Guilt Free Railing 17

[WouldBeGood]

Happy New Thread, Railers!

@MaxNormal I agree. I think we've had such a fantastic country until so recently that people just can't believe that we could have such a different government.

Individualism is being rebranded as selfish so who knows.

Exactly this.

@resiliencewanker the SG has already done this and not under covid regs they actually did it in the summer when social distancing went in hospitality etc.

The guidance at that time changed it from being under covid regs to saying that mitigation measures fall under the health and safety at work act....... if doesn't specify the exact measures that employers have to take just provides suggestions which included social distancing etc.

Implying that covid measures fall under this will keep them longer then the Covid legislation! Most public never realised this was done though as you had to go read the specifics!

Ah yes - I remember that now you say scottishskifun ! So they are putting covid mitigations in non-covid legislation, and non-covid mitigations in covid legislation. Great - that all makes perfect sense and is all correct and above board, oh yes...

And I agree with the concerns over the direction we are taking. Everything does seem to be getting much more restrictive in being told what we can and can't do. With people supporting it very much saying "well, if you've nothing to hide you've nothing to fear", or "its for our own good to protect us from " . Are we really coming to that?!

In other railing - Margaret Ferrier is back. She's going to trial for her travels back whenever it was when she had covid and travelled to and from Westminster by train rather than self isolating. That'll be interesting...

The treatment of the anti lockdown protestors in Holland has been an eye opener - again the police using excess force.

Covid Maggie will get off with it. She's SNP and untouchable

Did they not boot her out though?

@ResilienceWanker

In other railing - Margaret Ferrier is back. She's going to trial for her travels back whenever it was when she had covid and travelled to and from Westminster by train rather than self isolating. That'll be interesting...

Hmm, surprising myself by saying this, but what a waste of time and money to take this to trial. Yes she was dim with her actions (relative to the time) but gawd knows we need no more public money to be wasted on this of all things🤷‍♀️ Fine her, which can be donated to a hospice or charity in her constituency, which will be down on public (and gov grants) donations from the last two years.

Agree, Ferrier will not recover from the repetitional damage, she's a toxic name.

Why not get on and try some of the more important backlogged trials?

On the theme of action taken without evidence apparently the UK government actually have done a study of schools that used masks vs those that didn't during the delta wave. Both groups saw reductions in COVID absences, a fall of 2.3% with masks vs 1.7% without. This was not statistically significant, which the BBC is describing as 'inconclusive', but scientists generally call 'no effect'. So, not only is there a lack of evidence for effectiveness, there is actual evidence of ineffectiveness. Given that the harms of masks are well described, obviously the right course of action is to press ahead with them anyway

Yes - I think it'll be quietly dropped tbh - or she'll agree to pay a fine or something as onceupon suggests.

I don't know why she wasn't sanctioned by the parliamentary standards bods - triggering the right for constituents to recall her and call a by-election. That seems reasonable for an elected representative who's not upholding the standards of behaviour/ actions that they should be. Going to trial is a total overreaction. Technically she broke the law at the time (at least in England - probably contravened non-optional guidance in Scotland) but prosecution is a total waste of time and money.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

On the theme of action taken without evidence apparently the UK government actually have done a study of schools that used masks vs those that didn't during the delta wave. Both groups saw reductions in COVID absences, a fall of 2.3% with masks vs 1.7% without. This was not statistically significant, which the BBC is describing as 'inconclusive', but scientists generally call 'no effect'. So, not only is there a lack of evidence for effectiveness, there is actual evidence of ineffectiveness. Given that the harms of masks are well described, obviously the right course of action is to press ahead with them anyway

Yeah - well that's depressing. Locking children in airtight boxes or closing schools entirely would cause a much higher fall in covid absences at school - but we don't do that (any more) "because it might help". We look at the extent of harm and the extent of the benefit caused by the mitigation and weigh them up and make decisions based on all the evidence.

So we have evidence that there is no statistically significant difference between wearing masks and not wearing masks in terms of covid absences - but it's worth doing anyway for Reasons. We also have evidence of 94% of school leaders and teachers saying it made communication between teachers and pupils more difficult and 80% of pupils also said it made communication harder but this is somehow not worth considering.

And we wonder why the standard of scientific understanding is so low...

Urgh, I suggested back in the autumn that comparative studies should be done on schools with and without facemasks and was told on here that that was unethical and wouldn't be possible as parents would complain if they didn't like which group their school was in.

UK gov seemed to have managed to do it

I haven't read the full report, but it seems that it was more an assessment of data from schools that made their own rules to wear masks, against the English recommendation that they didn't have to! I'm sure lots of parents were annoyed at their school's rules in one direction or another - but there is only so much they could do about them! It doesn't sound as if they set up an experiment just to use some children as guinea pigs for an incredibly risky intervention.

I do wonder if the schools that went against the government advice had some reason for doing so in the first place? Very high community levels, for example, or a high number of families with parents who worked in hospitals or something. In which case they would have indeed seen a more rapid drop in covid absences as the community levels dropped through October (though the report says their initial absence in both groups was the same - not sure if that is a true indication of the absence in each group individually, or just the national rate at that point - or if they somehow weighted them to get a similar starting point). In any case - there is no difference between the groups statistically - so it doesn't really matter!

I don't think they'll have experimented within the same school more likely taken data and compared schools in different areas as some areas where asking for masks before Christmas. Those being highly affected areas.

Really the masks need to go, how can they keep arguing they are making any difference?

Farrier - her name is Mud!

All good points @ResilienceWanker. Someone on Twitter was commenting that either way, if this is the best quality evidence we can come up with 2 years into a pandemic it's a massive failure of public health. Hard to disagree with that.

Yeah - I probably should read the actual mask report i suppose, to work out what was done and if it's worth the paper its written on. But there is not enough coffee in the world at the moment for that...

I really do agree about the masks. It’s now clear as the (unmasked😊) nose on your face that they do not work. But they are like a magic talisman. It’s a religious thing now.

@MaxNormal Mindful Chef is one of those cons where they send you boxes of “healthy” food at vast expense to cook at home

Hurrah miracles do happen!

Scotland is following same travel advice with testing as England including the same timeline! So is Wales but made a statement about reluctantly doing so....... no big fuss made by SG or finger waggling about it....

I would be hopeful and say maybe the tide is turning and SG realise its pretty futile with no difference in case numbers but I feel this is extremely optimistic and will still get the same old lectures!

John Swinney has been reported to the statistics authority.

www.heraldscotland.com/politics/19828628.covid-scotland-john-swinney-reported-uk-statistics-authority-deliberate-spin-ons-data/

He used numbers from the week before to justify restrictions.

No surprises there think it will be the 4th time that SG has been reported. Each time the statistics authority has told them off, told them to release data properly and each time they ignore it!

They just say anything. There are no morals

@Scottishskifun

No surprises there think it will be the 4th time that SG has been reported. Each time the statistics authority has told them off, told them to release data properly and each time they ignore it!