‘Across the UK’ is the first sign of what is to come.
Then it’s ‘as the number of Covid infections continues to rise across the UK.’
Are they? No. 967 today and 740 cases yesterday. 1 149 the day before. 1 314 cases on the 24th and 1 504 on the 21st.
A few minutes later: ‘In Scotland, clinicians are issuing another warning – that the NHS could be overwhelmed and are appealing to adhere to Tier (sic) 4 restrictions after they were eased on Christmas Day.’
A strangely cheerful Prof Jackie Taylor came on to warn us Jocks not to get too bevvied up for the New Year even though Nicola has already banned any parties on the 31st. Still, I guess she was pleased to be invited on the Telly and had to say something to show that our hospitals might get overwhelmed too.
Will they? These Scottish graphs suggests otherwise:
Hospital admittance falling and ICU level static.
Huge ICU capacity unstretched so far.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
967 today and positivity still 12. If these figures are right we’re still keeping it down
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Thanks
Didn’t have today’s figures at time of writing
John
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Good news. But the britnat media will continue to do down Scotland, and the supine SNP will let them.
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Doug,
I am genuinely interested – what should the SNP do? They don’t control the media
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But..she’s a professor,and….on the BBC….it must be true!
Sadly she probably didn’t know how the BBC were going to (mis)use her piece.
The BBC getting desperate now on how best to flood our airwaves with disaster scenarios.
I wonder what the next sequel will be….I know it will be very bad with the Reporting Scotland Propaganda face in a full sucked in sour frown
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The MSM is ignoring Scottish data. The focus is on the potential of the new variant to reach all parts of the UK and affect Scotland’s ability to cope.
Scirntists are alarmed by this new variant. This is a bit from a study that has not yet been peer reviewed.
“Our estimates suggest that control measures of a similar stringency to the national lockdown implemented in England in November 2020 are unlikely to reduce the effective reproduction number Rt to less than 1, unless primary schools, secondary schools, and universities are also closed. We project that large resurgences of the virus are likely to occur following easing of control measures. It may be necessary to greatly accelerate vaccine roll-out to have an appreciable impact in suppressing the resulting disease burden.”
Independent SAGE thought there should not have been easing of restrictions in Scotland on Christmas Day and made this tweet on Christmas Eve
“NEW: Independent SAGE met last night to discuss the worsening crisis. The govt [UK] admits Tiers 1-3 [England] cannot contain the virus. We fear Christmas Day mixing in context of new strain will create 1000s of dangerous super-spreading events.
The entire UK needs to go into Tier 4 *TODAY*.”
A member of Independent SAGE, Professor Christina Pagel, produced a long thread in the twitter feed of the group. It included this on Dec 26.
“We need a radical rethink of how we control the virus. The new variant is seriously bad news and, especially with Christmas, we are unlikely to have stopped it spreading across the country. Unfortunately I think the next 4-6 weeks are going to be pretty awful. 12/13
There really is no point in sugar coating it. If it weren’t for the vaccine(s) I’d be seriously scared out of my wits. I still am pretty scared. The govt urgently needs a new plan – with national tier 4 being only the start. 13/13”
I know people who were thinking of breaking the rules. They intended to travel from Edinburgh to a place in England in Tier 4. The fear of being caught stopped them this time, though not in the past. Undoubtedly, some Scots will be bringing back the new variant.
What we don’t know is also important. Professor Allysson Pollock co-wrote this, not about the variant.
“It’s also unclear to what extent people with no symptoms transmit SARS-CoV-2. The only test for live virus is viral culture. PCR and lateral flow tests do not distinguish live virus. No test of infection or infectiousness is currently available for routine use.678 As things stand, a person who tests positive with any kind of test may or may not have an active infection with live virus, and may or may not be infectious.9
The relations between viral load, viral shedding, infection, infectiousness, and duration of infectiousness are not well understood. In a recent systematic review, no study was able to culture live virus from symptomatic participants after the ninth day of illness, despite persistently high viral loads in quantitative PCR diagnostic tests. However, cycle threshold (Ct) values from PCR tests are not direct measures of viral load and are subject to error.10”
Nothing would, in a few weeks, please me more than for you to be able to say to me, “I told you so”.
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“We are all in this together”. —-Only if we are daft enough to stay!
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‘Across the UK’ ?
Where exactly was that perspective when anywhere but London and South-East England were desperate ? A footnote on the weather forecast.
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I am much less interested in the view of the media and much more interested in the view of scientists and that alarms me greatly.
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