Coronavirus

[Orraloon]

2 hours ago, Squirrelhumper said:

 

Hopefully we remove the charade of having to put on a mask to go to the pisser in a restaurant, whilst at the same time have no need to wear one in a pub or nightclub! Rules for the sake of rules. 

 

Why does that one bother folk so much? It's not much of an inconvenience. It even less of an inconvenience than having to go for a piss in the first place. It's not any more inconvenient than having to put your cock away before leaving the toilet. Or washing your hands. Some folk still don't seem to like that one either.

 

[Squirrelhumper]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

It's not any more inconvenient than having to put your cock away before leaving the toilet. Or washing your hands. Some folk still don't seem to like that one either.

 

Why does it bother folk that folk want it removed? It does fuck all to stop Covid spreading. 

If folk want to continue doing it then let them, it shouldn't be compulsory though - mainly cos it's pointless. 

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

 It even less of an inconvenience than having to go for a piss in the first place. It's not any more inconvenient than having to put your cock away before leaving the toilet. Or washing your hands. Some folk still don't seem to like that one either.

 

You've lost it with that argument. I know the benefits of all those, what's the benefits of wearing a mask to stand up in a restaurant but not in a pub/at a gig/in a nightclub? Apart from virtue signalling and clinging onto rules for rules sake. 

 

[Squirrelhumper]

3 hours ago, Ally Bongo said:

Caution rather than "panic mode"

The USA is an outlier for Omicron in that it has sped up deaths unlike elsewhere

USA has only 27% of the population boosted though - we are over 56%. Thankfully the roll out has been better here, as has the much lower level of vaccine sceptics. 

[Lamia]

20 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

 

You've lost it with that argument. I know the benefits of all those, what's the benefits of wearing a mask to stand up in a restaurant but not in a pub/at a gig/in a nightclub? Apart from virtue signalling and clinging onto rules for rules sake. 

 

You still insisting on not getting the balance of risk and priorities.

[Lamia]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

Why does that one bother folk so much? It's not much of an inconvenience. It even less of an inconvenience than having to go for a piss in the first place. It's not any more inconvenient than having to put your cock away before leaving the toilet. Or washing your hands. Some folk still don't seem to like that one either.

 

If inconvenience of putting a mask on is so much issue I don't know why anyone would ever frequent Wetherspoons - you need public transport to get to the loo there.

[phart]

4 hours ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Not sure that's exactly true - i'd love to hear the scientific evidence for some of the bizarre rules. 

Not sure we listened to the South African scientists, we just seemed to ignore them and went into full panic mode even though they had more experience of Omicron? Have we followed anything SA did following their outbreak? After all, they were that buzz phrase "ahead of the curve" in comparison to us. They ended isolation for Covid with no symtoms, long before England even mentioned it and it doesn't seem to have any adverse effect? 

 

I take it you're just talking about the omicron wave? Cause SA has a terrible excess death figure if we look at it across the whole pandemic one of the worst in the world.

What's the specific problem, panic-mode can mean anything depending on who you talk to. What was done that shouldn't have been done and what should have been done?

 

[phart]

37 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Why does it bother folk that folk want it removed? It does fuck all to stop Covid spreading. 

 

 

Masks do mitigate risk of exposure.

Here's some South African scientists from a South African university, please don't ignore them

We recommend that public officials and governments strongly encourage the use of widespread face masks in public, including the use of appropriate regulation.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33431650/

[Ally Bongo]

39 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

USA has only 27% of the population boosted though - we are over 56%. Thankfully the roll out has been better here, as has the much lower level of vaccine sceptics. 

Dont know where you are getting your figures from

As of Feb 13 it is 42%

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/states-ranked-by-booster-rates.html

[TDYER63]

30 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

 

You've lost it with that argument. I know the benefits of all those, what's the benefits of wearing a mask to stand up in a restaurant but not in a pub/at a gig/in a nightclub? Apart from virtue signalling and clinging onto rules for rules sake. 

 

Are masks not compulsory when going to the toilet in pubs ? I didnt know that.  I thought the rules were you still wore a mask when moving around either in pubs or restaurants. It does sound daft when you dont need them in nightclubs though.
Be interesting to see the reasons. I know the SG try to distinguish between things that require choice. Ie , folk need to shop for food hence the reason for masks,  but going to a pub is a choice so you take your chances sitting in close proximity to strangers . 
 

30 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

Why does it bother folk that folk want it removed? It does fuck all to stop Covid spreading. 

If folk want to continue doing it then let them, it shouldn't be compulsory though - mainly cos it's pointless. 

 

I dont agree with this. There is varying evidence on their effectiveness but there is recognition that they do reduce the spread. I dont like them but its no exactly a big inconvenience to wear them .

[Lamia]

I think the nightclub decision is simply a pragmatic one is it not?

[ParisInAKilt]

Just don’t go straight to the night club, go to the pub first and touch your mask and face whilst eating, drinking and smoking so you get exposed early in the night. 

[phart]

Hospitalisation rate has slowed and now is turning slightly upwards again, hopefully just a statistical variance. Or just a function of prevalance and folk having covid but being in for other shit anyway.

ICU at the lowest I can mind in a long time.

The rates of vaccination that count the most is at risk and older folk, since vaccination became a partisan issue they still have loads of folk in the "danger zone" with no booster or even worse no vaccination at all, hence the different outcomes from here. Where we have a lot better coverage in those areas.

[Squirrelhumper]

3 hours ago, Lamia said:

You still insisting on not getting the balance of risk and priorities.

You still insisting on sarky replies and not answering questions?

[Squirrelhumper]

3 hours ago, TDYER63 said:

 

I dont agree with this. There is varying evidence on their effectiveness but there is recognition that they do reduce the spread. I dont like them but its no exactly a big inconvenience to wear them .

What evidence is there that says not wearing a mask to go for a piss is  unsafe but not wearing one at a bar is?

Is it from the same Covid Safety manual that suggested cutting the bottoms off 1000s fire doors for extra ventilation in schools?   

[Orraloon]

5 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

 

Is it from the same Covid Safety manual that suggested cutting the bottoms off 1000s fire doors for extra ventilation in schools?   

That idea was a bit mental. Did it actually happen? I hope not. 

One point that I would make though, is that not all doors in schools are "fire doors".

[Ally Bongo]

25 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

What evidence is there that says not wearing a mask to go for a piss is  unsafe but not wearing one at a bar is?

Is it from the same Covid Safety manual that suggested cutting the bottoms off 1000s fire doors for extra ventilation in schools?   

I dont know what school you went to but none of my classroom doors were fire doors

The ones in the corridors were

Typically an inventive idea for more ventilation in classrooms is deliberately skewed by Unionists in order to get ordinary folk to lampoon it 

[Orraloon]

1 minute ago, Ally Bongo said:

I dont know what school you went to but none of my classroom doors were fire doors

The ones in the corridors were

Typically an inventive idea for more ventilation in classrooms is deliberately skewed by Unionists in order to get ordinary folk to lampoon it 

Can't agree with that. Even if they aren't fire doors, it's still a daft idea. I hope they saw sense and didn't actually go through with it. 

[TDYER63]

27 minutes ago, Squirrelhumper said:

What evidence is there that says not wearing a mask to go for a piss is  unsafe but not wearing one at a bar is?

 

You said that wearing mask does fuck all to stop covid spreading. I disagree. I definitely cannot see the difference between wearing a mask in a pub and in a restaurant and in that respect I agree with you, but I disagree that they dont stop covid spreading. 

[Ally Bongo]

2 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Can't agree with that. Even if they aren't fire doors, it's still a daft idea. I hope they saw sense and didn't actually go through with it. 

Genuine question - what was daft about it ?

Would it improve classroom ventilation - Yes

Is it better than spending millions on ventilation systems - Yes

 

[Ally Bongo]

THERE are times when I genuinely despair of the opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament. The brouhaha over school doors is one of them ("Ministers accused of ‘rewriting history’ after denying plan to chop class doors", The Herald, February 9) is one of them. It’s more than 20 years since I last designed a secondary school, so it’s news to me that classroom doors are fire doors – at least according to Douglas Ross. A quick check of the current building regulations reveals that there is no such requirement.

Equally puzzling is the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service’s belief that classroom doors should be fire doors in order to protect the pupils in a classroom from a fire which occurs in the corridor outside. This seems to suggest a new "stay put" philosophy in the event of the fire alarm going off rather than the norm of instigating immediate evacuation of pupils and staff. If it’s to protect pupils in the corridor from a classroom fire source, then you already have corridor fire doors to do that.

Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville explained in her letter to a Holyrood committee that to improve ventilation one option was to undercut doors. It’s a compromise, but I’ve seen it done in a number of situations where an increased air flow is required due to an unforeseen problem. As such it’s a cost-effective way of remedying that problem, subject to confirmation from the door manufacturer that it is permissible without compromising the door’s performance. A 10mm gap is normally the maximum recommended

Another of the options suggested was to fit mechanical extract fans. But if the windows are closed (as would often be the case in winter) then you will need a source of replacement air to maintain an adequate air change rate. That’s why you would need to undercut the door.

This is essentially a Government intervention to mitigate the failure of many councils to install an adequate ventilation system when they were replacing the ageing schools under their control. Many of these schools were built in the last 30 years. In the intervening period there have been follow-up reports on the performance of these schools by the Scottish Futures Trust. A common feature in these reports has been the failure of naturally ventilated rooms to perform as required.

Guidance on school design issued by the then Scottish Executive in 2007 stated quite clearly that natural ventilation should be augmented with mechanical ventilation to compensate for overheating issues in the summer and for having to close windows on ultra-cold days in the winter. However, this guidance does not appear to have been followed, hence the current problem. Covid-19 has simply brought into focus these local authority procurement failures. Yet rather than debating the options to deal with this new problem, all we see each and every day is uninformed political point-scoring from opposition MSPs.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19921874.letters-stop-point-scoring-trimming-school-doors-not-stupid-solution-ventilation-problems/

 

[Orraloon]

6 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

Genuine question - what was daft about it ?

Would it improve classroom ventilation - Yes

Is it better than spending millions on ventilation systems - Yes

 

It will cost a fortune to do it, and in a couple of years time we will spend an even bigger fortune replacing all the doors. 

It won't improve ventilation unless they open windows as well. 

The same result can be achieved by just leaving the door partly open. You can get three door wedges for a pound at poundland. 

The risk assessment argument, against wedging the doors open, is that it's human nature that they will close the doors if they are getting a draught. But you can make the same argument for the windows unless they are planning to take the glass out of some of them as well.

[Hertsscot]

3 minutes ago, Ally Bongo said:

THERE are times when I genuinely despair of the opposition parties in the Scottish Parliament. The brouhaha over school doors is one of them ("Ministers accused of ‘rewriting history’ after denying plan to chop class doors", The Herald, February 9) is one of them. It’s more than 20 years since I last designed a secondary school, so it’s news to me that classroom doors are fire doors – at least according to Douglas Ross. A quick check of the current building regulations reveals that there is no such requirement.

Equally puzzling is the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service’s belief that classroom doors should be fire doors in order to protect the pupils in a classroom from a fire which occurs in the corridor outside. This seems to suggest a new "stay put" philosophy in the event of the fire alarm going off rather than the norm of instigating immediate evacuation of pupils and staff. If it’s to protect pupils in the corridor from a classroom fire source, then you already have corridor fire doors to do that.

Education Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville explained in her letter to a Holyrood committee that to improve ventilation one option was to undercut doors. It’s a compromise, but I’ve seen it done in a number of situations where an increased air flow is required due to an unforeseen problem. As such it’s a cost-effective way of remedying that problem, subject to confirmation from the door manufacturer that it is permissible without compromising the door’s performance. A 10mm gap is normally the maximum recommended

Another of the options suggested was to fit mechanical extract fans. But if the windows are closed (as would often be the case in winter) then you will need a source of replacement air to maintain an adequate air change rate. That’s why you would need to undercut the door.

This is essentially a Government intervention to mitigate the failure of many councils to install an adequate ventilation system when they were replacing the ageing schools under their control. Many of these schools were built in the last 30 years. In the intervening period there have been follow-up reports on the performance of these schools by the Scottish Futures Trust. A common feature in these reports has been the failure of naturally ventilated rooms to perform as required.

Guidance on school design issued by the then Scottish Executive in 2007 stated quite clearly that natural ventilation should be augmented with mechanical ventilation to compensate for overheating issues in the summer and for having to close windows on ultra-cold days in the winter. However, this guidance does not appear to have been followed, hence the current problem. Covid-19 has simply brought into focus these local authority procurement failures. Yet rather than debating the options to deal with this new problem, all we see each and every day is uninformed political point-scoring from opposition MSPs.

Robert Menzies, Falkirk.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19921874.letters-stop-point-scoring-trimming-school-doors-not-stupid-solution-ventilation-problems/

 

Anything which highlights poor ventilation in schools is good in my book. Spent far too many hours freezing or being exhausted in summertime because my classroom resembled a greenhouse with both students and teacher wilting.

[Hertsscot]

5 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

It will cost a fortune to do it, and in a couple of years time we will spend an even bigger fortune replacing all the doors. 

It won't improve ventilation unless they open windows as well. 

The same result can be achieved by just leaving the door partly open. You can get three door wedges for a pound at poundland. 

The risk assessment argument, against wedging the doors open, is that it's human nature that they will close the doors if they are getting a draught. But you can make the same argument for the windows unless they are planning to take the glass out of some of them as well.

Pretty much what I did last year. Open windows and door twice every hour for five minutes to allow air to blow through. Not sure how effective bit was but better than nothing.

[Lamia]

1 hour ago, Squirrelhumper said:

You still insisting on sarky replies and not answering questions?

I did though - the fact you can't spot it says more about you t can me.

[TDYER63]

4 hours ago, Lamia said:

I think the nightclub decision is simply a pragmatic one is it not?

Its definitely pragmatic, but if reducing the spread of covid is the aim then it seems a bit contradictory  to have no masks in clubs/pubs  but have them in restaurants. Surely there is more chance of spreading covid standing right next to people  in a pub for hours than walking  to the bathroom in a restaurant?