https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54199642

so a 'circuit break' not a lockdown might be on the cards until that doesn't suffice because it relies on the virus caring that schools, workers and students are political priorities.

Or it might be so bad that they go straight to a full lockdown. Or flap about

Who on earth is saying this?

No, it does not make any sense whatsoever.

Well, I'm not worried about the virus in the slightest. My extreme concern is the government's continued reactions to it and the bizarre hubris they have thinking they can stop this thing, rather than taking the approach of Gupta (very good on Question Time last night apparently) or Heneghan (excellent in the select committee yesterday) in accepting this is endemic and moving on to a "live with it" stage by aggressively protecting the vulnerable and letting everything else return to normal, which is perfectly acceptable given:

- the body of evidence all across the world that government interventions make little to no difference when looking at Covid in isolation, and that from a health perspective as a whole, they are incredibly counterproductive and have a near-certain probability of causing more all-cause deaths than they prevent
- the clear correlation between lack of excess deaths in the years immediately in the run up to Covid and the levels of deaths with Covid, which gives an indication that the levels of deaths we saw in March-May won't be repeated
- we did not see the National Covid Service hit anywhere near the levels with which they would be overcrowded, evidenced by none of the hastily-arranged extra capacity actually being used
- we now know exactly who is most vulnerable, know much better how to treat them if they are infected, and the initial estimates of fatality rates from 7-8 months ago were huge overestimates, rather than the actual dangers which are in the upper end of typical seasonal respiratory illnesses for said group (for everyone else, not so much)

Sadly it seems that many are happy with the continued massacring of the economy, shutdown of non-Covid related health services and unprecedented peace time attacks on civil liberties. That last one in particular I'd have thought Starmer would be all over, what with him previously being a human rights lawyer, but I guess not. The Tories are politically competent - they know if they take what to me is the obvious cause of action, it's effectively saying they've made six months of the biggest series of mistakes in British political history, so they need to keep doubling down on Project Fear 2.0 or auto-lose the next election

I get it a lot. Talking to people about social distancing and they defend breaking it because the government are idiots. Less commonly do people like me say they take extra precautions because the government are idiots.

It's worse when things are allowed. People went on holiday because they were allowed to even though they also think the government are useless! Who the **** thought this was a good time to go on holiday to Spain/etc

The cummings things is me being more nitty we you do get the 'if it's ok for him then why shouldn't I' type arguments - you shouldn't because it's ****ing stupid.

I'll keep an eye out for nice clear examples to quote.

The thing I'd like to point out on this is that it's a bit like a business where the idea is important but 90%+ of what matters is the execution.

So the arguments about the strategy are important of course but probably not very important as any of them executed moderately well would be massively better than the best possible strategy run this by this bunch of shambolic idiots.

If only we could generate actual heat of six fours amazingly scorching epic hot takes.

Standard case of using the successes of measures against them and claiming the very minority scientific view as the majority due to horrible selection bias.

Nothing she done initially was different, possibly apart from the Nike conference outbreak cover up and she was getting pelters for it including various articles from indy supporting commentators:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...s-coronavirus/

I RECKON I knew that my faith in politics had just about been exhausted when I found myself looking at Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson and thinking, that when it comes to their handling of coronavirus, there’s really no difference between them.

That’s quite a personal political upheaval for someone who’s spent most of the last few years criticising and mocking Johnson and, if not explicitly supporting or defending Sturgeon, at least reflecting positively on her personal qualities as a politician.

Not to put too fine a point on it, my long view of the two leaders until now has been this: Johnson has been an ass since he first appeared on the public stage and remains an ass; Sturgeon may be staid, but she’s always handled herself with relative dignity and professionalism. Her heart seemed in the right place; her brain engaged in the real world.

However, on the issue of coronavirus I struggle to see any real distinction when it comes to the way they’ve tackled the outbreak – apart from presentation

The only point that any policy diverged, if you could call it that, was after the peak and it then became a case of basically opening everything a week or a fortnight after England. This had very little effect as the heavy lifting in terms of tackling the virus is at the outset, even closing down a week earlier would make a massive difference, not so much at the end though. It was also clear at this point that decision were being made for political reasons (differentiating from the UK govt) rather than scientific ones. Sturgeon said she'd always be driven by the R figure and claimed we were behind the curve, hence the delays in openind certain sectors, but refused to give the R number when asked about it. Professor Linda Bauld also gave evidence to committee saying some of her colleagues on the Advisory Group had no idea where some of the decisions on Scotland's lockdown decisions were coming from.

Are you sure our Test and Protect system is functioning particularly well in comparison to the rest of the UK? There was controversy about how the numbers of tracers at the outset didn't match the rhetoric and was behind England.

As for the current difference in social distancing etc, time will tell in that regard how effective it will be but as I said above, all the major work in terms of making a difference is at the outset, not well down the line.

Let's look at some failures
1) Covering up the Nike outbreak which was ground zero for Covid in Scotland and then (falsely) claiming that it was kept quiet for reasons of patient confidentiality.
2) The embarrassing defence of the CMO after she was twice caught breaking the lockdown rules. It was only after an attempt to bat away the issue failed that she had to accept her resignation.
3) The care home scandal where patients were sent back to homes without waiting on test results. The result being a far higher death rate in care homes than the rest of the UK. In addition to this we also had the Health Minister forced to apologise for the cover up where incorrect figures were given for the numbers involved
4)The earlier advice that care home patients should remain in care homes rather than being treated in hospital for Covid.
5) The lack of testing. Despite the usual claim about 'doing more tests than England' it turned out to be nonsense. Also, despite your claim about consistent messages from Sturgeon it clearly wasn't the case when she was discussing the most important thing, the importance of testing.
6) Giving supermarkets a list of vulnerable people happened weeks after it did in England
7) Being slapped down by the Statistics Authority for making false claims about the number of people with Covid in Scotland compared to England.


There's also been various other issues around lack of transparency, the attempt to do away with Jury trials and being the only European democracy to use the virus as an excuse to increase the response times for FOI requests (and to shelve a number of non-Covid related reports and inquiries which were likely to show the Scottish Government up).

46% of deaths in a care home setting is in line with the average in western europe. It speaks more to england's rapid rise of deaths in other settings that the percentage is a bit lower there. The exact same thing happened in england as you well know. This was an emerging novel virus and they needed bed space. It's ****ing tragic, looking back, but scotland wasn't unique and to call it scotland's scandal is tory pandering at its worst. The percentage of deaths in care homes is just as high in germany. This nonsense is just pure tory spin and to be honest, I find it disgusting.

lol come on, citing the cmo issue with a straight face after dominic cummings? really? REALLY? I don't know what to say to that. One is still in a job, the other isn't. I'm genuinely surprised this is seen as an argument for bojo and against NS.

Utter nonsense, the importance of test and trace has always been at the forefront of the message. We're conducting between 10 and 20 thousand tests a day. Adjusted for population, that is a significant number and yes, is more than england. As I said before, test results are still being returned within 24 hours.

Yes, I am sure. Where was this controversy? In Jackson Carlaw's head?

So basically, and i'm presuming you asked the original question with this article of yours at the ready as your retort, NS's main failure was her initial acceptance of the 4 nation's strategy? I can absolutely get on board with that. Since then, however, she has been the best leader of the four nations by some distance and has been recognised globally as such. Ohh and if you don't think the timing of these decisions is just as important as the decisions themselves, then we have fundamentally different views on this. "basically doing the same as bojo but a couple of weeks later" is again nice tory spin, but ignores the occasions where she took actions that saved lives before bojo and co had even thought about it, and in fact put pressure on them to follow suit, a la face masks.

Might I just add, for the avoidance of doubt, that it annoys me to have to defend NS. I voted no in 2014 and remain in 2016. My animosity now is based entirely on brexit and the installation of the worst UK government in my lifetime, and to see them being defended, especially for their handling of the pandemic, makes me annoyed, disappointed and perplexed in equal measure. I just don't get it.

Im happy about the new guidance, groups of 6 is very easy to manage for the police. Enforceability matters.

I dont care about the economy really, at this point im just tired of the yoyoing of advice and affect on social life, loneliness and happiness.

Since Cummings, lots in my social circle dont give a **** about guidance anymore. Its so hard to believe, and everythings becoming convoluted and situational ergo people dont try any more....Simple is better.


This is an opinion post, so, probably not that helpful

Pref Ferguson agreeing with me (actually been me listening to him but that sounds less impressive)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-neil-ferguson

I'm in a no way defending the Uk government and I dont doubt NS is way more competent and much to be preferred over boris as a leader.

But I'd seriously caution believing that translates to the covid situation being much different in Scotland. Covid is a really difficult problem, being a lot better than Boris isn't enough.

Also NS says so herself.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54203794

Yes it's a very difficult problem, but to say the situation is the same as England is just wrong. Each country's situation is different and is predicated entirely on the actions they've taken up until now.

The fact that she is saying the below, which I have read, proves my point somewhat. She is pre-emptively attacking the problem before we get back to the stage where england is currently at. All the while, boris and his scientists are still giving out mixed messages around lockdowns. It's farcical.

It sounds much the same to me but ok. At best you're a few days behind but it's either much the same dramatic action required or much the same winter coming.

Real divergence will happen if Scotland takes drastic measure and England doesn't (or vice versa). Highly unlikely that difference will happen imo.

Okkkkk, fair enough.

Things Neil Ferguson has got disastrously wrong

Foot and mouth
Swine flu
MERS
Sars2

This Gates funded abject moron, sacked after all of these blunders yet resurrected to lead the "science" for the next "health crisis" should not be listened to again. Ever.

Has he got earth is round wrong too?

So you're now rowing completely back on your claim that Sturgeon done things differently to, yeah it was just the same in England? Also, claiming it's Tory spin is nonsense given Labour were also, rightly, criticising this and questioning it at the time. That's why there was an attempt at a cover up by the SNP.

Again, just the same as Boris then. The only difference being the CMO walked (wasn't sacked) and Cummings didn't. You're also confused if you think I'm making an argument for Boris, I'm not, I'm addressing the fact that you claimed Sturgeon done things differently and better. I'm not defending that idiot in any way.

We were behind England in hiring staff for the test and trace strategy. The CMO also made the following statement at the start of April "But the thought that the testing in some way slows the virus or is a part of our strategy to prevent transmission is a fallacy, I’m afraid” and Sturgeon also responded to questioning by journalists about the lack of testing compared to other countries by saying she didn’t accept we had underperformed but it was important that we don’t overstate what testing can achieve. Hardly the case then that test and trace was at the forefront of the message.
In addition to this England expanded eligibility for testing before Scotland did, for example, to care home workers with no symptoms.

Yes she followed the original UK strategy at the time that was the most important for tackling the virus, she never diverged when it mattered. Being recognised as a better leader globally than Boris is meaningless rhetoric. Boris is hopeless, so is Sturgeon but she’s a far more polished performer in front of the camera than Boris but that isn’t exactly saying much. As for the impact of decisions to delay certain aspects then I have to go with those who have better knowledge than me and this article makes some very good points
1) The main work to break the back of the virus happens at the early stage
2) Because the lockdown took off in London before it got here in a major way we effectively locked down earlier in terms of where the virus was, even though the lockdown happened UK wide at the same time. This gave us an advantage.
3) Demographics work in our favour as we don’t have the same number of large urban centres that England does.
4) The impact of the slower exit from is minimal.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/...ginal-benefit/

In my previous post I also linked to an article where professor Bauld was pointing out her and her colleagues didn't know what the basis was for decisions that were being made and Sturgeon herself was contradictory and evasive when questioned on them (specifically the impact of the R figure and how that would drive any decisions)

It's possible to have animosity for both and to address the facts rather than having an emotive response. Brexit will be a disaster but independence would be far, far worse. I'd rather have neither.

Your fallacious reasoning is permanent I see.

You make some naked claims with no substantiation, as someone who believes the world is flat, no one is going to give any such assertions even the tiniest nano quantum of credit.

So... we did do better? Or we didn't? The above implies we have, but the rest of your post is a bit of a hodgepodge of random sentences.



I get the tory need to breathlessly defend bojo whilst mocking anything sturgeon does, but if that's not what you're doing then why did we even start this discussion? Just needed to get in some random digs at NS?

lol come on, I am definitely emotional on this subject but don't pretend you are some kind of cold arbiter of the facts. Your anti-snp bias is glaringly obvious in every post you make.

I too would have preferred neither, as my voting history should suggest? no?

Errrr, starting off down the same path and then diverging when you receive better information does not equal doing the same thing? No? Simple stuff.

Indeed.