Heading into winTier ..... the one we hoped it would be over before...

[dancemom]

New thread Tierers ...

Exactly. I can kind of understand the "whoosh" through London. Loads and loads of people travelling into a comparatively tiny area for work etc, compared to Scotland where people by and large live nearer their work/ family, less use of public transport and so on.

But ultimately, it seems like London hasn't been affected THAT badly. Lots of people were infected at the same time, which caused issues with isolations, but there doesn't seem to have been overwhelming pressure on hospitals or other services. And now those infected people are back at work, with a good level of immunity against the dominant strain, so less likely to pass it on to others who missed it (or maybe who fought it off without becoming ill due to boosting or previous immunity?)

I don't understand why that can't happen here? Why aren't we allowed a couple of shitty weeks (which we're having anyway by all accounts) while booster immunity is good - get the wave out of the way and get back to normal? Rather than having ongoing restrictions/ protections that fail at stopping the spread (or if anything just shunt it down the road a bit where immunity is starting to wane again) and make everyone anxious for their health and the economy. Are we a special case that needs super-protecting because our services are on the verge of collapse at the best of times? And if so, whose fault is that?!

A good question indeed. I find the downright desperation of so many people to be seen to be doing their bit to protect the NHS by following the covid guidance downright depressing.

I’m beginning to wonder about the “special protection@ being needed as well @ResilienceWanker - is it to attempt to disguise government failings?

@ecceromani

But Londons population was not infected 1st with omicron. Lanarkshire was one of 1st places in uk to have omicron and it spread quickly throughout Scotland very early on. London is overcrowded, has significantly more adults unvaccinated than all areas of Scotland, and has not the restrictions we had so I'm not sure how our numbers in some areas of central belt have managed to overtake theirs.

But London is a travel hub for lots of countries. Undoubtedly it will have spread way faster. Lanarkshire is not.

@neveradullmoment99 it's not to do with London being a travel hub it's to do with a variety of factors lots of people living in a smaller area, a highly contagious virus and a lower vaccination rate.
It did not start in London just the variables allowed it to spread quickly there and its now showing a decrease!

It's been seen time and time again across nearly all UK cities (SW being a bit of a anomalies for it) faster spread because of closer proximity of people, more use of public transport etc Glasgow is also a prime example of the same thing to a lesser scale......

It doesn't change the fact that restrictions in Scotland are doing nout and as others say for New Year especially made houseparties the only option which will have added to that!

"Hospital patients appear less sick
A hospital case this winter is not the same as one from earlier in the pandemic.^

For one thing, a growing proportion of hospital patients with Covid are being treated for something else. They just happen to have the virus.

Latest data, from last week, suggested a third of those admitted to hospital in England were in this position. That's up from a quarter in the autumn. This data is not published in the UK's other nations but there is no reason to think it is any different."^

From BBC news website this morning. Interesting data on current hospital numbers. And saying the other nations STILL don't publish this

Oh yes this is a huge bug bear of mine and something that the SG has been told off for including by the National Statistics Authority on no less then 2 occasions! They still refuse to do it and give an excuse of it taking too much time.......absolute bollocks they have the data they just won't release it!!!!

Maybe because it would undermine their fear message!

@WouldBeGood

I’m beginning to wonder about the “special protection@ being needed as well *@ResilienceWanker* - is it to attempt to disguise government failings?

I really hope not, because it looks as though we're set to have another larger wave than England just like in the Autumn. The extra measures are likely to be completely ineffective at containing spread. It is a little surprising that it would actually exceed England again though (rather than being en par). Could the legacy of the suppression strategy and consequent lower levels of natural infection still be working through? The vaccines are even less well matched to omicron as they were to delta. Are we just a bit less healthy? We certainly have lower Vit D levels. I don't know.

I have wondered a few times whether the Scottish NHS is more vulnerable though, for whatever reason. In Lanarkshire, even before COVID, out of hours GP provision was reduced to two medical practices for the whole authority (good luck getting a slot, and hope you can drive!) and I know from unfortunate experience that these sometimes lacked basic equipment. I saw the minutes from the various meetings before this was implemented, and there were petitions locally against it. It turns out they were dangerously understaffed and didn't have the personel to man multiple locations any more. They had been missing targets and not seeing urgent patients within the alloted timescales. They then also reduced baby clinic access from several sites several days a week, to one central site a week, to being essentially inaccessible without appointment in the space of a few months. The HVs were up in arms, it was apparently a central dictat, and one told me they had all been told not to complain about it to parents! This was all pre-COVID and I can't imagine the situation has improved since!

Yes, it spread very very quickly in London among the community because of the numbers of people and the nature of life in London (not so sure on the "dirty forriners bringing it in" angle! ) And now the numbers are declining there.

Even though it was identified in Scotland early on, and has been spreading here too, the actual numbers (and cases per 100,000) have been lower than in London. But now they're not (as far as we can tell from the data released). Whether the slower initial spread is due to our extra restrictions, or just a feature of life in Scotland being less "intermingled" than London we don't know (maybe looking at data for Glasgow/Edinburgh compared to the more rural areas would give us a clue, but the past couple of weeks will have been a bit atypical anyway, and I can't be arsed! Also, the rest of the uk, including non-London England is having a moment now as well, so it's probably "London being London" rather than Scotland being Special and Protected). But whatever, we now have high and rising numbers, and London has (still high but) falling numbers, seemingly. So our extra restrictions haven't served us better than England's lower restrictions.

Sorry, missed *scottishskifuns" post that said basically that

@Scottishskifun

Oh yes this is a huge bug bear of mine and something that the SG has been told off for including by the National Statistics Authority on no less then 2 occasions! They still refuse to do it and give an excuse of it taking too much time.......absolute bollocks they have the data they just won't release it!!!!

Maybe because it would undermine their fear message!

Sssssh. We're not allowed to do the whole "because of" vs "with" thing. Because we have that conversation EVERY week and we'll be told off.

Haha @resilencewanker I deliberately didn't say that just that SG refused to release data....... different rant entirely honest
........😂

We know that now though don’t we? 100 in hospital because of?

Sorry if not allowed

Jackie Baillie tweeted about the stats and the lack of clarity and the comments under told her she was a tartan tory, should shut up and stop undermining the government, that noone was interested etc etc.

I just can't go on there anymore as it's full of absolute morons, that's why we are where we are. DH popped his head round the door earlier to say that one of drakeford's sidekicks is wanting isolation to be in place in the long term for the common cold.

Well they've got a point in that no- one is interested anymore @ElephantOfRisk
if my observation of friends and acquaintances research is typical of most of the population no-one is listening anymore. I see people who've followed the guidelines to the letter doing their LFTs and doing their own thing now.
The Gov has succeeded in desensitising the population to big numbers.
As Greta thunsberg would say "it's all blah blah blah"

I meant people are interested in the stats as they don't back up the restrictions, there are plenty of us interested in the facts I think. The people commenting were supporters of the scotgov stance and that we should just do what we are told as they are trying to protect us. They can get to fuck with that and tell us the truth.

Oh yes @ElephantOfRisk there are plenty of us interested in the stats.
But think lots of people are no longer listening to the accompanying Gov rhetoric.
That's the blah blah blah bit

yes, I agree with that, just thought I'd not been clear.

I would like to be protected from the SG protections.

• 17,259 new cases of COVID-19 reported*
• 56,290 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results*
◦ 35.3% of these were positive
• 42 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 1,147 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,384,343 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 4,022,821 have received their second dose, and 3,006,133 have received a third dose or booster

• There continues to be large volumes of tests being processed by labs. This and the holiday weekend have impacted turnaround times resulting in delays between specimens being taken and results being received and reported. Public Health Scotland are continuing to monitor the situation.

Humph... eldest had positive lateral flow so we're all off for PCRs tomorrow rather than back to school/ work... not a symptom among us...

That’s shite @TalkedTooMuchStayedTooLong

The Sun reporting tonight that isolation to be cut to 7 days tomorrow by NS. Of course, we should read about it first,
as they have probably given the story to the Sun as an exclusive to stop Chris Musson asking awkward questions about hospital data rather than parliament hearing about it first, but we are where we are.

I would rather they scrapped the whole household isolation rule than cut positive case isolation from 10 to 7 days, tbh. Am sure we’re not the only household a lot more reluctant to do LFTs without a reason now.