Morrisandmoo

Yea I think the modelling combined with uncertainty at start of December supported lockdown. If for no other reason than to protect the Ayrshire derby What people think on TAMB doesn’t matter.

Day 1: cost is £3, pay off is £10 Day 27: cost is £4, pay off is £1 Scottish government have declined to take up day 1 wager, but have placed cash on day 27 wager. We can all argue until the cows come home. But it’s not going to make it any more clever I’m afraid.

She could have acted at the start of December, when it would have made a difference. And she could have held her bottle once she’d committed to riding the bitter wave. As it happens, this government have made the worst combination of decisions. Not clever IMO.

The Scottish Goverbments decision won’t help the NHS. It won’t help anybody. There will be no measurable benefits from the additional controls placed on people here on Scotland. That’s obvious to me at least. It’s vaccine passports all over again.

The main issue for me is that it’s probably too late to make a meaningful difference to the peak spike, with further 27th Dec measures. High cost vs low benefit generally equals a bad idea. The case for measures is much weaker now than at the start of the month. If England hold their nerve (which they rarely do) then we will see the value of these extra measures play out.

Aye it's shite. I do not support. Especially with pubs still open. Plus it's too late now anyway. Very bizarre decision making I think from the Scottish Government... to bring in damaging measures when it's too late to make any difference.

It's an important question. I think it comes down to what short lockdowns get you in different scenarios: risk vs reward. A few weeks ago I would have supported lockdown of hospitality because of Omicron threat to (1) allow boosters to roll out more (2) figure out severity and vaccine effectiveness (3) give time to develop Omicron specific vaccine if needed. (4) most importantly protect Ayrshire derby on 2nd January. To me there were lots of benefits. Locking down now or after Christmas probably has much much less benefit. So I'm less supportive now, but open to others' views. I kind of think though that if the shit is coming, then it is coming now and it'll be over soon. Hold your nose and help NHS staff as much as we can. Going forwards I think there will continue to be periods where lockdowns make sense. But we do need to get our heads around the fact that covid is not going away anytime soon, a zero covid strategy is not viable, everybody obsessing about the numbers year round is unhealthy and that mortality rates have stepped back 20 years -> therefore investment needed to adapt to this. The more humans normalise the risk and the more our infrastructure adapts to it , then the less disruptive it will be. We also need politicians to be more positive and less divisive, especially during the "good times" and not bringing in ineffective,discriminatory and coercive measures like vaccine passports. It undermines support for genuinely effective measures. I imagine some of these judgements and debates will start to emerge during the next election cycle - with perhaps "alternatives" springing up across Europe.

Spike in cleavage efficiency you say? That does sound positive.

Yeah this is the situation. In that, we are probably locked into a pretty big spike already (we knew this a couple of weeks ago). Timing is everything. I guess the positive is that we are well-boosted up in the most vulnerable (and I saw something about vaccine + booster = 80% effectiveness. So a large spike now might even = better result (in terms of Covid deaths at least) than a smaller longer spike later. Albeit the trauma for NHS staff, plus additional strain on services is a big price to pay.

I've got the fear as well.

Probably a bit unfair in terms of folk being a prop. It's more that (1) you can't in practice care about everything equally. Otherwise I'd need to spend all my time on the internet talking shite. I appreciate this means that when viewed objectively then it results in contradictions. But I am happy to be a subjective human. When it comes to vaccine passports - I feel our government is doing an awful thing and the majority of people support them in doing so. Therefore, I might make a tiny tiny tiny difference by saying how awful it is. It's not really "politics". In fact, my general politics tilts towards "big government", if that's still a thing. (2) I think that how we treat each other and the economic/social structures we live by will determine to a much larger degree the happiness and prosperity of people in the future vs our external environment. It's too simple to say: hotter climate, worse human outcomes; colder climate, better human outcomes. And besides, I don't think I've much criticisied the status quo (e.g. slow down the pace of climate change). It's more that I've criticised the honesty/integrity of some of the leading individuals/organisations; their communication strategy generally; their clarity of thought/purpose; and their social priorities. (3) I know a lot more about vaccine passports so feel more confident going all in. Not that i'm an expert - it's just that I am certain that I am in the right and the majority are in the wrong. If nothing else because it's very simple. Climate change is a lot harder.

Some of the wealthiest people in the world gathered together and did more harm than good. Shock headline. Somebody asked me, I think it was Phart, why I don't take this stuff seriously and don't proactively voice support for climate action or whatever. And the reason is - when you have the bad guys, the rich guys and the left side of the internet all violently agreeing with each other (they don't think they agree, they think the are on different sides - but they do agree and they are on the same side) - then I don't need to weigh in to also agree. You've got every company in the world lining up to pledge net zero, but not one pledging to end poverty. If those 40,000 delegates and the protesters cheering them on (with their silver spoons) would have turned up in Glasgow and pledged to share their (and their companies) wealth equally with the rest of the world then poverty (adult and child) would have been eradicated. Now 16th December 2021. Nobody would be hungry. But they didn't. They all believe in the wrong things. The bad guys always did, but now the political left do too. An unnecessary rant /

Yes that is exactly the shape I would expect to see if COP26 were the seeding event (rising from December) - for the reasons I explain above. As I also said it's irrelevant to me either way. But yes the shape fits well with people's intuition.

Lots I would reckon - similar to the flu vaccine. You might be low-balling at 37 mind, if current rates are anything to go by.

I don't think the timeline is problematic. I also don't think we'll ever really "see". Lots of thinking.

Booked booster yesterday, for today. Got to say the place was running like a well-oiled machine. All 3 times I've been, I've thought as much. Considering the logistics involved the Government and the NHS have done well with these vaccine roll-outs. And the public have done well to respond to them. I snobbishly and outlandishly found myself thinking...no wonder we won the bloody war* 😂. WWII obvs, not any others.

Don't start picking holes in my model - I worked hours on that. The only solace I take is that usually when Pokemon have high attack rate, they are easy to catch on the counter.

I don't think this is true. If the initial Omicron case was during COP26 then the case numbers would not have had an impact on overall trend for 3-4 weeks (by my simple reckoning of course). A timeline which actually fits quite nicely with the Omicron variant arriving during COP26. But I don't care that much, we'll never know, what's done is done and it would have got here anyway etc etc However, what we must all be thankful for is that all those cunts at COP26 will "save the planet" - they certainly don't seem to care about much else. A very simple model: when would Omicron start biting? Days 1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 Omicron Cases 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1024 Overall cases 3001 3002 3004 3008 3016 3032 3064 3128 3256 3512 4024 % of cases 0% 0% 0% 0% 1% 1% 2% 4% 8% 15% 25%

I thought Celtic were out...??? Which, to be fair, I concluded from Kris Boyd getting it right up them with a "Europe after Christmas isn't for everyone" jibe. Funny, but that will learn me for basing my world view on KB comments. Very exciting prospects for Rangers right enough: Atalanta, Barcelona, Dortmund, Leipzig, Porto, Sevilla, Sheriff, Zenit. While Celtic's conference opponents have all the glamour of dug shite: Quarabag, Randars, Glimt et al

"Jabs in arms" does my nut in. Just say "jagged". People are jagged or they are not jagged. We know we're not sticking them up our arse.

Team work makes the dream work! True story that one.

It's like war. We need to allow families to support the dying this time (regardless of infection control) to take some burden off the nurses.

We are fucked if these vaccines don't hold. Albeit, I think the likelihood is that even with the vaccines it won't be enough to avoid a catastrophic Christmas period for the NHS. Unless we can go back in time: do a virtual COP26, have proper testing of international travel and immediately start social distancing measures on discovery of the variant. What kind of red buttons do we have that we can press to help the NHS? Nurses out of retirement again, re-purposing to maximise ICU etc? I am worried about whether the doctors and nurses can cope, given their resilience is probably at an all time low (as per the stats you shared on mental health Phart).

I don't know, but makes sense to me that it would have a small impact. The longer you spend somewhere socialising then the higher the risk, so limiting opening times should make a difference. I get that some of the younger folk will just immediately head to house parties, but they do that anyway. I know for me the longer I spend in the pub then the higher the risk of me hugging random strangers or engaging in similar nonsense. So sending me home early is definitely effective! Maybe the rule should just apply to me.

I would support closing clubs, limiting opening hours for pubs and promoting outdoor areas. The cost/benefit makes sense to me. But I've never liked clubs anyway....so would favour closing then with or without covid 😀 I know it's not ideal for the businesses (and we should support them) or younger people trying to have fun. Hopefully pubs are well adapted that they can get decent amount outdoors also.