Guilt Free Railing 16

[WouldBeGood]

The festive special!

As always, all railing welcome, along with good things or humorous asides. No resilience wankery. This is the safe place to let out anything that’s doing your head in.

I was able to get flu as a priority as a teacher but not covid. Getting my booster next week which was the earliest I could get. Sadly looking forward to it!!!

Does seem to vary by area - I changed mine on Friday and could've booked either Saturday or Sunday. Waited half an hour in the queue. Pretty good.

Yep, got my flu jab as there were spares when the vaccination team were in for pupils but not my Covid booster.

They pushed 2nd dozes through as we had lots of cases in early summer where I live and it was feared that we might not be able to mark the notexams/exams.

As a result we were over six months post 2nd doze.

A priority when they were totally screwed without us only.

So I am confused NS asked for extra money.....originally got an advance and now got new money but is still complaining?

As far as I can tell because they haven't given her full demands aka she still can't lockdown, she's just going to keep moaning.......

I honestly don't know anyone who thinks shutting stuff is a good idea even the most rigid rule follower is done! I think they are underestimating peoples tolerance now!

I think she's seriously misjudged the public mood. We had our vaccinations, we're queuing in our thousands, in the cold, for our boosters, not because of covid, because of restrictions. I barely know anyone in support of more restrictions, omicron or no omicron.

Definitely agree!

Well thankfully DS test came back negative so now we can get him seen by a Dr or at least they will assess him over the phone!

So this is - I know - a very simplistic view, but we believe Omicron is less serious but more transmissible than Delta, so the issue is everyone getting it at once and NHS being overwhelmed due to this. We also know that Omicron hospital stays seem to be a lot shorter than Delta.

So is there some merit in using the extra funding to try to bolster the NHS for the short term wave? Pay overtime and generous contract rates and try to get bodies in so that Nightingales can be reopened if needed. Train up other people to do the boosters and vaccinations as they don't need to be nurses or doctors.

I know it's a bit pie in the sky, but all lockdown does is kick the problem down the road, and we all know that two weeks won't be enough to make a significant difference.

Reopening the nightingales isn't that easy, the Lousia Jordan / SECC is dismantled and everything moved out of it. I think the Carnaval might be in there.

But paying overtime, is probably the way forward but then that can only be a short term solution people can only work so long before they are burnt out.

The way i understand it is , we need restrictions to slow omicron down, not because its going to kill us all, but because everyone catching it AND the people they live with, need to isolate for 10 days And this is buggering up services we need, like the nhs, food deliveries etc

However I wonder what percentage of seats are actually empty at the pantomimes and other Christmas shows?

I think people are really worn down, might as well have fun while we can, type attitude so unless people are vulnerable then they are business as usual!

@Lockdownbear judging by the huge queues outside The Playhouse on Saturday, many families were going ahead with their panto plans.

I know I've been acting like it's the last days of Rome and eating and going out a ridiculous amount, on the basis I expect things to be shut post Christmas.

All 4 friends still came round on Friday night for prearranged drinks, whereas in previous lockdowns I think they would have backed out or I would have cancelled.

The feeling I get is that people have just had enough of it. There's not enough data to say that Omicron is going to overwhelm the NHS and we simply aren't seeing the worrying level of hospitalisations that we did last December that made people take it seriously.

Also even if we do see higher numbers going into hospital,most folk are double jabbed and a fair proportion have had their boosters. We were told vaccination was the way out of serious illness, so either that's true or if it's not why did we bother.

"The way i understand it is , we need restrictions to slow omicron down, not because its going to kill us all, but because everyone catching it AND the people they live with, need to isolate for 10 days And this is buggering up services we need, like the nhs, food deliveries etc"

@ssd I think this may well be the logic, especially as it seems likely that severe illness will be massively reduced. But I would argue that the problem therefore isn't COVID but our response to it, specifically the assumption that people need to isolate for 10 days if they have it, as if it were somehow inevitable. These days most people I know who've caught COVID have been up and about again in 2-3 days (children about a day!) so 10 days at this point seems totally disproportionate. If you deal with this isolation requirement then most of the problems caused by 'COVID' (staffing issues, gaps in supply trains etc.) disappear immediately. At this point in the pandemic when the vast majority of the population have immunity and protection from severe disease (from whatever source), and if we are now accepting that COVID is part of the landscape and won't be eliminated, surely it's time to rethink these initial policies that were designed to try and stop spread.

Agree @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us . I've been reading that there's consideration being given ( in UK) to reducing isolation to 7 days if no symptoms remaining.

That's what we need to be looking at and thinking about now, but the initial knee jerk reaction of SG - everyone needs to isolate for 10 days if in contact with covid- doesn't give me much reassurance that they'd be open to this.

At this point we need to be considering least worst options and if lockdown is on that list then reduced compliance needs to be factored in to that equation.

We were told vaccination was the way out of serious illness, so either that's true or if it's not why did we bother.

And I think this is exactly why many people are carrying on as normal.
Because the Gov positive messaging on the vaccines has been very very good.
So people have had their booster and they believe in it.
They're not fearing covid any more and the Govs scary messaging isn't working now.

@ecceromani

We were told vaccination was the way out of serious illness, so either that's true or if it's not why did we bother.

And I think this is exactly why many people are carrying on as normal.
Because the Gov positive messaging on the vaccines has been very very good.
So people have had their booster and they believe in it.
They're not fearing covid any more and the Govs scary messaging isn't working now.

Yes, this.

Absolutely @rookiemere, it's time to challenge the assumptions we've made so far, assess what is actually causing the problems now and honestly evaluate what is the least worst option. Given the much lower numbers dying of COVID at this point and the known damages of lockdown, this could well turn out to be 'just let the wave go and reduce isolation requirements' looking at everything in the round. Some of the most enthusiastic lockdown advocates I know are now choosing to socialise a bit more now. At this point I think people have taken as much as they can of restrictions and we need some fresh thinking, not just falling into the same tired old patterns of warnings and ever increasing restrictions with diminishing returns.

Of course it's a brave politician who actually comes clean about the consequences of balancing all the harms at this point, and I think they've been softening us up for accepting more COVID with the talk of being 'proportionate'. Not so much Nicola I guess, who seems to have been sucked into a doom spiral and another bun fight with Westminster, but the UK govt anyway.

We’re all being a bit played just now. Get angry about the parties in the garden, etc. It’s more likely to achieve what they want- no further lockdown (because we- the U.K. simply can’t afford it) so they need folk to be saying ‘feck this I’m seeing my family and going about my business as usual’ in reaction to some of the pictures. The grievance grinches in Scotland and Wales governments aren’t helping with that, but they too are using it as leverage for further money and opportunity to diss Westminster etc.

So many things at play. It’s best to ignore the media just now for the sake of our mental health.

I came across this interesting article at the weekend which discusses the SAGE modelling that has been widely reported and is being used by some to justify calling for tighter restrictions. Now, I knew that modelling was often wrong (usually being too pessimistic - e.g. this summer), but I had assumed that they were modelling all possible (or even likely) scenarios. It turns out that this latest modelling doesn't even consider the possibility that omicron is milder than delta (which is looking more likely every day), and if you do use include this possibility as a variable the picture suddenly looks a whole lot better and more restrictions become unnecessary. One of the SAGE modellers goes on to explain that they model what they're told to, which is only scenarios where action would need to be taken (i.e. not the positive ones where no action is needed). I also read somewhere else I think that they only considered hospitalisations and deaths, and assumed that others were modelling the effects of restrictions on various aspects (I'm not so sure they are, and have never seen this..). I find this totally astonishing, although it does go some way to understanding the disconnect between what the model says will happen and reality. What is worrying is that this one sided, overly pessimistic picture is often used as evidence in the call for more restrictions.

Exactly @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us
Notice how that information was available over the same weekend we’ve seen lots of party pics? Twitter is full of folk calling out SAGE, encouraging the public to mistrust any modelling.

Stats we now have already demonstrate the doubling of figures predicted last week, were somewhat over egged.

Use of words such as Tsunami- which are then echoed by the media- are far more damaging to mental health than any uptick in ‘cases’ which are overall, mild and manageable without requiring hospital admission.

I think you're right @OnceUponAWhine, the constant drip of new 'photos' and accounts to keep the story on the front pages and in the public consciousness is a bit suspicious. Just when people are in danger of forgetting, another photo/video miraculously comes to light to enrage us all a bit more. And yes, the data we have so far are already making words like 'tsunami' sound melodramatic, and discrediting the modelling. I suspect this is why that modelling expert actually took to twitter in the first place, to defend them from the backlash and actually point out that they were only asked to model the worst scenarios (I still can't get my head around why the government would only ask for that - if it's perfectly plausible that everything works out fine without any intervention at all, wouldn't you want to know??)

@Lockdownbear

However I wonder what percentage of seats are actually empty at the pantomimes and other Christmas shows?

I think people are really worn down, might as well have fun while we can, type attitude so unless people are vulnerable then they are business as usual!

I'm taking ds1 to the panto on Thursday - will let you know if it's busy I can't wait. I'm determined that ds1 will enjoy everything Christmas has to offer this year!

Im ranting about the latest leaked photos showing Johnson and co drinking wine last may. My ds had his birthday then and was sat alone in his flat. I asked him to come out but he wouldn't as it was against the rules . He was 21 and a decent sensible boy. We knew he could maybe sit in the garden but he said if he needed the loo he wasn't allowed inside, so he stayed home alone. Same as he'd done for weeks on end. I was scared for his mental health but there was no way he was breaking any rules.

I should have said it was a business meeting and had him over for dinner.

I'm so angry people like us with no say but with a conscience did what they thought was the right thing at that time. Im so angry and disgusted.
And i know the Scottish government do stupid things and waste money and dont know what a woman is. And i know theres probably photos if nicola sturgeon at a knee's up during lockdown.
But i hate this fucking right wing tory boy government with all my heart.
And I'll vote snp until we get independence from them and then I'll decide who to vote for once independence is delivered. Hopefully hopefully a more left if centre labour party mind find its balls and get a decent party together here in Scotland. But until then I'll vote snp until we are separate from years and fucking years of tory governments, which England will be stuck with, as they seem to be in thrall of these fuckwits.

Don’t forget the Scottish pseudo Greens had a ‘work meeting’ in a pub when the rest of us were being told to stay in our council areas! They said ‘sorry’ though, so that’s ok then

Well I can't argue with your righteous indignation there ssd. The current government disgust me. Though I am not for separation myself.

I dont care. Ill take my chances with anyone apart from this mob.