Celtic have apparently asked the Scottish Government to take a common sense look at their Covid restrictions for football players, but I don’t know if I have ever imagined a greater waste of energy than to appeal to this Government’s common sense.
Yesterday they shuttered the hospitality sector for most of the country, while locking down rural areas after 6pm, claiming this sector was prevalent in the rise of Covid’s second wave. You don’t say, Sherlock. Since August they permitted football fans to gather in enclosed pubs to watch games, while prohibiting games at open air stadiums, contrary to all scientific evidence. We have repeatedly discussed this folly here.
Encourage people into pubs, then blame pubs for the second wave, if only they were prepared to deviate from the policies of a Westminster government, scientific evidence would have had a chance to influence political policy.
Thousands of fans attend games across Europe, all outdoors, all socially distanced, all with strict travel, entry and egress protocols, mandated by governments who are not following Boris Johnson’s cabal. There has been no related increase in contagion – because, as we all know, this is not how contagion happens. It happens indoors, where there is no monitoring.
The hospitality sector needed to be thoroughly monitored (just as the football sector would have been) when it opened. Spot checks should have taken place many times each week, with licences pulled immediately for those who allowed unsafe practices. If it was monitored, social distancing practices would be sufficient to keep people safe.
I saw plenty of venues that had clearly spent a small fortune on partitions, with staff permanently wiping and cleaning handles, and others which looked little changed from the pre-Covid era. There was no consistency, which means there was no enforced monitoring, which means responsibility for the rise in contagion from the hospitality sector lies largely with the government.
If you do not monitor compliance and close offending venues, you know you are contributing to the problem. Despite this, you can continue watch afternoon games in a Dunfermline pub, with as much alcohol as you can consume, without any change in government monitoring policy.
Unusually, this wave of restrictions came several days ahead of Westminster’s planned move. Don’t get me started on it grabbing the headlines on ‘Oh, I forgot Day’. We are bereft of competent leadership in Edinburgh and London. The former can do what they like because their opposition is even less competent than they are, and the latter can do what they like because they have another four years before they need to care about you.
It is thoroughly depressing; our government co-joined twins care nothing of the game, do not expect any amount of evidence to bring about change. As long as they keep their legions of cognitively dissonanced fan boys (CDFBs) on side, competency will not improve. I buy none of their bull, self-promoting careerists to the last. Green and white are my only colours.
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MAJESTIC HARTSON 11.40,
Well,I don’t know of anyone who would spend time in the company of someone they knew had Covid.My point seems to have gone over your head,in this instance.You don’t know who has Covid,say,in a bar.When the Bar is informed through,T and T,then the bar contacts everyone,telling them they HAVE to isolate for 14 days.The bar closes for a day,then deep cleans.No one knows who is infected,as I am sure KT and Ryan did not know they were in company with Armstrong who was positive.Thems the rules.
Wish you were so vocal Paul about the allowed cheating and collusion of our board re the entity that plays out of Ibrox…….
Greenpinata – Exit strategy…
Because the virus is now global, there are only two exits now: With a vaccine; and without a vaccine. It’s no longer possible to put it back in its bottle in the way that SARS and MERS were previously, or the way they try to deal with the recurring outbreaks of Ebola.
(Just on that point, I’ve yet to hear anyone suggest a herd immunity strategy for Ebola. Or HIV for that matter.)
With the vaccine approach, it’s essentially an informed Hope strategy in that we Hope we’ll develop an effective vaccine with no or tolerable adverse effects. It’s informed by work to date, with dozens of candidate vaccines in phase 2 trials, more behind them, and a dozen or so in phase 3.
With a fair wind, an equitable distribution and a practical immunisation programme, we can expect the emergency part of the pandemic to be over in perhaps 2 years – the length of time it takes to prove efficacy and safety, manufacture, distribute and administer on a global scale such that so many people are immune that the virus recedes to the background. Some lucky people in some lucky countries will get there sooner, inevitably.
Without a vaccine the virus will run its course through the population until there are so few people left uninfected that it recedes to the background. The question here is how/if that process can be managed.
With current knowledge of the course of the virus, we can expect around 70% or more of the population to become infected before the threshold is reached, of whom around 5% will require hospital admission, and 0.5 to 1% will die.
In a country the size of the UK that’s 3-4 million hospital admissions and 300,000 to 600,000 deaths.
That assumes that there’s hospital capacity for all those who need hospital treatment, without which many who would otherwise survive will die for the lack of it. It’s what I called the “bring out your dead” nightmare from my panicked scribblings back in early March.
Assuming we’d all rather avoid that ghastly scenario, some people have suggested alternatives where the timing and the exposed population is managed to minimise loss of life while the threshold is worked towards.
The latest – the self-styled Great Barrington Declaration – puts young folk in the front line and proposes older and more vulnerable groups are shielded from the worst of it.
They propose that care homes are staffed only by those with antibodies to prevent outbreaks, and that everyone else washes their hands and takes it on the chin.
But there are problems with that, aren’t there. For example, only 12% of care home staff have antibodies. For example, 25% of the whole population is vulnerable by virtue of their age, their medical condition, their weight etc. For example a further 25% of the population live with the 25% f the population who are vulnerable.
We can quickly see that such a proposal is a human ponzi scheme – in the pursuit of herd immunity we run out of people to become immune. We can also see that it’s simply unfeasible to shield the vulnerable and their carers for any extended length of time. Sooner or later inevitably the shield will be broken.
It’s notable that while a number of (very recently) high profile researchers propose this approach, none of them have had a research paper on the topic presented for peer review, let alone published. These opinions have yet to be endorsed by scientific review.
Instead, as with climate change, the vast weight of scientific opinion opposes the proposed approach on the grounds of unfeasibility, inhumanity and misapprehension. Of course, Prof Gupta might ultimately be proven right, but she’s been wrong on every hypothesis she’s put forward on Coronavirus since day 1. This is simply the latest scheme.
Back to where we were… acquiring herd immunity.
As I said earlier, we’ll get it whether we want it or not, and the question is how we get it. The prevailing view is the informed Hope strategy, that a vaccine will come sooner or later, and the immediate task is to minimise harms along the way. If a vaccine doesn’t come in time – so the strategy goes – we’re effectively minimising harms on the way to non-vaccinated immunity.
In this there is wide consensus. How it’s managed though is the topic of intense debate. We don’t have enough hospital beds or ICU units. We don’t have enough medical staff even if we had the beds etc. We know we’ll never have enough testing capacity, or quick enough testing. We don’t have enough contact tracers. We don’t have enough money to have everyone paid to be safe at home, and we don’t have enough money to keep every business profitable without paying customers.
We know the virus spreads most effectively indoors, in crowds, where people face each other, with shouting/singing, with physical contact, with poor ventilation. We know it spreads easily on public transport, in pubs, in people’s homes. And we know the numbers if it gets out of hand because we lived it in March and April.
Some folk want tight restrictions, few infections, fewest possible deaths. Some want a functioning though restricted economy. Some want football to be open to fans, others want their right to go to the pub, others again to go on holiday, go dancing. Schools open. Schools closed. Unis open. Unis closed. Care homes open for visiting Or closed for visiting. Restaurants open, Restaurants closed. Travel. No travel. Tourism. No tourism. Quarantine. No Quarantine. Some folk simply want their thing of interest open and unrestricted and damn the consequences on everyone else.
In amongst it all we need to get through it. As SFTB noted earlier, folk are getting weary of measures and are increasingly apt not to listen to the messages. Only 23% of folk in Scotland actually isolate when they’re infected now. That’s mental. Only 30% of infected people are found and tested positive in any event. That means the majority of infected people are amongst us, wittingly, recklessly or unwittingly infecting those around them.
Meantime testing can’t keep up and contact tracing is swamped. And meantime we’ve packed the students into halls of residence to minimise the financial hit to the unis who rely to some extent on the ‘free’ income from rents.
It’s quite the mess, isn’t it.
Today in the UK over 17,000 new positive cases were reported, but that data is 3 days out of date because the testing system in England and Wales is broken. So add half a week of increase to that. It’s also about 30% of the true number of cases as most aren’t picked up.
It’s fair to say, regardless of the ridicule piled on the UK scientific advisors by some last week, that we are less than a month away from the scale of community infection we endured at the peak in March, probably closer in the cities of northern England.
I find I’m an ill-tempered and uncomfortable Casandra on here and elsewhere, but my sense is – to coin an old phrase – that we’re headed to herd immunity in a hand cart of stupidity, incompetence and disingenuity.
Which is a terrible shame for all of us, as it’s us who will of course grieve our dead, care for our debilitated and lose our livelihoods.
Given all of that, someone, somewhere will surely pull on the brakes? If not government, whom?
Good lord! Apols for that streaming rant. I didn’t realise I had rambled on to such an extent.
Can’t wait for the SFTB point by point critique, mind you :¬)
TBB @ 5.10
What exactly is too stop us aiming for active suppression of the virus towards local eradication?
The virus itself is not robust and has been proved that local eradication is possible.
What is going to happen in Aus and NZ if they get it under control — are we going to be lepers to them for ever more?
I fear we are sleepwalking towards a de facto herd immunity strategy.
On the basis that we can’t think of anything else apart from a vaccine play that was always going to arrive too late.
TBB,
Many thanks for a very comprehensive response.
I will read it again to fully digest it.
Cheers and HH.
GREENPINTA
Maybe I watch and read a lot more,as I have the time.Last night I watched a report on “Long Covid”which is now affecting the lifes of anything up to 200,000 people in the UK.Anyone,no matter age who caught even a mild version of the Virus,are at risk.Symptoms are severe shortage of breath,exhaustion after doing the simplest of tasks,,in fact any kind of effort.The report saying they were expecting the numbers to rise to the millions,as this is so new and the numbers involved.
To simply say,shield the Elderly (Lock them up ),is a suggestion that does not hold water.Similar to a lot of the Elderly.
Ii am a veteran lurker and blue moon poster and so won’t be missed.
Main posts have read like Jim Murphy productions and today it is like Brian Wilson.
No more, Cqn for me.
TBB @ 5.10
Self isolation will be the rock that we will perish on.
Thatcherite medicine — 30 years after she left the political stage.
We now have government by call centre and an app.
It is a far cry from 1947 big freeze when council workers went around the doors handing out shovels to anyone able bodied individual they could find in the house — I think they phoned up the labour exchange to see who was on their books — so that they could clear away the snow drifts and get Carmichaels bus into the village.
TBB
Stunning post.
Mad Mitch,
Usual pish.
Cheers Bhoys 😁
P8DDY on 8TH OCTOBER 2020 4:08 PM
So the Scots should want to leave the UK because the Irish did?
That’s as ridiculous as saying that the Irish should have wanted to stay in the UK because the Scots did.
Mad Mitch
It’s absolutely feasible, as New Zealand has demonstrated. But it’s impossible unless the doors are closed. It can only be done in isolation, and that means geographical isolation. I’m surprised Ireland didn’t do it, as they had all the levers.
I wondered if ScotGov would close the doors in July when we had two cases per million per day – elimination is defined as one per million per day. We were that close.
My guess is that it needed the backing of UK Gov and that was not forthcoming (!). Certainly the political symbolism of closing the border at Gretna and requiring inbound travellers to quarantine would have been spectacular.
Failing that, and with an under resourced test and trace function, a message-wearied population and a couple of poor decisions (pubs and unis) everything has reverted to the position as at early March, only far more quickly I think than anyone thought likely. We spent 4 months in lockdown to get 2 months of summer.
TB @ 5.28
Oh well at least you read it — you will have no excuses then.
THE BATTERED BUNNET on 8TH OCTOBER 2020 5:10 PM
And if it transpires (as it might) that reinfection is more than a freak occurence, then all bets are off.
THE BATTERED BUNNET on 8TH OCTOBER 2020 5:30 PM
‘It’s absolutely feasible, as New Zealand has demonstrated.’
####
And how can anyone know there were no asymptomatic carriers of the virus during and after lockdown?
too soon…………good to see P8ddy on………all good challenges but the last one I felt was poor……..
Paul’s put up with a lot and provides a great platform, I’m often surprised at some of the rockets that get tolerated and horrified at some of the insults flung at our host.
bold as brass
:)
Ernie: “And how can anyone know there were no asymptomatic carriers of the virus during and after lockdown?”
No one can know, which is why the lockdown lasted considerably longer than the known incubation periods. We don’t know enough about this virus, but it is well observed that asymptomatic cases are infectious for no longer than symptomatic cases, and are perhaps less infectious and for a shorter period.
But no one can ‘know’ what is not yet known, if that helps you. At best it’s a known unknown, and strategy is adapted accordingly.
RumsfeldCSC
PS there have been more cases in Rumsfeld’s old place of work in the past month than in the whole of New Zealand.
TBB @ 5.30
My view is that the virus can be suppressed.
Just a case that self isolation and test rationing is not the way forward.
I fear for public opinion if the death rates gets into the multiple 100s.
You will have so many people that have given up on efforts needed to suppress the virus coming up against the reality of gravediggers needing overtime to bury the dead.
How will they react when faced with evidence that their stupidity / laziness / contrariness has resulted in their neighbours dying — will they just lash out at anyone to take the blame off themselves or will they realise that they are the issue and they need to change?
The UK has a mortality rate of approx 2K people per day.
At its peak we were 50% / 1000 people per day beyond that.
Which affects us all eventually — children are “immune” from the disease but not immune from the loss of their grand parents. How will society be affected if life is a never ending series of funerals.
Great for the makers of steak pies but very few others.
If we end up having to trudge to work — stepping over the fallen as we go — to keep the current economic model from collapsing then maybe we have to question the economic model.
Consequently not sure how this is all going to work out.
The divisions are growing as various hobby hose medics — Dr Guptha I am looking at you — spout their nonsense about what to do next I think that we are fracturing into different opinions at a rate that scares me fartless.
A civil war in the US was something that was only meant to happen once.
Now am not so sure and other countries will find their own way to fail.
Ours was to elect a fat / useless / waster to the position of PM.
Ernie: “And if it transpires (as it might) that reinfection is more than a freak occurence, then all bets are off.”
Depends on whether subsequent infections are mild – like the cold – or deadly.
There’s another unknown to add to a long list. We can only work with what we know, and what we can infer, adjusted for foreseeable risks that we can mitigate.
As far as I know, no one has planned their public health covid-19 response factoring for the known risk of asteroid hit, mind you. Although most have factored for influenza, adverse weather and the likes.
Hey ho.
Mad Mitch, and take my temperature, but I don’t disagree with any of that.
EL @ 5.36
Look for clues from CoViD19’s closest dead relative — SARS.
Based on current knowledge — it has a similar lifecycle to symptomatic CoViD19 — then the asymptomatic chain must be a thing of beauty.
Asymptomatic to asymptomatic to asymptomatic to hot sweaty pub full of prime meat then bang.
If that is the case then we needed to be following the “test baby test” mantra in June and July to break these invisible chains.
As noted in an earlier post if we were backward tracking against any outbreak we came across then that would have helped.
We haven’t sample / community tested to any meaningful degree.
Plus we have been half ersed regarding our tracking efforts.
What could possibly go wrong?
TBB
“Can’t wait for the SFTB point by point critique, mind you :-
————————————————————
You’re no gonna get one.
There’s little I disagree with.
Our previous beef was about the relative wisdom of allowing small scale attendance at football matches and whether that added any significant level of risk to the madness that you have so aptly described.
In the end, with the resurgence caused by indoor events , pubs, restaurants, workplaces and unis then outdoor football with small crowds would not dent these figures by much. So far, we have had many Covid cases from within the grouping of football players allowed to play the game, and, not one single case from the admittedly small sample of those who attended football or rugby trial matches during that period (not even if Stuart Armstrong or a St. Mirren goalie were playing in the match witnessed.)
`Can’t wait for the SFTB point by point critique, mind you :¬)`
You might have a lengthy wait if that critique is to show fault in your piece.
An excellent post.Truly excellent.
PS Perhaps you could now attempt the much more difficult task of expaining how to do the bold thingy :-)
JB
Good evening bhoys and ghirls
Is that us without El Hamed and Biton (although injured) as well for Huns games?
Someone from there national team tested positive.
D :)
Typical SFTB. Sneaking that post in whilst I was typing mine.
SFTB @ 5.57
It was mixing in the house that started all this off.
At the beginning the public indoor spaces were under some sort of control.
However as time wore on things became more lax.
EOTHO — first visit was temperature sensors / quiet eating / very relaxed / very calm.
Second visit — crushed in sitting across from a GCC harpies convention hitting the cheeky wa’ter / Lady Petrol as if it was going out of fashion
It was the young team having house parties when they had an empty that started things off in early Aug — Coatbridge being the epicentre.
The pub based outbreak in Aberdeen was the outlier during the summer.
The scale of the outbreak was significant but it was controlled after a time.
You also had the holiday aspect — the outbreak closest to me was the young team going on holiday to Crete and getting all hot and swaety in the pubs.
The asymptomatic came from the UK and infected only UK holiday makers — no locals were involved.
The virus was spread to other holiday makers and and they then returned to the UK and seeded multiple outbreaks.
The young team local to me then picked up their mates to go to a hot tub party in Arbroath — yes Arbroath / I didn’t know there was electricity in Arbroath never mind Air B ‘n B / hot tubs — and then one fell ill.
All of this takes a special kind of stupid to line those ducks up in a row.
THE BATTERED BUNNET on 8TH OCTOBER 2020 5:45 PM
So asymptomatic carrier passes on virus to someone who likewise is asymptomatic and so on.
The point is that it is not practical to erradicate the virus in any reasonable sized population. It’s always going to be there ready to infect anyone who is not, for whatever reason, immune. Lockdowns help to suppress the spread but cannot stop it entirely. Overselling it isn’t a good idea.
THE BATTERED BUNNET on 8TH OCTOBER 2020 5:50 PM
Each new piece of information or understanding of the disease seems to confirm that a precautionary approach (ie assume the worst until proven otherwise) is advisable.
Ernie, and unusually for you, I have absolutely no idea what point you’re trying to make.
Setting free the bears….
Hello! It’s grand to see you still posting here! Celtic, and Paul67 are fortunate to have such die hard lovers of our club! I’ve posted a lot less since my wee boy came along. He’s now 4, and I’ve discovered that fatherhood is the best thing on the planet. It’s also time consuming so as my virtual world shrinks my real work expands. The wee man is taking to football very nicely and of course, is on his third Celtic kit! His granny also made him a Celtic player that he decided he would call Tommy Burns, after his daddy having one as a boy too.
Anyway, atm I’m on a mobile device so I’ll be just replying to one wee bit:
About letting myself down with the “red, white and blue” comment. It wasn’t meant as a blanket accusation. My late father was the polar opposite to me in regard to Scottish independence – but he too could never answer what made the two different adequately.
My point was made very much to the unionists of Paul’s persuasion. The ‘leave your politics at the door, unless it’s my politics’ The people for whom democracy plays second fiddle to numerous other things, like the good of the Labour Party. The same people who get misty eyed about the “O’le country” whilst not giving a whit for self determination or democracy.
Ultimately however – there *is* a can of worms. If you believe passionately in the Union, what makes you different to the DUP? It’s d suggest the only difference would be religion, which kinda slots you even more comfortably into their core audience? If you believe in the same core philosophy as the DUP, what makes you different? Or to put it more mildly, if you’re a unionist, what’s wrong with the red, white and blue of the Hniin Jack?
To be clear – I was referring to Union Jack, not the colours of the six fingered imposters across the city from us. :)
Anyhoo – need to dash. I’m a young man expecting me to be a terrifying troll (aka his punch bag) :)
/p
Ernie Lynch…
So the Scots should want to leave the UK because the Irish did?
No one should “want” to do something because someone else did. But if someone was emboldened to demand what they believe is rightfully theirs? That’s a different kettle of fish.
People have a right to self determination and a right to play a part in a democracy. In U.K. terms, Scotland don’t matter. Worse, we have decision foisted on us. None more obvious than Brexit. It the voting was fair, it would have been held on a “majority of countries in the U.K.”, not a raw numbers exercise, because that would always mean England’s wishes would be granted and our access to democracy would be subverted.
That’s as ridiculous as saying that the Irish should have wanted to stay in the UK because the Scots did
In which case, it’s very lucky that’s not what I’m saying! :)
Ok now *really* have to dash – this troll thing is a serious matter! I have passwords to demand from under the bridge! (Stairs)… I pity my neighbours, me roaring like a bear, but I’ll take one for the team.
/p
GreenPinata at 3:00pm
There are many intelligent people on CQN, can any of them tell me us a credible exit strategy without ” herd” Immunity. ?
Credible strategies that work – try South Korea, Germany, Australia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and New Zealand for starters. Herd immunity means accepting a high level of deaths on the assumption that society gains immunity. There is strong evidence that immunity after a dose of COVID only lasts a couple of months.
The problem is our Governments’ (plural) policy. Thanks.
Just over an hour till kick off ;-)
COYBIB
Woo hoo, I managed to BOLD
Lenny not going to be happy, Bitton starts.