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Vaccine passport disaster in Scotland

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Watershed

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It's not having restrictions / mitigations that is damaging health care provision for non covid issues, it's the amount of healthcare resource being used to deal with covid.
Really? Only a small percentage of patients are in hospital for Covid. The vast majority of difficulties are from the fact that the NHS was already unable to cope with the growing demand for healthcare, even before Covid.

GPs using Covid as an excuse to make it harder for people to access basic appointments, healthcare etc. are one of the biggest factors behind the number of people currently presenting at A&E.

The health service is creaking but Covid is, at worst, the straw that broke the camel's back.

I'm at a loss as to how rational people can think therefore that the solution is thus more covid?
England has shown that accepting a background level of infections results in far less severe peaks and troughs than adding and removing restrictions constantly.

Restrictive measures can only ever hope to delay the spread. They cannot stop it, and they have no place in the management of what has now become an endemic, rather than pandemic, virus.
 
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bramling

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Why? England will follow in a few weeks. Or do people still think England will be the only part of the UK without some kind of vaccine passport over the coming "difficult winter" because Boris said so months ago?

Who knows? After all, with this government they can apparently change their mind at the drop of a hat, like with the schools closing after one day.

However taking things at face value, which as a population we should be able to do, we can only work on the basis that there currently aren't plans for England to get them. (No I don't really believe that either).
 

NorthKent1989

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Vaccinations have significantly reduced but not broken the link between covid infections and hospitalisations. Some people seem to be unable to grasp that a small % of a very big number is still a big number and therein lies the problem, as observed by the Irish Taoiseach earlier today - even with a highly vaccinated country you can't let the situation spiral into exponential growth or you end up with a situation no health service anywhere could cope with.

Sorry but this just sounds like an excuse to keep restrictions going, we just have to get on with Covid and accept its here, no ifs no buts.

I’ll say it again some people are refusing to leave March 2020.
Why? England will follow in a few weeks. Or do people still think England will be the only part of the UK without some kind of vaccine passport over the coming "difficult winter" because Boris said so months ago?

You seem very certain of this, I think the threat of VP’s in England are there to drive up vaccine rates up, if they really were going to introduce them why not do it back in September as planned?
 

devon_metro

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Why? England will follow in a few weeks. Or do people still think England will be the only part of the UK without some kind of vaccine passport over the coming "difficult winter" because Boris said so months ago?

Sturgeon could propose practically any measure to prevent covid and not a single SNP/Green MSP would break ranks and question it. England has the benefit of opposing views within the government benches, plus the other opposition parties. Various elements of the Conservative benches will push strongly against additional restrictions, not least the Treasury. Afterall, the current measures are harming business. It's also why Scotland persists with mask mandates and other pointless measures like checking in to venues when there is a no clear evidence that it's having an impact on covid transmission. The only difference I see is vaccine passports coercing people into getting jabbed, but this sort of policy has no place in a democracy.
 

Eyersey468

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Sorry but this just sounds like an excuse to keep restrictions going, we just have to get on with Covid and accept its here, no ifs no buts.

I’ll say it again some people are refusing to leave March 2020.


You seem very certain of this, I think the threat of VP’s in England are there to drive up vaccine rates up, if they really were going to introduce them why not do it back in September as planned?
I agree the threat of them is to drive vaccine rates up. Although I consider a vaccine passport a complete waste of time I don't trust the government not do do yet another u turn and introduce them anyway
 

yorkie

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It's not having restrictions / mitigations that is damaging health care provision for non covid issues, it's the amount of healthcare resource being used to deal with covid.
You miss the point; as @Watershed correctly rebuts your claim:
Really? Only a small percentage of patients are in hospital for Covid. The vast majority of difficulties are from the fact that the NHS was already unable to cope with the growing demand for healthcare, even before Covid.

GPs using Covid as an excuse to make it harder for people to access basic appointments, healthcare etc. are one of the biggest factors behind the number of people currently presenting at A&E.

The health service is creaking but Covid is, at worst, the straw that broke the camel's back.


England has shown that accepting a background level of infections results in far less severe peaks and troughs than adding and removing restrictions constantly.

Restrictive measures can only ever hope to delay the spread. They cannot stop it, and they have no place in the management of what has now become an endemic, rather than pandemic, virus.
But don't just take his or my word for it, check this out:
Why the NHS is struggling like never before - BBC News
...Natalie's family's story is being repeated across the country.
When the pandemic hit, about a quarter of adults in the UK were living with chronic illnesses.
With support and care disrupted and Covid making people more isolated and less active, their health has suffered.
According to those working in the NHS, they are now turning up to hospital in ever greater numbers.
And it is this as much as Covid that is driving the rise in demand on the NHS...
...Alongside Covid cases, they are seeing more frail elderly people being admitted as well as significant numbers of people with alcohol and mental health-related problems...
...The service was struggling before the pandemic hit, with targets routinely missed in all parts of the UK...

As I, and others, warned at the time, lockdowns have significantly worsened the mental and physical health of a significant chunk of the population.

Yes, wealthier people may have benefited, but overall across the population we are in a far worse position than we were, due to lockdowns. And many people were in a poor state before lockdowns.

And lockdowns have created big problems for the longer term future too:

Concern over ‘alarming’ rise in obesity in primary children | Evening Standard
Health officials have expressed “alarm” over a significant rise in obesity levels among primary school pupils which are now at an “all-time high”.
Professor Stephen Powis NHS England’s national medical director, added: “These figures today are frankly disturbing. Rates of childhood obesity are now at an all-time-high, with many young people struggling with weight gain during the pandemic.”

I hope right-minded people don't forget the fact that the Government locked down because misguided people called for lockdowns; the problems created by lockdowns will last a lifetime for many people. Those who called for lockdowns are collectively responsible. I will accept that some people were just following the crowd at the time and didn't know better; I will accept their apologies. But those who are unrepentant and continue to call for such measures are beyond redemption as far as I'm concerned.

You seem very certain of this, I think the threat of VP’s in England are there to drive up vaccine rates up, if they really were going to introduce them why not do it back in September as planned?
It's not going to happen. It didn't happen in September because there was a big backlash and test events found the ideas to be problematic.

The main reasons for Scotland & Wales implementing it is clearly for political purposes.
 
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bramling

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You miss the point; as @Watershed correctly rebuts your claim:

But don't just take his or my word for it, check this out:
Why the NHS is struggling like never before - BBC News




As I, and others, warned at the time, lockdowns have significantly worsened the mental and physical health of a significant chunk of the population.

Yes, wealthier people may have benefited, but overall across the population we are in a far worse position than we were, due to lockdowns. And many people were in a poor state before lockdowns.

I get utterly sick of the “blue heart” types preaching at how going into a shop without a mask is some kind of disworship to the NHS.

What has been going on with GP access is nothing short of a national scandal, and this is going to manifest itself in numerous avoidable deaths where conditions have failed to be diagnosed in good time. Not good enough.
 

haggishunter

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[snip]

As I, and others, warned at the time, lockdowns have significantly worsened the mental and physical health of a significant chunk of the population.

[snip]


I hope right-minded people don't forget the fact that the Government locked down because misguided people called for lockdowns; the problems created by lockdowns will last a lifetime for many people. Those who called for lockdowns are collectively responsible. I will accept that some people were just following the crowd at the time and didn't know better; I will accept their apologies. But those who are unrepentant and continue to call for such measures are beyond redemption as far as I'm concerned.

The risks and problems high covid prevalence presents in health care settings can not just be wished away. In many cases (and knowing individuals affected) the issues around cancer care were extremely difficult and distressing for both patients and their medical teams, faced with a horrific choice in the face of high covid prevalence and resultant risk of nosocomial infections to proceed with radio/chemotherapy and/or operations in the knowledge that their resultant immunocompromised condition had a high risk of making a covid infection fatal or halt / delay treatment with the risk of the progression to untreatable cancer.

Higher covid prevalence in the community, means a higher prevalence of ill or isolating staff which obviously has an additional constraint factor on the ability of the NHS to provide a full service - there needs to be a guarantee that a minimum safe staffing level can be maintained to look after the patients that are in hospital, hence why health boards (and Trusts in England) have been forced into the emergency 'code black' status when there's been peaks of particularly high covid prevalence in their areas.

Did you not see what happened in Northern Italy and parts of Spain early in the European phase of the pandemic? That is where an unrestricted UK would have headed quickly towards in early April 2020.
 

D1024

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The only difference I see is vaccine passports coercing people into getting jabbed, but this sort of policy has no place in a democracy.

When the introduction of vaccine passports in Scotland was announced, Health Minister Hamza Yousaf admitted one of the prime drivers was to incentivise getting younger people jabbed. I totally agree this sort of behaviour has no place in our democracy and is in my opinion abhorrent.
 

yorkie

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Poor service by GPs is also putting pressure on hospitals.
The risks and problems high covid prevalence presents in health care settings can not just be wished away.
Delaying cases does not make them go away either.

In many cases (and knowing individuals affected) the issues around cancer care were extremely difficult and distressing for both patients and their medical teams, faced with a horrific choice in the face of high covid prevalence and resultant risk of nosocomial infections to proceed with radio/chemotherapy and/or operations in the knowledge that their resultant immunocompromised condition had a high risk of making a covid infection fatal or halt / delay treatment with the risk of the progression to untreatable cancer.
I don't agree that the risk of a Covid infection being fatal is "high"; viruses are always in wide circulation and there is no getting away from the fact that someone who is in an immunocompromised condition might contract a virus and that they may become much more ill than someone with a fully functioning immune system. This cannot be used as an excuse to cause huge damage to people's physical and mental wellbeing on a massive scale through lockdowns.

Higher covid prevalence in the community, means a higher prevalence of ill or isolating staff which obviously has an additional constraint factor on the ability of the NHS to provide a full service - there needs to be a guarantee that a minimum safe staffing level can be maintained to look after the patients that are in hospital, hence why health boards (and Trusts in England) have been forced into the emergency 'code black' status when there's been peaks of particularly high covid prevalence in their areas.
Locking down does not make this go away and indeed most absences are not due to Covid anyway.

Did you not see what happened in Northern Italy and parts of Spain early in the European phase of the pandemic? That is where an unrestricted UK would have headed quickly towards in early April 2020.
At the end of the day there was/is no perfect solution that would avoid deaths. I refer you to previous discussions on this forum, such as debates around the Great Barrington declaration.

I also refer you to what used to be the norm in the 1970s/80s; it was not uncommon to get 60k excess winter deaths in one year alone (without a pandemic) and this would not be a one-off figure.

We need to get away from this idea that we can sacrifice the wellbeing of younger/disadvantaged people, who generally suffer from lockdowns, in order to keep as many elderly people alive as long as possible.

There were difficult choices to be made, but your suggestion that lockdowns were the only obvious choice, or that continuing of such restrictions is anything but a terrible idea, is just one point of view that many of us - who can see the bigger picture - are entitled to object to.
 

haggishunter

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There were difficult choices to be made, but your suggestion that lockdowns were the only obvious choice, or that continuing of such restrictions is anything but a terrible idea, is just one point of view that many of us - who can see the bigger picture - are entitled to object to.

As a point of clarity, I'm not suggesting lockdowns were the only choice subsequent to the first one, though I don't think there was an alternative by late March 2020 given the situation the UK had got itself in. However, I'd say the subsequent lockdowns and the duration of the winter 2021 one were at least in part due to a failure to act more decisively at an earlier time.

The Aberdeen City local lockdown in August 2020 being a case in point that moving early and decisively, meant it suppressed the outbreak within a 3 week lockdown, whereas subsequently areas that were slower to be put into local lockdowns stayed in them for much more extended periods. Looking back over some older threads in here, the covid protection levels in Scotland were much derided, but they did mean Scotland only had 1 fully national lockdown vs 3 in England and because the prevalence was lower here when the mainland moved into Level 4 on Boxing Day, the lockdown was not as restrictive in Scotland as it was in England.

While the Kent/Alpha* variant subsequently scuppered the commercial ski season on 5th January after 11 days of Level 4 operations, outdoor tennis and golf clubs remained open, the 5 mile beyond your local authority boundary rule enabled people in every Scottish local authority to reach rural / hilly areas for outdoor recreation.

I will concede that being into mountain activities and living in the Highland Council area and being under Level 4 was a different kettle of fish to being stuck in a city flat under England's lockdown. But that's partly about how HM Government handled things, and why I prefer to see ongoing base mitigations such as are in place in Scotland, to help reduce the risk of another lockdown situation in a month or so's time.
 

duncanp

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I get utterly sick of the “blue heart” types preaching at how going into a shop without a mask is some kind of disworship to the NHS.

What has been going on with GP access is nothing short of a national scandal, and this is going to manifest itself in numerous avoidable deaths where conditions have failed to be diagnosed in good time. Not good enough.

You are absolutely correct, as this report from The Telegraph shows.

This is only the start.

The effect of lockdown and all the other restrictions on physical and mental health has been swept under the carpet for too long, but you can't hide it forever.


Alarm grows as mortuaries fill with thousands of extra non-Covid deaths​

Call for ‘urgent inquiry’ as 9,300 more people than usual die in the past four months from non-coronavirus causes

Nearly 10,000 more people than usual have died in the past four months from non-Covid reasons, as experts called for an urgent government inquiry into whether the deaths were preventable.
Fears are growing that NHS delays at the height of the pandemic left large numbers of people with previously treatable conditions suffering illnesses that have now become fatal.
Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that England and Wales registered 20,823 more deaths than the five-year average in the past 18 weeks. Only 11,531 deaths involved Covid.
It means that 9,292 deaths - 45 per cent - were not linked to the pandemic.

‘We urgently need to understand what’s going wrong’​

Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, said: “I’m calling for an urgent investigation.

“If you look at where the excess is happening, it's in conditions like ischemic heart disease, cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes, all which are potentially reversible.

This goes beyond just looking at the raw numbers and death certificates. We need to go back and find if these deaths have any preventable causes.

“This could be the fallout from the lack of preventable care during the pandemic, and what happens downstream of that.

“We urgently need to understand what’s going wrong and an investigation of the root causes to determine those actions that can prevent further unnecessary deaths.”

Weekly figures for the week ending November 5 showed that there were 1,659 more deaths than would normally be expected at this time of year. Of those, 700 were not caused by Covid.

The excess is likely to grow as more deaths are registered in the coming weeks.

Data from the UK Health Security Agency show there have been thousands more deaths than the five-year average in heart failure, heart disease, circulatory conditions and diabetes since the summer.

The number of deaths in private homes is also 40.9 per cent above the five-year average, with 964 excess deaths recorded in the most recent week, which runs up to November 5.

Kevin McConway, emeritus professor of applied statistics at The Open University, said: “Numbers of deaths from all causes do usually increase at this time of year, but the total number remains above the average for the corresponding week in the five years 2015 to 2019.

“So, on that definition, we still have excess deaths, as we have had for 18 straight weeks now, and not all those excess deaths are due to Covid-19.

“And we’re still seeing considerable excess numbers of deaths in people’s own homes, compared to the 2015-19 average, with most of those deaths not involving Covid-19.

“In the most recent week, there were 891 excess deaths at home that did not involve Covid-19 – that’s about 127 a day.”

Record waiting lists​

The NHS is still struggling to clear the backlog of treatment created by the pandemic, with one in 10 people in England - 5.8 million - currently waiting for an elective procedure, the highest number ever recorded.

A report published this week from the Royal College of Nursing warned that more than 120,000 people had been forced to wait for at least four hours in accident and emergency departments in October, an increase of more than 50 per cent since October 2019

Ambulances are also taking longer to reach patients,

with heart attack sufferers now waiting an average of 53 minutes before help arrives - nearly three times the NHS target. The number of patients treated in corridors has risen nine-fold since October 2019.

Data from the continuous mortality investigation from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries is also starting to show some non-Covid excess, with nearly 100 extra deaths in the most recent week.

The investigation has previously said that recent excess non-Covid deaths were linked to the ageing population, with more people expected to die this year than last.
 

yorkie

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As a point of clarity, I'm not suggesting lockdowns were the only choice subsequent to the first one, though I don't think there was an alternative by late March 2020 given the situation the UK had got itself in. However, I'd say the subsequent lockdowns and the duration of the winter 2021 one were at least in part due to a failure to act more decisively at an earlier time.
All lockdowns do is delay cases.

The Aberdeen City local lockdown in August 2020 being a case in point that moving early and decisively, meant it suppressed the outbreak within a 3 week lockdown, whereas subsequently areas that were slower to be put into local lockdowns stayed in them for much more extended periods.
It's a myth that lockdowns which are early and hard hitting prevent the need for future lockdowns, or that the virus somehow goes away.

Looking back over some older threads in here, the covid protection levels in Scotland were much derided, but they did mean Scotland only had 1 fully national lockdown vs 3 in England and because the prevalence was lower here when the mainland moved into Level 4 on Boxing Day, the lockdown was not as restrictive in Scotland as it was in England.
Many people would disagree with the suggestion that Scotland has had a shorter duration of restrictions than England.

Sturgeon has been keen to do things differently for political purposes.

Last time I looked, case rates were higher in Scotland than in England, and if you want to judge the effectiveness of measures you probably should wait until endemic equilibrium has been reached before making a judgement.

But if the restriction Sturgeon enjoys imposing so much are effective, why aren't cases in Scotland much lower than in England?


While the Kent/Alpha* variant subsequently scuppered the commercial ski season on 5th January after 11 days of Level 4 operations, outdoor tennis and golf clubs remained open, the 5 mile beyond your local authority boundary rule enabled people in every Scottish local authority to reach rural / hilly areas for outdoor recreation.
Such rules are Draconian nonsense that don't make the virus go away. I don't see how they can be legal and certainly aren't enforceable. To see anyone defend such rules is absurd.

I will concede that being into mountain activities and living in the Highland Council area and being under Level 4 was a different kettle of fish to being stuck in a city flat under England's lockdown.
It's certainly true that people like yourself are statistically much more likely to benefit from lockdowns, while deprived groups are much more likely to suffer from lockdowns.

I make no apologies for challenging those who support lockdowns and highlight the plight of many people who are from deprivation backgrounds; as someone who works with disadvantages people, I'm proud to speak out against the elites who benefit from lockdowns and I'm not going to let any lockdown supporter have an easy ride.

But that's partly about how HM Government handled things, and why I prefer to see ongoing base mitigations such as are in place in Scotland, to help reduce the risk of another lockdown situation in a month or so's time.
There won't be another lockdown, at least not on England.

I would have said it can't be ruled out where the likes of power mad Drakeford and Sturgeon are in charge, but the harsh reality for them is that furlough no longer exists.

The idea that vaccine passports or the wearing of ineffective loose fitting flimsy masks prevents lockdowns is utterly absurd and there is absolutely no evidence for this.
 

yorkie

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I really hope @yorkie is right in his prediction here - but Boris Johnson did sadly appear to be preparing the ground the other day when he said he couldn't rule one out
If there was one, it would need furlough to come back; it would be largely ignored and it would be utterly pointless.

You could argue a case for locking down unvaccinated people (I don't agree with this as it is dehumanising and creates a two tier society) as Austria has done; also a case could be argued for locking down people who are more susceptible to serious illness e.g. elderly people, but this would have to be voluntary / guidance.

There is no viable way forward in this regard; the idea that fit & healthy vaccinated individuals should be locked down, and/or that they would accept being locked down, is absurd

The Netherlands 'lockdown' seems likely to result in many people mixing in their homes, so the effectiveness of this is highly questionable (though if it's mostly younger people doing this, that is not likely to translate into many hospitalisations and deaths, but the idea they are 'safer' mixing in homes than in pubs and restaurants is absurd)
 

Smidster

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I really hope @yorkie is right in his prediction here - but Boris Johnson did sadly appear to be preparing the ground the other day when he said he couldn't rule one out

There is zero chance of the type of "lockdown" that you saw back in March 2020 or January 2021.

Restrictions do however still seem an inevitability - I would expect an announcement over next week or two as they look to minimise socializing in the run up to Christmas.
 

Watershed

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Higher covid prevalence in the community, means a higher prevalence of ill or isolating staff which obviously has an additional constraint factor on the ability of the NHS to provide a full service - there needs to be a guarantee that a minimum safe staffing level can be maintained to look after the patients that are in hospital, hence why health boards (and Trusts in England) have been forced into the emergency 'code black' status when there's been peaks of particularly high covid prevalence in their areas.
The only people who now need to isolate are those who test positive. Even at current Covid rates of around 1 in 50, and even assuming that rates among NHS staff are a little higher due to their increased number of close contacts, that is not a figure which should be putting hospitals into 'code black'.

And if the situation really is so dire - how can the NHS afford to fire staff who don't get vaccinated? That is likely to involve a far higher proportion of staff, who will take a very long time to replace (whereas the majority of those testing positive for Covid will return straight after their 10 days of self-isolation).

It's blatantly obvious that the NHS cannot cope with demand, but to blame this on Covid is delusional. And the answer isn't to constantly go in and out of restrictions to try and delay cases. The majority of governments around the world - even those of previously "zero Covid" countries such as Australia - have belatedly begun to accept that.
 

NorthKent1989

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I agree the threat of them is to drive vaccine rates up. Although I consider a vaccine passport a complete waste of time I don't trust the government not do do yet another u turn and introduce them anyway

It's not going to happen. It didn't happen in September because there was a big backlash and test events found the ideas to be problematic.

The main reasons for Scotland & Wales implementing it is clearly for political purposes.

I believe that passports could still be on the cards as I don’t trust this administration to do another u turn, however most of believes that they won’t be introduced.

Unlike in Scotland and Wales, there was a significant backlash against such thing being brought in.

It does help that England is a bit of a wild card when it comes to politics and the Tories are perhaps afraid that they may lose not just MP’s who are actively against such infringements into our civil liberties but voters to Reform U.K. party
 

Bikeman78

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Vaccinations have significantly reduced but not broken the link between covid infections and hospitalisations. Some people seem to be unable to grasp that a small % of a very big number is still a big number and therein lies the problem, as observed by the Irish Taoiseach earlier today - even with a highly vaccinated country you can't let the situation spiral into exponential growth or you end up with a situation no health service anywhere could cope with.
The NHS was broken long before Covid with some people waiting a year for treatment. How can that be regarded as a success? It's difficult to see how it will get out of the current mess.
 

35B

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Vaccinations have significantly reduced but not broken the link between covid infections and hospitalisations. Some people seem to be unable to grasp that a small % of a very big number is still a big number and therein lies the problem, as observed by the Irish Taoiseach earlier today - even with a highly vaccinated country you can't let the situation spiral into exponential growth or you end up with a situation no health service anywhere could cope with.
Indeed. But the question - which that doesn't answer - is over what the limits are on that exponential growth. The presumptions - and policy prescriptions - of a year ago are now at best highly questionable.
 

duncanp

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Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Sky News is now reporting that Scotland is considering whether people should be required to show a vaccine passport AND a negative COVID test before being allowed entry to certain settings.

If this were to become a reality, it would bring into question the whole point of the vaccination program. (ie. What is the point of being vaccinated if you can't get back to a normal life free of petty restrictions such as COVID tests for settings such as theatres and cinemas.


People in Scotland may be required to show both a negative COVID test and a vaccine passport before being allowed into certain venues.

Deputy First Minister John Swinny said this "theoretical option" was being considered amid a discussion on whether the passes should be expanded.

Nicola Sturgeon is due to announce decisions on this to Holyrood next Tuesday.

People have been required to provide proof of vaccination in certain situations since September, but this could be extended to theatres and cinemas.

It currently applies to nightclubs and some other large events.

Mr Swinney said any change "would have to be a judgment that was considered as part of this process, the government has not come to a conclusion on the question of adding on a testing element to the programme".

He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme it was possible that people could be required to show both a vaccination certificate and a negative COVID test for some "high-risk locations".
 

Watershed

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Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Sky News is now reporting that Scotland is considering whether people should be required to show a vaccine passport AND a negative COVID test before being allowed entry to certain settings.

If this were to become a reality, it would bring into question the whole point of the vaccination program. (ie. What is the point of being vaccinated if you can't get back to a normal life free of petty restrictions such as COVID tests for settings such as theatres and cinemas.
If anything, being required to show a negative Covid test is much more logical if the aim is to reduce the spread of the virus at a given event - which is ostensibly the purpose of a vaccine passport scheme.

Of course - and the Scottish goverment tacitly admitted as much - this is actually about forcing people to get vaccinated because it reduces the burden on the health system when/if people get infedcted. Which is a rather different issue.
 

MikeWM

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Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Sky News is now reporting that Scotland is considering whether people should be required to show a vaccine passport AND a negative COVID test before being allowed entry to certain settings.

They're probably doing the time-honoured politican trick of announcing they're thinking about doing very bad thing A and even worse thing B, so that everyone is relieved when they 'only' do A, rather than annoyed at thing A being very bad to start with.
 

takno

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They're probably doing the time-honoured politican trick of announcing they're thinking about doing very bad thing A and even worse thing B, so that everyone is relieved when they 'only' do A, rather than annoyed at thing A being very bad to start with.
That rather dpeends on the idea that people are listening to their announcements. What will actually happen is people who aren't involved may only hear the bad announcement. Many people who are involved won't hear either and will only find out about the whole mess when they try to get in somewhere and find they can't. This is doubly likely around Christmas because a lot of people will be going out to places they normally wouldn't
 

MikeWM

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That rather dpeends on the idea that people are listening to their announcements. What will actually happen is people who aren't involved may only hear the bad announcement. Many people who are involved won't hear either and will only find out about the whole mess when they try to get in somewhere and find they can't. This is doubly likely around Christmas because a lot of people will be going out to places they normally wouldn't

Well, I didn't say they were *competent* at doing it!
 

Mag_seven

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Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, Sky News is now reporting that Scotland is considering whether people should be required to show a vaccine passport AND a negative COVID test before being allowed entry to certain settings.

If this were to become a reality, it would bring into question the whole point of the vaccination program. (ie. What is the point of being vaccinated if you can't get back to a normal life free of petty restrictions such as COVID tests for settings such as theatres and cinemas.

Yes those ever moving goalposts again. Does Scotland actually have an "exit strategy" or is it all how we can keep this thing going forever?
 

Scotrail314209

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Yes those ever moving goalposts again. Does Scotland actually have an "exit strategy" or is it all how we can keep this thing going forever?
I honestly think it should be a case of Proof of Vaccination OR Negative Covid test.

I don’t think many people would object to doing a COVID test as the vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting it.

I do think Scotland is getting very authoritarian now, and it’s only a matter of time before we follow Austria imo.
 

takno

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I honestly think it should be a case of Proof of Vaccination OR Negative Covid test.

I don’t think many people would object to doing a COVID test as the vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting it.

I do think Scotland is getting very authoritarian now, and it’s only a matter of time before we follow Austria imo.
I'd be more relaxed about doing a test, as long as it's managed in a sufficiently relaxed way, as it would at least prove something relevant to the spread of the disease. Honestly I think the main failure they've got with the tests is that you should have been required to write the date on them, and carry the actual test around, rather then registering whatever you wanted and getting a text sent from the government.
 

Kite159

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A negative test carried out correctly only shows that person was negative at the time of the test. Someone could do a Lat Flow test at 09:00 and come into contact with someone with the virus within an hour.

And isn't those free Lat Flow tests easy enough to fake a negative result by putting a drop of water on the sensor part?
 

Watershed

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Someone could do a Lat Flow test at 09:00 and come into contact with someone with the virus within an hour.
But that would not immediately become infectious, even if it did cause them to become infected.

The bigger issue with LFTs is the unacceptably high rate of false positive and negative results.
 
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