What restrictions will Nicola announce on Tuesday?

[ShiftingSands21]

Does anyone have a strong sense of what we should expect tomorrow?

Well if it’s spreading in schools in England and not in schools here, but we and they have similar prevalence rates in school-age kids, then presumably England is having more success than us at stopping spread in non-school settings? Or, we have lower rates in school-age but way higher in the 18 and 19 year olds grouped into that age category somehow? Or, in England they’re getting exposed in school first and here they’re getting exposed in the community first, but we end up with the same number of kids having getting infected at the same rate anyway?

All very good questions. My guess is, the kids there are catching it in schools instead of non school settings, rather than any success in stopping it in those settings. After all you can’t catch it twice at the same time. I have no idea what universities are doing in England compared to Scotland, or maybe it’s an effect of having 6th formers in a separate setting whereas most of ours are still at school. Who knows.

What it does say to me is, the answer is for us to put more effort into mitigations in those non school settings here. Not for us to assume they aren’t working because of the numbers. We’ve been so focussed on schools we’ve forgotten kids do more than just go to school!

@GaolBhoAlba

Comparing “Scotland” and “England” as a whole ignores the localised nature of the restrictions, and the type of restrictions too.

The accusation was that she relied on furlough more, but the type of restrictions being discussed in that article (hardly the bastion of balanced reporting) are about things like restrictions within households and traveling between areas. I couldn’t go to see my mum, or have a party, but that did not affect my ability to work. I’m not denying she made different decisions, but to say she did so by taking more advantage of furlough is at odds with the actual data.

So the numbers magically went up in August/Sept when kids went back to school despite 6 weeks spent with friends in the community during the holidays.
That huge peak with teenagers wasn't caused by the return to sitting in a poorly ventilated environment with 20+ others for 6 hours a day.....
Right OK!

I mean that's the most bizarre statement I've heard that it magically isn't circulating in our schools but is in English ones!
It's also widely circulating in hospitals BTW despite high levels of mask compliance and PPE wearing because of viral load and again not great ventilation.

Honestly go read the British medical journal analysis of studies to understand the effects of poor ventilation and risk even when wearing masks!

I dunno I don’t have any primary kids any more, they could be putting them in corns there for all I know 😁

I do suspect a lot of secondary cases are just not being caught as I do know even the most responsible of my youngests friends are not testing regularly. I keep getting letters to say there has bennet a case identified at times in my daughters class at times in her year group but not up for anything unless test and protect call.

I’m no longer confident anything we are doing anywhere is making a difference over the course of this except the vaccines so I’m probably best ignored really. I’m just pissed off worn out and sceptical of the whole lot of them. Except Linda bauld for some reason I’ll go see what she’s saying today.

So the numbers magically went up in August/Sept when kids went back to school despite 6 weeks spent with friends in the community during the holidays.

The numbers went up because for 6 weeks kids hadn’t been doing tests, and on returning to school large numbers of them are testing regularly. It is inevitable this numbers will be higher. That does not mean it is spreading in our schools in the same way. Can people really not understand the most basic of statistics.

I mean that's the most bizarre statement I've heard that it magically isn't circulating in our schools but is in English ones!

There are isolated cases in Schools. There are not massive outbreaks in schools. That’s the difference. MSPs were told in Parliament a couple of weeks ago that at that time half of the schools in Scotland reported no cases at all, and the other half had cases mainly in single numbers.

I ask again, if you have the data, the reporting that schools across the land are closed in large numbers because of covid outbreaks, I’d be happy to look at it.

dunno I don’t have any primary kids any more, they could be putting them in corns there for all I know 😁

You are aware of the guidance though? That masks are required in secondary schools and not on primary schools?

I do suspect a lot of secondary cases are just not being caught as I do know even the most responsible of my youngests friends are not testing regularly. I keep getting letters to say there has bennet a case identified at times in my daughters class at times in her year group but not up for anything unless test and protect call.

“Keep getting”? Weekly? Monthly? Don’t you wonder why, if there have been cases in her class, this isn’t turning in to an outbreak? When in all other mass settings (which don’t require masks) a single case remaining a single case is unusual? My daughter has reported three individual cases in her class too, at different times since returning in august. We don’t get letters as the guidance says schools don’t have to do that. But there has been no contact spread of these cases at all. I haven’t suggested there are never cases in schools, just that contact to contact outbreaks are not happening.

That your kid’s friends are not testing, doesn’t mean nobody is testing. If even half of the 800,000 school pupils test regularly, this will impact on the numbers.

Except Linda bauld for some reason I’ll go see what she’s saying today.

Linda Bauld: Herald July 16th “Masks do reduce Covid transmissions. It makes no sense not to wear one.

it’s also widely circulating in hospitals BTW despite high levels of mask compliance and PPE wearing because of viral load and again not great ventilation.

“There’s covid cases in hospitals” Shocker. 🙄

We had a party night booked for Thursday and just recieved this, feel sorry for the venues trying to police the 'advice' along with the new legal obligations that are currently unknown yet.
Dear Party-Goer,

No doubt you will have heard that the Scottish Government are asking hospitality venues to take further reasonable protective steps to keep people in our venue as safe as is possible. They are also asking more of us as individuals – in terms of our general behaviour and in keeping our social contacts limited to no more than three households. The detailed guidance for hospitality is still to be published but we feel obliged to implement these reasonable steps as quickly as is possible. The detail may bring further mandated change – the provision of music for example, may be restricted as may opening hours. Planning all these variables is difficult – we don’t know when the guidance will be provided.

Our plan at the moment is that the GBX Party Nights will still go ahead. In order to meet the ‘reasonable steps’ guidance however we need to make some modifications. We recognise that individuals and groups will feel differently about the risk (s) that COVID 19 creates. With that in mind we are proposing that you have one of two options to land on. Unfortunately we have no ‘postponement’ opportunity.

1.  Option 1 is for you to cancel. The event itself isn’t cancelled and the Scottish Government are not requiring us to cancel. We understand though that many people may view this as their best option given their particular circumstances. We will refund all monies with the exception of the £20pp deposit. We will use this to pay the up-front costs for setting these events up – security, entertainment, equipment and any ‘fully committed’ staffing costs. Please note our refunds may take up to 2 weeks to be processed.
   

2.  Option 2 is that we go ahead with the Party night with the following modifications. A) The drinks reception will be at your table (s) in the ballroom. B) There will be no dancefloor – any boogieing will be with your group by your table C) Drinks service will primarily be table service with numbers allowed around the bar strictly limited D) In addition to all attendees having proof of double vaccination (or an approved exemption / registered lateral flow result) we ask that everybody completes a lateral flow test on the day of the event and only attends with a confirmed negative result.
   

We think these options provide a fair and reasonable choice for you /your group to make. We are of course extremely disappointed that we can’t just get on and have the party the way it should be done.

Please let us know.

@Firefightress1 you read that and realise hospitality needs support, great clear email but who'd want to go to a night out like that.

@BoredZelda

it’s also widely circulating in hospitals BTW despite high levels of mask compliance and PPE wearing because of viral load and again not great ventilation.

“There’s covid cases in hospitals” Shocker. 🙄

It's not covid cases in hospitals it's being caught in hospital on non covid wards very different kettle of fish

[quote rookiemere]@Firefightress1 you read that and realise hospitality needs support, great clear email but who'd want to go to a night out like that.[/quote]
We have another juxtaposition with advice in Scotland and in England. If it proves, again, that it makes no tangible difference in stats (as I suspect will be the case), then the scottish hospitality industry need to, collectively, come out fighting. If they dont, their industry is finished.

It’s not covid cases in hospitals it's being caught in hospital on non covid wards very different kettle of fish

But by the very nature of the setting, there is more likely to be people with covid who have not tested before they went there. They stopped testing patients on admission unless they are symptomatic. In fact my mum was in with 2 of the three symptoms but they never tested her because they decided it wasn’t covid.

We have another juxtaposition with advice in Scotland and in England. If it proves, again, that it makes no tangible difference in stats (as I suspect will be the case)

Thing is, the advice not to mix socially at things like Christmas Parties when there is a more transmissible strain is not bad advice. If all the other precautions are also put in place and people follow it, it will help.

The problem is, comparing a nation’s numbers just on the government advice given is meaningless. How many people will actually cancel their parties in both nations, regardless of advice? We’ve had loads of threads and posts on here about it, which suggests people in England are considering it despite no government advice about it. And given it is only guidance here, plenty won’t cancel, my boss is going ahead with ours. Plus, we are going in a season of social mixing in homes, which has always been the biggest issue for spread. Which only leaves a guess as to how much worse the picture would have been if the advice hadn’t been given and that can never be proven. Nothing we do short of full lockdown would see these numbers reduce in any meaningful way. Taking the view that if numbers don’t go down, y was useless shows a real misunderstanding of how this whole thing works.

@BoredZelda

Well if it’s spreading in schools in England and not in schools here, but we and they have similar prevalence rates in school-age kids, then presumably England is having more success than us at stopping spread in non-school settings? Or, we have lower rates in school-age but way higher in the 18 and 19 year olds grouped into that age category somehow? Or, in England they’re getting exposed in school first and here they’re getting exposed in the community first, but we end up with the same number of kids having getting infected at the same rate anyway?

All very good questions. My guess is, the kids there are catching it in schools instead of non school settings, rather than any success in stopping it in those settings. After all you can’t catch it twice at the same time. I have no idea what universities are doing in England compared to Scotland, or maybe it’s an effect of having 6th formers in a separate setting whereas most of ours are still at school. Who knows.

What it does say to me is, the answer is for us to put more effort into mitigations in those non school settings here. Not for us to assume they aren’t working because of the numbers. We’ve been so focussed on schools we’ve forgotten kids do more than just go to school!

On the point about universities in England vs Scotland, this is another case where there has been significant divergence over the last few months, at least in terms of the official guidance. Where Scottish Universities have been encouraged to focus on being 'COVID safe' first and foremost (meaning many students are still working remotely quite a lot of the time), guidance to English universities made clear that any safety measures should not interfere with the educational/university experience. In England, COVID 'safety' was very much a secondary consideration in the rules. It is just not the case that English 18-19 year olds at Uni were more protected from infection at Uni, quite the opposite. It also seems unlikely that English out of school/university activities would be intrinsically 'safer' than Scottish ones, given that England since about July has had fewer restrictions in society generally (testing/isolation for asymptomatic people was optional, no mask mandates, no specific guidance for people to work from home etc.)

To me I'm afraid it does very much look like mandatory masks in schools has had negligible effect on spread, as the two populations have basically the same rates of infection (slightly higher in Scotland I believe). I strongly believe that children should not be subjected to yet more mitigations which aren't neutral in terms of overall harm - indeed it was accepted by the first minister that masks impair education, which is why is was supposed to be a temporary measure (and we all know how that turned out). As Sturgeon herself said, the children have been through enough, and we shouldn't make their lives even less normal when the evidence that these measures do anything significant to curb spread is weak at best (personally I would say absent).

[quote rookiemere]@Firefightress1 you read that and realise hospitality needs support, great clear email but who'd want to go to a night out like that.[/quote]
Exactly. People will have been looking forward to the traditional Christmas do with a meal and then dancing.

Not sitting at your table, and dancing round your table. It's rubbish. People will cancel, venues will lose out, jobs will be lost.

We are supposed to be having our Christmas meal with my voluntary position on MOnday, just had an email to say it's cancelled as so many of the volunteers have been scared shitless by Sturgeon. So that's the local pub down £500 on takings on food, and probably the same again on drinks.

We had our Christmas do last week, and as a precaution everyone in attendance took a lateral flow on the day of the party. It was not a super spreader event (there was nothing to be spread) and no-one has become sick or tested positive since. We did have an enjoyable night out though, and the venue made quite a lot of money from us! I really feel for those businesses who will suffer a hammer blow right before Christmas because of 'advice' that is frankly over the top. It is accepted that omicron won't be stopped, generally accepted that it is much milder than delta (although not by the UK for some reason), and testing everyone beforehand is perfectly adequate to slow it down for the booster programme.

We had ours last week too. Everyone tested before and everyone has also tested since and seems fine. I intend to continue to support hospitality for as long as I am able.

Does that zebra person think I was having a go at her or something? 🤷🏻‍♀️

@BoredZelda

It’s not covid cases in hospitals it's being caught in hospital on non covid wards very different kettle of fish

But by the very nature of the setting, there is more likely to be people with covid who have not tested before they went there. They stopped testing patients on admission unless they are symptomatic. In fact my mum was in with 2 of the three symptoms but they never tested her because they decided it wasn’t covid.

On surgical wards, maternity wards etc actually you are tested prior or on arrival if spontaneous birth and subsequently tested every few days.

Here's from the examination of studies.
Additional empirical evidence from a recent randomised controlled trial (originally published as a preprint) indicates that mask wearing achieved a 9.3% reduction in seroprevalence of symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and an 11.9% reduction in the prevalence of covid-19-like symptoms.106 Another systematic review showed stronger effectiveness with the use of N95, or similar, respirators than disposable surgical masks,107 and a study evaluating the protection offered by 18 different types of fabric masks found substantial heterogeneity in protection, with the most effective mask being multilayered and tight fitting.108 However, transmission of SARS-CoV-2 largely arises in hospital settings in which full personal protective measures are in place, which suggests that when viral load is at its highest, even the best performing face masks might not provide adequate protection.51

Study here www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302

Hospitals are the greatest transmission risk this is known!

Its noted and respected in the scientific field that C19 is here to stay, we'll have variants forever. So the burning (the only relevant) question is, does scotgov plan to respond thus to every variant? Its a straight yes or no answer. If its yes (as appears to be the case), then night time industries are finished, they may as well throw the towel in now!

The public are weary and, unfortunately for the politicians, starting to shoot the messenger.
I've had several people say to me today (who I never thought would say it) they can't stand the sight of Nicola sturgeon now

@ecceromani

The public are weary and, unfortunately for the politicians, starting to shoot the messenger. I've had several people say to me today (who I never thought would say it) they can't stand the sight of Nicola sturgeon now

She's just tweeted that omicron is driving a steep increase in cases. There are over 5000 today, however there's been a record number of tests, and the positivity rate is actually lower than yesterday! Ive never been able to fathom why she does this, why she reports a rise in cases with no (significant) context.

@Scottishskifun I had a baby a couple of months ago, and there was no testing required on arrival at maternity unit or at any point after. I was quite surprised but the midwives said you would only be tested if symptomatic. It may vary in other hospitals.

@Direwolfwrangler that's surprising ours from friends is a pcr before a planned section, pcr ideally before before induction but if short notice which most seem to be currently then lft and lft woman and birth partner for spontaneous.
Followed by test every 3 days if staying on the wards and partners expected to do regular lft

@ecceromani yep, I think she's too closely associated with covid and covid updates. When people hear her voice now that's what they think of.