General Chat

The surgery we are with is struggling to vaccinate due to staff being ill so goodness knows when our turn will come.

I agree with everything Kath said. I'm the same as you ZZzzz, I stay indoors all the time, not even going out for a walk, the last thing I want is to catch the virus when the vaccine is being rolled out now. My OH is a carer so I wouldn't want to pass anything onto him either. He's due his second dose of the vaccine in a few days but even then he won't be 100% covered. I know a few people who don't abide by the rules and then they complain when we go into lockdown.

Where we are it is tier 4 and I am clinically extremely vulnerable so I stay indoors apart from going for a walk, I would rather be doing that than catching the Coronavirus.

Scotland is lucky that the new variant hasn’t torn through their communities. If it had then would likely to have more and faster restrictions.

As to clear advice, some people will just not listen or check what they can and can’t do. I’m sure that happens all over.

Phased return of schoolchildren? Is that because our government wants to see how quickly and how far the new variant will take effect before the unis return, because it is supposed to affect youngsters more than the original virus. Again, the words, children and guinea pigs, spring to mind. :-(

He should lock the whole darned lot of us down again as, clearly, some people have no regard for rules, nor for any of their fellow citizens.

Here in the NHS Highland region of Scotland, which covers a huge area from Kintyre to Caithness, there have only been about 1800 cases in total, since the pandemic began. A few regions have had even lower figures.
In my village there have been no cases whatsoever.

However, we are still in Scottish Level 4 at present, to be on the safe side after Christmas mixing. As RG says, that's pretty much total lockdown.

Kath's suggestion of compulsory masks at all times might be sensible in busy towns or cities, but completely unnecessary most of the time in our largely rural area.
Of course, we do wear masks in shops and other indoor public places.

Distancing is much more effective than masks. Masks are just an additional safeguard.

In Scotland, it seems to me, we have had consistently better information, clearer advice, and fewer changes than in England, with the result that most people have been (and are) happy to comply with restrictions.

Only a few weeks ago we were regularly having 3 or less per week in our two small villages.
Checking the Government map for the week before Christmas we had 30 positive results - a 200% increase on the previous week - I hate to think what it is now.
We possibly have a joint population of around 5000

I think that if the first lockdown in March had been continued for much longer and Mr. Cummings hadn't made people around here think that it wasn't really all that important then we might have got on top of the pandemic much earlier without all the chopping and changing we've had. I also think masks should be compulsory whenever anyone is outside of their own house or car.

Kath. x

Why don't they just call it lockdown instead of all the fancy names?

With our tier 4 in Scotland there isn’t much else they can close apart from schools, colleges and universities. In our area pubs and clubs that don’t sell food have been closed since 9th October and those that do, even in tier 3 can only serve non alcoholic drinks.

With the numbers rising so high will a Tier 5 be invented.

If so, I hope the rules will be unequivocal.