any fuel shortage in the country just mass panic buying spurred on by the media which caused huge knock on effects. The actually availability in refineries was good!

@blameitontheblackstar I'm not sure what you want for a illness which isn't going anywhere?
Treatments have advanced massively in a very rapid time frame, vulnerable are vaccinated with booster programme being rolled out. We probably have crazy rates similar to the US because as a nation we are unhealthy and unfit.
There are thousands of flu deaths a year nobody seems to bat a eyelid past get your flu jab. Why is it suddenly different for covid now we have reached the point where science has made huge improvements. This virus is never going away as said multiple times so I'm not really sure what you would want to see?

Lockdowns didn't work past the short term and economies will spend 20+ years trying to deal with the debt of this. Control measures haven't worked (look at our case rate in Sept), sanitising everything doesn't work for a airborne illness. I'm baffled to what more you want to see or be done for something which mutates quickly and has shown escaping constantly for 18 months 🤷‍♂️ even countries like Singapore who had a zero covid strategy are giving up on it.

So what do you propose that the govt does?