Guilt Free Railing 18

[WouldBeGood]

Will it ever end?

@StarryEyeSurprise

£20 for a box of lfts, so the poorer in society won't be able to test themselves. And removal of extended mandatory sick pay. That's how it's going to be. Or, will it be different in Scotland?

Depends if NS wants to touch the independence fund to pay for it really!

For a Govt which often looks at the republic of Ireland for ideas I'm surprised they are so up in arms.......you pay for LFT in Ireland like many parts of Europe.

Ah but NS wants Scotland to be the land of milk and honey with the caring government and nobody pays for anything.

They won't want to admit that other countries charge for tests because that's uncaring.

I'm sure tests are going to be free in a health setting but it makes no sense to keep enabling mass anxiety through free lfts. Kids who have school anxiety can barely get any help at all, many have lost much of the school year, but no Nicola picks enabling lfts as the hill to die on rather than mental health or education recovery.

£3 for a box of lfts is hardly going to drive anyone to bankruptcy unless you've got an unhealthy relationship with lf testing.

'Free' lfts are the perfect snp gesture - its it addressing any of the big issues in Scottish society but it looks right on Twitter.

£3 for a box of lfts is hardly going to drive anyone to bankruptcy unless you've got an unhealthy relationship with lf testing

£3 would be OK but the rumours are they'll be £15-20 per box. Which puts a totally different picture on it.
The £15-20 makes me want to stock up so I can still test before visiting the cancer patient in my life.

@mapleleavesreturn

'Free' lfts are the perfect snp gesture - its it addressing any of the big issues in Scottish society but it looks right on Twitter.

Yes to this @mapleleavesreturn.

@lockdownbear would order some or go to pick up points. I don't think they will charge £20 for a box of 7. If you look at pricing in Europe as the benchmark they are 1 euro per test.

Yes I'd stock up but I'd also expect there to be concessions for people that are high risk, via the minor ailments scheme.

Had come in to rail about how miserable buses still are. Not only is there a huge notice about masks warning you to “WEAR BY LAW NOT BY CHOICE” when you get on, they also leave the windows open for ventilation. Which means all my bus journeys right now are sitting in a mask in a freezing cold bus with wind and rain blowing in on me.

I’ve started to pack extra clothes just for the bus ride to places in this weather, especially with the children. I had to drape a spare cardigan over cold little DS the other day.

But honesty that screenshot from a few days back of people being told not to wash their cars in lockdown is so mad it has really cheered me up

Anyone else feeling ridiculously anxious about the announcement today?

I'm really nervous, because I have an awful feeling that we're going to be retaining most of the restrictions for the foreseeable and that's going to trigger anxiety (until Nicola deems it 'safe' - no other information will be given or considered necessary). By rights, given what the rest of the UK is doing and the state of the pandemic, we should be moving towards things like masks and isolation being voluntary, but I suspect we'll end up with more 'caution' with no end in sight (and obviously no evidence that it actually helps, or anything so 2019 as an impact assessment, there's a pandemic on don't you know!).

It is interesting though with all the talk about isolations in England becoming recommended rather than law (hideously irresponsible apparently) that it's now being pointed out by several commentators that isolations in Scotland have always been voluntary. I don't think most people realised this - I certainly didn't until it was spelled out in a BBC article a couple of months ago.

I too am anxious.

I worry that this caution is making things worse too.

So in actual fact @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us
England are only catching up to where Scotland have been all along with self isolation, recommended but not in law? Is that correct?

Yes @patritus, legally speaking it has always been optional to isolate in Scotland. Of course, Nicola didn't want us to know that and always spoke in language that implied it was law, so she was never as upfront with the people as England is now being, but England is now moving to a position more in line with Scotland on this. Puts a slightly different complexion on the faux outrage from certain quarters.

The whole isolation was guidance not law has blown my mind.

Compared BBC postcode checker last night for where we live Vs where mil lives. We are nearly double per 100000 compared to area of se England where mil lives

So all the "protections" are working really well.

Exactly @readsalotgirl63. We seem to be bucking the trend in terms of infections, certainly not falling as fast the rest of the UK, and there's plenty of evidence over the last 2-3 waves that all the disparate restrictions made very little difference overall. I seriously do wonder whether our 'protective measures' are somehow making things worse by focussing on all the wrong things - we have a thin piece of cloth over our faces and Nicola says that gives so much protection we can't possibly get rid of it, so we're safe and don't need to worry about ventilation for example. Or maybe the focus on micromanagement and away from individual common sense has led people to believe that if something isn't actually banned it must be fine in terms of disease spread - infantilising the population isn't great when you then want people to start taking responsibility for themselves.

Either way, I have an awful feeling that our comparably worse figures in spite of restrictions will be used as evidence that we need to retain them.

Exactly at what point do they accept the emperor has no clothes on? Infections are still high, so we can't abandon those protections that are protecting us so well - we've heard that before too many times.

It was the same with the slow release from lockdowns, stickily wedded to non working strategies.

I have that horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach about todays briefing.

Im fed up hearing we need to protect the vulnerable. We didn’t have these restrictions for all the other illnesses that could harm people. Use common sense to protect them. Don’t visit high risk if you feel unwell for example just like we would all have done in the past.

Everyone who wants to has been vaccinated so what more can they do. Just set us free.

Otoh NS is usually good at reading the room and if no concessions are made she'll be really out on a limb so I'm optimistic.

Do you think she’ll keep paying for the “free” tests?

I actually feel strangely optimistic as well. She is going to keep masks I would imagine. I think we will be about a month behind.

Can she keep the free tests I don't know. Where would they find the money?

For the first time the other devolved nations are in step with England so she can't use that. Will be an interesting one for sure

The problem with the restrictions is that they are causing more problems - there needs to be people getting covid mildly to keep up levels of population immunity - vaccination alone won't do this. The reason cases in Scotland are so high is simply because people haven't been exposed to covid in previous waves.

And I think there needs to be very careful thought about which people in health care settings need free LFTs. Frankly half my family have been regularly LFTing and they are admin based with limited front line interaction with patients, and even if they are at clinics there is minimal close contact.

Oh I'd bet we'll see some Scottish differentiation on 'free' lfts it's too juicy an opportunity for them not to hammer the scotland is different and better wedge in.

It's amazing to me that the zero covid / hyper anxious haven't yet cottoned on to the fact that Scotland has more cases now, because our restrictions were tighter in the past.

Our population is now slightly less immunologicallly exposed than England, so our base case rate has nudged up.

I'm convinced at this point that 90% of the course of the pandemic in a given location has absolutely nothing to do with the active policy choices made by its government.