Coronavirus

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Originally Posted by hibeedc

I would be careful would you wish for with regard to civil liberties. The police bill going through parliament now, with precious little media cover, will be right up your street.

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Yes, stealth loss of liberty right under our noses.

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Originally Posted by Billy Whizz

They can’t just give money to hospitality and leisure. Furlough is needed urgently

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Exactly.

The industry specific handouts, whilst welcome for those industries, habitually ignore the supply chain and other related industries.

Giving a pub £5K helps them but it still leaves the taxi drivers, food and drink suppliers and the guy that sells them their washing up liquid ****ed.

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Originally Posted by JeMeSouviens

I totally agree with your general summary of SA vs UK health - but age rather than anything else is by far the biggest determinant of covid fatality. (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247470/ )

Also, they have not "done OK", they have had twice the per capita excess deaths of the UK, and we have been *****.

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I meant done OK specifically related to omicron thus far.

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Originally Posted by HendoDelivered

Boris to make a decision within next 48hrs about whether people can see their families at Christmas time…

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He would have a cheek. He’s lost what little credibility he had after his parties during lockdown last year.

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Originally Posted by Pretty Boy

Exactly.

The industry specific handouts, whilst welcome for those industries, habitually ignore the supply chain and other related industries.

Giving a pub £5K helps them but it still leaves the taxi drivers, food and drink suppliers and the guy that sells them their washing up liquid ****ed.

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And that’s just the tip of the iceberg
Would be as well shutting Edinburgh airport for good, and all the jobs this supports in the community

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Originally Posted by Billy Whizz

Is there a list anywhere of all the restrictions from 26th

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Stay at home. Get your booster and then stay at home. I think this covered it.

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Originally Posted by Stairway 2 7

Because they are ****ing nuts hopefully. Totally different mechanisms to vaccine, so they will have to update their
fake science. Your right probably won't but might be needle phobic people, and also easy to distribute as a pill to people's homes

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Originally Posted by superfurryhibby

A perfect example of what divides people. You may choose to close your mind to the concerns around vqccination, but there is evidence out there from credible sources. I’m not going to bother directing you to any of it, that’s clearly a waste of time.

Calling people ****ing nuts and dismissing all concerns as fake science isn’t going to win people over.

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Originally Posted by lord bunberry

The vast majority of antivaxers are ****ing nuts. I know there are some that have genuine concerns, but those concerns must be getting less and less as the success of the vaccine rollout continues. There s no credible source that says the vaccine is unsafe and for everyone that makes this claim there’s a thousand to say otherwise.

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Ah, so you used your psychic powers and assumed that I had asked for posts like these to be removed. However, saying that curfews and forced vaccination can GTF is not OK?

Today's London graph still suggests a peak but is slightly more ambiguous about it ...

https://i.ibb.co/Fw7Z4vY/Screenshot-...t-16-41-59.png


Edit - source is here http://sonorouschocolate.com/covid19...tle=CasesByAge

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Originally Posted by Pretty Boy

I meant done OK specifically related to omicron thus far.

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It's certainly turned out a lot less bad than might have been feared so far. I think we might see similar here, fingers crossed anyway.

A record day for vaccinations yesterday, almost 75000 or 1.5% of the population in a day. Phenomenal effort to organise this and great response from the general public

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Originally Posted by Billy Whizz

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg
Would be as well shutting Edinburgh airport for good, and all the jobs this supports in the community

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I really do find myself wondering how long this goes on for. It seems 2 years into this the blunt tool of lockdown and restrictions is still about the only plan B we have despite even someone like Devi Sridhar repeatedly pointing out the folly in such an approach.

I understand the ability to increase NHS capacity, restructure it and so on isn't a quick fix but is there even a plan in place? Have we started to implement it so it's actionable in a year or 2 or 3 from now?

2 years in and we are back to anxiously awaiting news on furlough, pubs being left open but being told not to go, football getting played behind closed doors and awaiting permission to see our family at Christmas. We might be in a better place but it sure as **** doesn't feel like it right now and I'm increasingly sceptical there is any real plan to get us out of this.

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Originally Posted by JeMeSouviens

It's certainly turned out a lot less bad than might have been feared so far. I think we might see similar here, fingers crossed anyway.

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I think the point is South Africa are saying even for the unvaccinated Omicron is a different world to Delta. Then we say immunisation from past infection. Half there past infections were over a year ago. Past infection also gives the same antibodies as 1 dose. They had 80% past infection 37 fully vaccinated, imagine uk had 80% 1 dose 37% two dose.

Vaccines will cope with this in the broad sense, not against infection but severe disease. The only issue is how high does it go and what peak that causes in hospitalisations. If its too much restrictions are right but I think it's dubious and sage aren't allowed to estimate good news

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Originally Posted by goosano

A record day for vaccinations yesterday, almost 75000 or 1.5% of the population in a day. Phenomenal effort to organise this and great response from the general public

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Amazing. At that rate we would turn all the x2s to x3s in 20 days time.

They’ve got to be seen doing something and are just making it up as they go along.

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Originally Posted by Smartie

Anyone with a calm head and an eye on the figures coming out of SA, Denmark and London should be going all out to make this the case.

It's the sensible option that ticks the most boxes.

Not without risks (such as getting through the 3 weeks and finding ourselves still in the never-ending cycle of lockdown) but I am fairly confident we'll be in a place to resume where we left off in 3 weeks - and save pissing off thousands of people and depriving more businesses (in this case football clubs) of valuable income for minimal significant benefit in reducing covid related issues.

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This is kind of where I was too - surprised to see so many adamant it’ll last a lot longer than 3 weeks. Especially as some of these are the same people that are confident the new variant is mild and we’re all good.

If all goes to plan and this new variant is nothing to be overly fearful of. Surely we can expect to get back to where we were at least, with majority having had their boosters, and the data gathered on omnicron? Unless of course those going radge genuinely believe that Nicola Sturgeon just enjoys the control!

A simplistic view I know, but amongst all the anger and disappointment about the fitbaw, surely there’s still a light at the end of the Christmas tunnel?

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Originally Posted by Pretty Boy

I really do find myself wondering how long this goes on for. It seems 2 years into this the blunt tool of lockdown and restrictions is still about the only plan B we have despite even someone like Devi Sridhar repeatedly pointing out the folly in such an approach.

I understand the ability to increase NHS capacity, restructure it and so on isn't a quick fix but is there even a plan in place? Have we started to implement it so it's actionable in a year or 2 or 3 from now?

2 years in and we are back to anxiously awaiting news on furlough, pubs being left open but being told not to go, football getting played behind closed doors and awaiting permission to see our family at Christmas. We might be in a better place but it sure as **** doesn't feel like it right now and I'm increasingly sceptical there is any real plan to get us out of this.

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Totally agree lockdowns and the on going threat of future restrictions has me feeling that were at a breaking point.I don't prioritise a game of football being cancelled over kids education being disrupted were all at different points in our lives its not for me to decide who's anxious/anxiety/mental health is affected more than another's the fact things we enjoy that make life worth living seem so expendable i feel the damage done is gonna run way into the future.

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Originally Posted by Pretty Boy

Whilst SA has a younger age profile it's worth considering the reason for that.

A life of expectancy of 64 compared to 81 for the UK. Between 13 and 20% of the population infected with HIV and it accounts for 25% of their deaths each year, a huge prevalence of diabetes; TB and heart disease are among the leading causes of death. 55% of the population live in poverty compared to around 20% in the UK and the rate of absolute poverty in SA is higher as well.

All of those are huge risk factors for fatal covid outcomes yet, thus far, they still seem to have done OK. We have an older population at least in part because we don't have 150K plus people dying from Aids every year, in fact there are 'only' about 110K people estimated to have HIV in the whole of the UK and over 80% of those are virus suppressed.

If anything I would say all the reasons for South Africa's lower age profile makes it far more at risk of a deluge of deaths.

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You make some good points but as Jemesouviens says age is by far the most important risk factor for severe illness and death for Covid. The UK has 18% of the population over 65 and SA 6%. As you say diabetes is a risk factor and SA has 15% diabetics vs 6% here. HIV is not a big risk factor unless you have a low CD4 count. SA has a superb test and treat programme 1 in 5 of the population is positive.
There is probably better natural immunity from having had Covid in SA. They have a low vaccination rate but this links in to the poverty you mention. For many people this infection that is mild for most is just not a priority. 275000 excess deaths suggests many of the vulnerable population has died from Covid much higher than here.
So there are many factors that make a comparison of the 2 countries hard.

Noticed a lot of people have cancelled their SNP memberships on twitter on the back of today's announcement. Haven't seen one person I know defend this today.

No further restrictions here in England before Christmas according to the PM

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Originally Posted by WeeRussell

This is kind of where I was too - surprised to see so many adamant it’ll last a lot longer than 3 weeks. Especially as some of these are the same people that are confident the new variant is mild and we’re all good.

If all goes to plan and this new variant is nothing to be overly fearful of. Surely we can expect to get back to where we were at least, with majority having had their boosters, and the data gathered on omnicron? Unless of course those going radge genuinely believe that Nicola Sturgeon just enjoys the control!

A simplistic view I know, but amongst all the anger and disappointment about the fitbaw, surely there’s still a light at the end of the Christmas tunnel?

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Surely restrictions now just push the peak back though? So if it was expected in say the last week in January, it now moves to the 1st week in February or later?

Is that not perfect reasoning to extend restrictions? 'We still haven't had the peak', 'lagging indicators' etc etc. It just kicks the can that is the uptick in pressure on the NHS down the road by a few weeks.

As I said elsewhere I think past behaviours are at least as useful as words when predicting future behaviour. None of the previous restrictions, lockdowns etc have ended as early as was first announced.

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Originally Posted by WeeRussell

This is kind of where I was too - surprised to see so many adamant it’ll last a lot longer than 3 weeks. Especially as some of these are the same people that are confident the new variant is mild and we’re all good.

If all goes to plan and this new variant is nothing to be overly fearful of. Surely we can expect to get back to where we were at least, with majority having had their boosters, and the data gathered on omnicron? Unless of course those going radge genuinely believe that Nicola Sturgeon just enjoys the control!

A simplistic view I know, but amongst all the anger and disappointment about the fitbaw, surely there’s still a light at the end of the Christmas tunnel?

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Yes, that's pretty much what I think. My guess is it will not be as bad as worse case fears and it really will just be 3 weeks. But given the track record of this pandemic, it would be a brave prediction!

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Originally Posted by SteveHFC

Noticeda lot of people have cancelled their SNP memberships on twitter on the back of today's announcement. Haven't seen one person I know defend this today.

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The chopped up membership cards and the like is just grandstanding nonsense.

I've seen a lot of people who have absolutely castigated me for daring to criticise the SNP in the past have a wobble or 2 themselves today though.

It will be full on nuclear when they realise there's going to be no 2023 referendum😂

Celtic statement:

Everyone at Celtic recognises the difficulties presented to society by the current pandemic, and the health and safety of all must always be our priority.

In light of today’s announcement regarding supporters attending matches, Celtic can confirm that it has today requested that the SPFL bring forward the scheduled winter break and reschedule the fixtures affected by the regulations announced.

The game owes it to supporters to explore all opportunities to maximise the prospect of all supporters being able to attend matches and support the game they love.

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Originally Posted by Pretty Boy

Surely restrictions now just push the peak back though? So if it was expected in say the last week in January, it now moves to the 1st week in February or later?

Is thay not perfect reasoning to extend restrictions? 'We still haven't had the peak', 'lagging indicators' etc etc. It just kicks the can that is the uptick in pressure on the NHS down the road by a few weeks.

As I said elsewhere I think past behaviours are at least as useful as words when predicting future behaviour. None of the previous restrictions, lockdowns etc have ended as early as was first announced.

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You might be right PB, but hopefully not.

Maybe I’m naively clinging on to there still being concrete evidence to come out that confirms omicron isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been and these restrictions, intended as precautionary, don’t have to remain any longer than originally put in.

I’m certainly no expert though. And guilty of being overly optimistic.

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Originally Posted by Pretty Boy

Surely restrictions now just push the peak back though? So if it was expected in say the last week in January, it now moves to the 1st week in February or later?

Is thay not perfect reasoning to extend restrictions? 'We still haven't had the peak', 'lagging indicators' etc etc. It just kicks the can that is the uptick in pressure on the NHS down the road by a few weeks.

As I said elsewhere I think past behaviours are at least as useful as words when predicting future behaviour. None of the previous restrictions, lockdowns etc have ended as early as was first announced.

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slowing it down will move the peak but the peak will also be lower meaning the pressure whilst still great won’t be as severe.

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Originally Posted by bigwheel

Almost 4 times likely to get it if unvaccinated and 12 times more likely to die ….facts for everyone to consider .

vaccinations are a key part of the solution

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That's not what this report says :

https://publichealthscotland.scot/me...ion_report.pdf

There is a lot of info in there, to save time it's page 56 table 15.

64 unvaccinated covid related deaths in the four week period.

That will be lower than deaths caused by alcohol and obesity related deaths. Many people still carry on drinking too much and eating too much food that is bad for your health resulting in early death, and putting great strain on the health service. Even worse serving it up to their kids. Selfish *******s, where's the outcry from politicians and public.

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Originally Posted by hibee

Celtic statement:

Everyone at Celtic recognises the difficulties presented to society by the current pandemic, and the health and safety of all must always be our priority.

In light of today’s announcement regarding supporters attending matches, Celtic can confirm that it has today requested that the SPFL bring forward the scheduled winter break and reschedule the fixtures affected by the regulations announced.

The game owes it to supporters to explore all opportunities to maximise the prospect of all supporters being able to attend matches and support the game they love.

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Absolutely despise the club but I'm 100% in agreement with them and hope that's what happens.

Thrown to the ****in wolves again.

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Originally Posted by JohnM1875

Absolutely despise the club but I'm 100% in agreement with them and hope that's what happens.

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I concur with both parts.

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Originally Posted by hibeedc

I would be careful would you wish for with regard to civil liberties. The police bill going through parliament now, with precious little media cover, will be right up your street.

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Demonstrations that cause 'excessive noise' will be illegal in a month or two.