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

[dancemom]

New thread Tierers ...

Yep, the whole household isolation is a bloody nightmare.

Why is it necessary in Scotland and nowhere else?

DS back to school today so we will see how that goes!

Aw no talkedtoomuch. What a pain. Fingers crossed it was a false one. Its so disruptive.

I think it was JS who said that something like 80% of the population had done a lft in the past 7 days. I was surprised it was that many tbh. (and not sure how they know if they were actually done, or people just said they did them to get JS to stop mithering them when they were out for a nice coffee). I suppose people may be doing them for work, and people meeting for hogmanay could have too, but 80% seems high. None of my family have done one in the past week (though we've not really been anywhere) and I'd assumed we were all pretty normal. No wonder there's a shortage!

Fingers crossed for a change to the isolation rules... Both length of time and scope of isolatees. JS was banging on about not wanting to release still infectious people back to work... but surely that's the point of requiring 2 negative LFTs? Is "listening to the science" passe now, then?! Either LFTs are useful, or they aren't. And if "key worker" household contacts are allowed to go to work on the basis of negative LFTs, why can't recovered people do the same?

Has anyone considered that the strain and the expense on the health service is caused by all those testing repeatedly with both lateral flow and pcr tests? Maybe if we just stopped wasting money on the population carrying out all the unnecessary testing there would more money to spend on treatments?

It's an infectious virus that in most people causes little harm. The only people who should be testing are those who have an increased risk of passing it to someone who may become very ill with it.

I think she will be forced to do so under gritted teeth especially when Drakeford did it last week!

Also seen that the figures presented by SG and Swinney yesterday actually were from before Christmas and the additional controls from boxing day........so yet again they are using data incorrectly to bolster their arguments........what a surprise

Spot on @ElephantOfRisk

Yes, @Scottishskifun using those figures is disingenuous at best.

I hope all the Scots who travelled to Newcastle for Hogmanay and saw England managing fine without our tedious restrictions, will start to question the SNP's mismanagement of the pandemic.
I hope all the people working in the hospitality industry, who have had their livelihoods threatened by our restrictions with no financial support/furlough, will think twice about ever voting SNP again.
There isn't a single area of government that the SNP can claim as a success, from health, to the economy, education, industry, you name it.

I've also just read that England is going to make a positive, asymptomatic (or presumably having symptoms, but not the Big 3) LFT count as the start of isolation, without needing a pcr to confirm it. This makes sense to me and would definitely save a few days... At the moment, if you get a positive lft you have to apply for a pcr test which have been difficult to get recently (as we don't have a car and our nearest permanent walk in test centre is some distance, we'd have to wait a few days for a postal one) and isolation only starts from the day you get the positive result ( which seems bonkers not to have it at at least the test date, but there you go!) So counting the lft as day 1 would help lots of people!

@ResilienceWanker I didn't realise that your isolation period only started from positive PCR, that makes no sense.

Precisely! If you're positive, you're positive, no matter which test told you so... And you become less infectious with time regardless, so as long as you're isolating it seems bonkers the clock only starts from a pcr test! (way to discourage people from taking a pcr to confirm!)

It was here BTW.

Oh that’s a good idea and surely would save some of the pressure on the testing system too. Hope we bring that in up here as well.

As long as PCRs are still available if eg your employer insists on PCR proof, etc

[quote rookiemere]@ResilienceWanker I didn't realise that your isolation period only started from positive PCR, that makes no sense. [/quote]
Yep positive PCR or start of symptoms but they only count the "big 3" taste, fever or cough which aren't prominent with omicron at all!
When we have done PCR testing for DS I will always select a symptom for few days before when he started to be unwell rather then saying he doesn't have that symptom etc for that exact reason!

Ireland and Canada have already changed the need for a confirmatory PCR.
Both countries now just accepting LFT and start isolation.
Only encouraging booking a pcr for at risk groups/ older age groups

And soon no need in England for negative PCR if it was an asymptomatic positive LFT.

We're currently in family isolation so hoping NS will cut that nonsense today. We're all negative PCR. My kids want back to school.

• 16,103 new cases of COVID-19 reported*
• 69,327 new tests for COVID-19 that reported results*
◦ 26.9% of these were positive
• 5 new reported death(s) of people who have tested positive
• 42 people were in intensive care yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 1,223 people were in hospital yesterday with recently confirmed COVID-19
• 4,385,227 people have received their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination, 4,026,878 have received their second dose, and 3,016,198 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. ** Public Health Scotland have been notified that the vaccination data is incomplete due to a technical processing issue since 4 Jan 2022 15:00. The issue is currently being investigated.

Isolation and testing rule changes announced. Isolation rules to follow England per being cut to 7 days following 2 negative LF tests

Close contacts under 18 or fully vaccinated (2 plus booster) no longer need to isolate but should LF daily

No requirement for a PCR if your LF is positive and you have no symptoms

Fantastic! Thanks for the summary dancemom. No need to watch it myself now

I think that's good news, though. Expected I suppose, or nothing would be able to function in a week or so, but still a relief to hear! You never can tell here...

Wonder what happens if you can't get enough lateral flows though... A whole household doing one daily each could burn through them pretty quickly.

Thanks @dancemom!

Good news but will also skew the statistics. Will they start to report positive cases via both LF and PCR now?

Welcome guys

Thank you from me too dancemom

So does that mean the class bubbles they were bringing back are now no longer ?

Yes, I think they do that in England. A reported positive LFT counts as a positive test provisionally, and is then either removed if the PCR came back negative or confirmed if it was positive (don't know what happens if a pcr never shows up). Though I think test and trace only kicked in once the PCR was in. But now test and trace will get involved once the lft is reported instead.

I can't see why Scotland didn't do the same... but you're right in that LFTs haven't been counted here at all. They'll probably need to tweak the systems here to allow for it, but I wouldn't have thought it would be that tricky (though I suppose technology/ stats haven't necessarily been PHSs forte til now). I think the reason they said they didn't count LFTs previously was to do with double counting, but now if that's the "only" count of a particular case it should simplify matters?

The doubt I have is whether people will register positive LFTs. If they need proof for work/ travel/ claiming isolation payment or whatever then yes, they probably would, but if just to avoid passing covid to relatives I can't see why people would register it and get test and protect down their neck, rather than just lie low for a bit. Conversely I suppose people fancying a week off work or a gentle week wfh could just register a positive lft without the hassle of actually contracting the virus!