Scotland - Framework out of the pandemic - 23rd February 2021

[Yew]

What a ridiculous gesture of virtue signalling. Are we also going to see an annual national silence for people who die of flu / cancer / road accident, etc, etc?

Presumably it's to remember the defeat of reason, proportionality, and evidence based science, by fearmongering, knee jerking and 'modelling'.

 

[ld0595]

Incredible that it won't be safe enough to have 5 people in my garden or drive to the beach but it's fine to hold religious gatherings of up to 50 people...

 

[HSTEd]

A cynic might suggest she will use it as an excuse to bang the drum about "good scots murdered by the Sassenach" because if she could close the border she could have eliminated the virus last summer.

But I'm perhaps a bit too cynical.

 

[Cdd89]

I might be convinced to get some pots and pans out to bang for that

Be careful, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the obligation to comply with the silence written into a Scottish Statutory Instrument (along with a list of reasonable excuses). After the last year it would be a comparatively minor infringement on liberties!

 

[kez19]

Incredible that it won't be safe enough to have 5 people in my garden or drive to the beach but it's fine to hold religious gatherings of up to 50 people...

Aah remember 50 is safer than 5, as it’s easier to keep a distance compared to doing this on a beach (being sarcastic here) but goes back to making it up.

 

[takno]

Incredible that it won't be safe enough to have 5 people in my garden or drive to the beach but it's fine to hold religious gatherings of up to 50 people...

I do wonder how herself thinks the whole religious exemption thing goes down. I mean I appreciate that it's important for the people it's important to, but frankly organized religion is very much a minority way of getting spiritual fulfilment these days. Feels like a further poke in the eye for the rest of us tbh

 

[52290]

May I suggest plates instead? lol

Surely bagpipes?

 

[kez19]

Surely bagpipes?

Nah! Too noisy you may spread Covid by shouting over the bagpipes lol

I could suggest keyboarding I’m sure we can still do that?

Be careful, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the obligation to comply with the silence written into a Scottish Statutory Instrument (along with a list of reasonable excuses). After the last year it would be a comparatively minor infringement on liberties!

Just say you can’t recall lol

 

[scotrail158713]

The issue of religious gathering is a tricky one. I attend church regularly myself so appreciate it being allowed to restart again, but I do get why the government want to reduce mass gatherings where possible. The problem is that the state restricting religion gets you into some potentially very messy grounds - it goes down a Chinese, North Korean kind of route.

Also, as an aside, Scotland is one of only 3 European countries to have completely shut churches just now (Republic of Ireland and Slovenia as well). So I don't see it as religious groups benefiting before the rest of the country - instead we're just catching up with the situation elsewhere.

 

[takno]

The issue of religious gathering is a tricky one. I attend church regularly myself so appreciate it being allowed to restart again, but I do get why the government want to reduce mass gatherings where possible. The problem is that the state restricting religion gets you into some potentially very messy grounds - it goes down a Chinese, North Korean kind of route.

Also, as an aside, Scotland is one of only 3 European countries to have completely shut churches just now (Republic of Ireland and Slovenia as well). So I don't see it as religious groups benefiting before the rest of the country - instead we're just catching up with the situation elsewhere.

Okay, but the limitation on playing sports, or free assembly of non-religious nature is exactly the same, and has just the same hints of North Korea.

Religion is a rather niche pursuit in modern Britain and Scotland, and it doesn't really seem acceptable that the rest of us would have to invent a flying spaghetti monster in order to be entitled to spiritual fulfilment on a weekly basis

 

[scotrail158713]

Okay, but the limitation on playing sports, or free assembly of non-religious nature is exactly the same, and has just the same hints of North Korea.

Oh, absolutely! I can just see why religion has been given a higher priority. This time around that is - it was later than other stuff last year (around September time for services).

Although I also think the fact that Passover, Easter etc are around the end of March, start of April is probably the main reason it's earlier than other re-openings. There are still many restrictions as well though for services, so it's far from normal.

 

[brad465]

I can't recall if Sturgeon has confirmed this before, but many people's suspicions that she wants to eliminate Covid appear to have been confirmed:

Covid in Scotland: Sturgeon objective 'to eliminate' virus

Nicola Sturgeon tells MSPs that an elimination strategy is the only way to keep the virus under control.

www.bbc.co.uk

Sturgeon: Scotland's objective 'to eliminate' Covid​

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said Scotland's objective must be "to eliminate" coronavirus.

She told Holyrood's Covid-19 committee that striving to get new case numbers as low as possible was the only way to keep it under control.

Ms Sturgeon said "the virus won't play ball" with any effort to maintain case numbers at a "medium level".

The Scottish government has begun to ease some lockdown restrictions, although a stay at home order remains.

Chief Medical Officer Dr Gregor Smith said he did not believe coronavirus could be "eradicated", but said an elimination strategy of driving case numbers as low as possible would make outbreaks more manageable.

The government has brought forward some "relatively minor" easing of restrictions, with an increase in the number of people who are allowed to mix outdoors to begin on Friday.

Ms Sturgeon will set out a more detailed timetable for lifting lockdown next week, with the government aiming to return to a regional "levels" system of local restrictions by late April.

She told MSPs that the country was "heading firmly in the right direction right now", but said "we cannot afford to take our foot off the brake too soon".

How long one wonders before this ends up going out of the window because restriction easements in England go so fast in comparison to Scotland (because elimination is not happening no matter how hard they try) that Scots start having enough?

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

I can't recall if Sturgeon has confirmed this before, but many people's suspicions that she wants to eliminate Covid appear to have been confirmed:

Covid in Scotland: Sturgeon objective 'to eliminate' virus

Nicola Sturgeon tells MSPs that an elimination strategy is the only way to keep the virus under control.

www.bbc.co.uk

How long one wonders before this ends up going out of the window because restriction easements in England go so fast in comparison to Scotland (because elimination is not happening no matter how hard they try) that Scots start having enough?

The fact that the Scottish CMO and the National Clinical Director both think it's manageable and achievable worries me.

Meanwhile my local authority has reported 0 new cases today, which is the first time that has happened since September 22nd.

 

[Huntergreed]

I can't recall if Sturgeon has confirmed this before, but many people's suspicions that she wants to eliminate Covid appear to have been confirmed:

Covid in Scotland: Sturgeon objective 'to eliminate' virus

Nicola Sturgeon tells MSPs that an elimination strategy is the only way to keep the virus under control.

www.bbc.co.uk

How long one wonders before this ends up going out of the window because restriction easements in England go so fast in comparison to Scotland (because elimination is not happening no matter how hard they try) that Scots start having enough?

It's hard not to get pretty depressed reading stuff like that

The fact I know it won't work yet I'll be living under lockdowns and restrictions for far longer than most people on here and indeed in the country for no real reason is a pretty hard pill to swallow in all honesty. How is this even remotely an option, and why is it necessary now that the link between cases, hospitalisations and mortality has been broken through vaccination?

 

[Scotrail12]

It's all for her to win the election, I'm honestly not losing sleep over it at the moment.

 

[kez19]

She clearly hasn’t learnt even closer to home ie Isle of Man but of course this is Sturgeon trying to prove something it’ll backfire massively

 

[Journeyman]

Thing is, she knows she just needs to look better than Boris up to 6th May. It doesn't matter if it all goes pear-shaped after that.

 

[scotrail158713]

It's all for her to win the election, I'm honestly not losing sleep over it at the moment.

I’d agree. The way I look at it is if England start unlocking sooner and that doesn’t all go t*ts up for them, then there will be absolutely zero justification for anything different up here. And I believe that will happen.

The only problem is Sturgeon won’t admit to that being the reasoning behind it - instead we’ll get some spiel about it being “the hard work of the people of Scotland meaning we can do this sooner than anticipated”. But if that’s the price to pay then bring it on.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

If her aim is to eliminate the virus why did she send students back to halls in September (unnecessary for the majority of students - online teaching has been the dominant delivery method this year) and fail to impose restrictions in Glasgow in September when cases rose? Hmm.

She was quick enough to lock down Aberdeen City in July, which just so happens to be a Tory/Labour coalition.

It also concerns me that the Scottish Government are insisting on using WHO guidance from November on moving LAs down levels. This guidance does not take into account any sort of vaccination rollout.

 

[Scotrail314209]

It's hard not to get pretty depressed reading stuff like that

The fact I know it won't work yet I'll be living under lockdowns and restrictions for far longer than most people on here and indeed in the country for no real reason is a pretty hard pill to swallow in all honesty. How is this even remotely an option, and why is it necessary now that the link between cases, hospitalisations and mortality has been broken through vaccination?

I totally agree with you. The furthest I've been in months is about 4 miles away, to Irvine. I'd do anything to go out into Glasgow, get on a train somewhere or just go for a drink and a chat with friends.

I can't believe that she's genuinely putting eliminating the virus over the economy and the wellbeing of others. SNP have lost my vote.

 

[takno]

It's all for her to win the election, I'm honestly not losing sleep over it at the moment.

I get the theory. I'm just hoping that she's badly misjudged what will win the election

 

[Huntergreed]

I get the theory. I'm just hoping that she's badly misjudged what will win the election

The comments section on Twitter was absolutely fuming with her after her performance today. Here’s hoping she starts to listen to what the majority want (which, if she doesn’t, goes against the very basic principles of a democratic society).

 

[HSTEd]

I get the theory. I'm just hoping that she's badly misjudged what will win the election

The comments by certain parts of the Scottish medical establishment trying to claim that noone died for months this summer shows the direction of travel.

She can blame the continued restrictions on contamination spread by the Sassenach, and say that if independence happened they could be free of coronavirus.

 

[XAM2175]

Here’s hoping she starts to listen to what the majority want (which, if she doesn’t, goes against the very basic principles of a democratic society).

The trick for observers is remembering that there can be times where "what you want" and "what the majority want" are not the same thing.

 

[Huntergreed]

Facebook comments all exactly the same saying elimination is a stupid strategy.

When on earth will she wake up? It’s like Devi has her under hypnosis. Some of the things she said early last year made some sense (masks aren’t that great, we can’t do this forever etc...) but now it’s just utter nonsense

 

[Gadget88]

So if we are going to eliminate covid how would this happen?

 

[Huntergreed]

So if we are going to eliminate covid how would this happen?

It can't. I would quite happily place a hefty bet on it being a biological impossibility now the virus is endemic within Scotland.

The only way she could eliminate it would be to lock down very harshly (and reverse the easing she is making this week) and wait until cases are around zero (given they're still in the hundreds after over 2 months, you can imagine how long this would take), complete and total ban on any cross-border domestic or international travel at all.

Then, once elimination was achieved, she would have to impose quarantine on any arrivals into Scotland at all and lock down any area where a case (yes, 1 case) is detected to prevent this spreading further.

It's a stupid strategy and one she's just pretending to pursue whilst sugar-coating it to get her through the may elections. She's a disgrace to Scotland.

To quote her own logic on this:

The one thing certainly I've learned is with a virus like this, what we absolutely can’t do is just say we are going to let it simmer at this medium level like a gently simmering pot – it won’t behave like that.


“It will quickly decide it’s boss and it will runout of control and it will start to boil up as opposed to simmer at the level that you decide that your health service can cope with.”

The First Minister stressed that accepting we have no choice but to live with the virus still able to spread in the community is not an option.

She said: “We cannot have that kind of approach – we'll just accept x numbers of cases a year and x numbers of deaths. Even if that was ethically right, which I would question, the virus won’t behave, it won’t play ball with you like that. Our objective has to be to eliminate.

True idiot in charge. I'm incredibly grateful to live 30 miles away from the border, which I will probably spend some significant time across this year.

 

[brad465]

It's all for her to win the election, I'm honestly not losing sleep over it at the moment.

A Panelbase opinion poll done at the start of this month gave the SNP 47%, their first polling value under 50% since the start of 2020 (and contrasts to high 50s% a few months ago). While the Salmond situation will have a part to play in that, if pursuing elimination and the damage of doing so continues for another 2 months then at the moment I don't think things are working for her (they weren't before, but now opinion polling might be catching up).

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

The r/Scotland sub-reddit is about the most pro-SNP place you'll find, even they are turning against her approach to covid. The comments on this thread are very eye-opening, for example.

 

[Journeyman]

The r/Scotland sub-reddit is about the most pro-SNP place you'll find, even they are turning against her approach to covid. The comments on this thread are very eye-opening, for example.

Wow, that's interesting, in particular the people actively considering spending time in England because they're so sick of not being able to do anything. I get the impression there's widespread rule breaking already, and I'm getting close. I'm sick of muddy woodland walks being just about the only available leisure activity now.