Return of fans

[Satan 470]

59 minutes ago, roarer said:

Bloody government! Who do they think they are! Trying to save lives! 

Better late than never I suppose. 

[roarer 119]

Yes indeed. 

[Scotty 2,666]

On 12/20/2020 at 9:25 AM, Jack Waddington said:

I'm not sure if anyone agrees with me on this, but it is ludicrous that we are being looped in with the rest of Scotland and being dragged into Tier 4. It's utterly stupid .... It's farcical that we, as I stated before, as the region with the least infections (22 per 100k people), it's a joke that we've been boosted up by 3 tiers.

 

If you dont already, reading @Charles Bannerman figures on Facebook might be right up your alley. He has been saying much the same thing for a while and as an ex-teacher he seems to have an endless supply of graph paper to do things old-school!  Very interesting reading and analysis. 

Overnight, Canada has just banned flights from UK for next 72 hours with a review after that due to the super-strain in the south of England and we ourselves are going back into full lockdown across the province of Ontario at the end of the week (already in lockdown here within Toronto city limits) due to surging numbers that are higher than March but nowhere near the apocalyptic numbers of our neighbours to the south. 

Is Sturgeon taking lessons from the PM of New Zealand? She got a huge amount of pushback when she shut that country down at the start of the pandemic but look at them now .... one of the few countries to have it eliminated (or technically almost eliminated as there are still a handful of live cases). She won a landslide re-election victory recently, so I guess despite the hardships, the Kiwis know she is doing an excellent job compared to other world leaders.    

 

[+old caley girl 1,783]

9 hours ago, Jack Waddington said:

I mean, yes? Why wouldn't it be? I was giving an example of how ridiculous it is to be thrown further into Lockdown Hell and the effects of it. Can't exactly use anyone else as an example cos I don't know how it would precisely impact them, hence the reason I used my predicament as the example. Wasn't supposed to be a "me me me" thing, it was the only example of being shafted by government rulings I had to hand...

Maybe if you did my job youd not feel its ridiculous? Its for the good of the many. Imagine trying to stop folk getting sick....

 

 

[lizi 522]

Well said - and stay safe.  X

 

[Fraz 1,411]

7 hours ago, Scotty said:

If you dont already, reading @Charles Bannerman figures on Facebook might be right up your alley. He has been saying much the same thing for a while and as an ex-teacher he seems to have an endless supply of graph paper to do things old-school!  Very interesting reading and analysis. 

Overnight, Canada has just banned flights from UK for next 72 hours with a review after that due to the super-strain in the south of England and we ourselves are going back into full lockdown across the province of Ontario at the end of the week (already in lockdown here within Toronto city limits) due to surging numbers that are higher than March but nowhere near the apocalyptic numbers of our neighbours to the south. 

Is Sturgeon taking lessons from the PM of New Zealand? She got a huge amount of pushback when she shut that country down at the start of the pandemic but look at them now .... one of the few countries to have it eliminated (or technically almost eliminated as there are still a handful of live cases). She won a landslide re-election victory recently, so I guess despite the hardships, the Kiwis know she is doing an excellent job compared to other world leaders.    

 

Thing is the Prime Minister of NZ can control her borders the FM of Scotland can't. 

In one conversation I had today a colleague told me of 3 people from SE England they knew coming up for the Highlands for the festive period this week. Flights still running, trains still running, road's wide open. No tests or no checks. 

[Satan 470]

Well, she can control her borders here, just chooses not to. Even our 'lockdowns' were flimsy compared to NZ & Aus.🤨

[Scotty 2,666]

18 hours ago, Fraz said:

Thing is the Prime Minister of NZ can control her borders the FM of Scotland can't. 

In one conversation I had today a colleague told me of 3 people from SE England they knew coming up for the Highlands for the festive period this week. Flights still running, trains still running, road's wide open. No tests or no checks. 

It's similar over here ... our land border with USA is officially closed but flights are still coming in from all over the place, including USA because Canadian citizens and permanent residents have a right to return (obviously). The problem is how returns/movements are handled.  We had a trip planned in March and decided to go ahead with it as the locations we were travelling to/from were largely unaffected at the time, the virus seemed localised to certain spots, and we were also travelling with others ... long story short but things went batsh*t crazy in the rest of the world during our trip and we managed to get home (just) However, it was clear on that return journey that Canada and USA were only paying lip service to precautions whereas other, smaller nations, were not. In Seychelles and Kenya they were doing thermal imaging on arrival/departure as well as temperature checks and quarantining people for 14 days in defined locations if they showed any symptoms. When we landed back at JFK in New York - with a hospital ship on its way there to deal with the exponentially increasing COVID numbers - it was 'hey how you doing? Have a nice day' and back in Toronto airport later that same day, it was 'please take this leaflet and consider following protocols' .... We self-quarantined for 14 days on return, did not set food over the threshold until clear, and relied on neighbours/friends to drop a few essentials on our doorstep. Some others do not seem to take it seriously and didn't/do not bother with quarantine. 

9 months later, we are back in the 'grey' zone in the city of Toronto which is basically a full lockdown (Tier 5 stuff). Even now the premier of Ontario is complaining to the PM that the federal government (who have control over immigration and airports etc) are still not being more forceful in enforcing the mandatory quarantine on travellers. Meanwhile - back in some of those places we were, which still have comparatively low caseloads, if you choose to land in the airport, you go to a quarantine location for 14 days - at your own cost - and then and only then are you allowed to go about your daily life... and daily life, for the most part in those places is COVID free.

On the one hand a 14 day quarantine and lockdown could be viewed as draconian and oppressive but those people who flaunt the rules have ensured that our family have essentially had to quarantine for the last 9 months because I am in a higher risk group due to medical history. I know (knew) a couple of people who have died from COVID and the idea of lying on my front in a hospital bed while connected to a ventilator scares the sh*t out of me.  On December 26th, they are putting the entire province in lockdown due to higher numbers, but like Scotland there are very few checks on movement and people are understandably jaded with it all. Some provinces out east did start pulling over cars with out of province license plates and issuing fines if there was not an essential need for them to cross provincial borders, but it's rare.    

I know we all want to get back to normal, but if we need to endure a little more short-term 'pain' to achieve the long-term gain then perhaps we need to suck-it-up!  

Bringing it back on topic ... I still don't agree with the Highlands being moved up to the top tier, but this may be some of that short-term pain I am talking about, and in the absence of any real control, or desire to control, movement of non-residents of the area then perhaps it has to be endured. I am really hoping that one or more of these vaccines do knock this thing down. It will never go away completely, but if it can be controlled or minimised with a vaccine we can hopefully get back to some semblance of our new normal next year. 

[RiG 3,636]

Live local? Have a ST? Might be a sponsor of the club in some capacity? Then you can get in to watch your team just like George Galloway!

[+IBM 1,432]

No wonder the fans are angry 

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/6458085/queen-of-south-fans-msp-george-galloway-tweets-dundee/

[RiG 3,636]

Queens are, rightly, getting slaughtered on Twitter for their laughably bad statement.

 

[+Row S 262]

Even in the Queens' apology you can smell that the rules weren't followed. He's not a director, guests are not allowed and there was non essential travel involved. Surely some form of punishment will follow.

[+old caley girl 1,783]

8 hours ago, Row S said:

Even in the Queens' apology you can smell that the rules weren't followed. He's not a director, guests are not allowed and there was non essential travel involved. Surely some form of punishment will follow.

Cant find the tweet now but they appear to have upset their main sponsor too who confirmed hes not allowed in. 

There is also a pic of the Galloway family in the stand in which George is the only one with a mask on. The others have them round their chin. Another rule broken as should be on at all times whilst in stadium. 

That apology has just wound fans up more that I can see. 

[RiG 3,636]

Their latest attempt at an apology is absolutely laughable. Queens and Galloway have broken basically every single COVID restriction going it seems. An absolute joke.

[Satan 470]

If this was an isolated incident I'd be more agitated,  but from what I've observed, during and after Christmas many many people seem to be picking and choosing which rules it suits to follow and which ones they can ignore.

Not helped by high profile breaching, but generally people aren't stupid and know what they should and shouldn't be doing.

Things will become worse shortly.

[Yngwie 3,962]

Sadly adherence to the rules is pretty poor, which in turn may be because there is pretty much no enforcement of the rules, with no punishment even for various high profile breaches.  If you are relying on the public sacrificing a bit of their liberty and happiness on what is seen as being an optional basis, it’ll be a long time before we get crowds back at games.

[+Row S 262]

Even more annoying when our club has been following the rules in different restriction periods.

I seem to have lost track with the current situation in Ingerland. I was under the impression that they too were in a nationwide lockdown but that was proved wrong with 2000 fans allowed into the Kop for Liverpool v WBA yesterday. No wonder folk are confused.  

[+Robert 1,198]

Liverpool is one of the few large cities just to be in level 2 in England. Level 1 and 2 areas are allowed limited numbers of fans. Many areas are in level 3 with some in level 4 which is similar to what we are in, but I personally think there should be a full lockdown in England as their infection rates are higher than those in Scotland. We still have flights arriving in Inverness from London and Bristol which seems wrong  

From what I’ve seen of games down south with crowds, there seems to be less distancing between people and groups, whilst singing and shouting seems prevalent. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Robert

[+IBM 1,432]

7 hours ago, Yngwie said:

Sadly adherence to the rules is pretty poor, which in turn may be because there is pretty much no enforcement of the rules, with no punishment even for various high profile breaches.  If you are relying on the public sacrificing a bit of their liberty and happiness on what is seen as being an optional basis, it’ll be a long time before we get crowds back at games.

You are right Yngwie, the police are taking no action and I am sure the SPFL will be the same!  Some people didn't cancel their Christmas plans and had the usual large family gathering with no thought for the other folk who are adhering to the rules to try and keep people safe.

[Charles Bannerman 989]

When I spotted that Scotty had been good enough to give me a name check and decided to reply, I realised that I had been in "read only" mode for a long time so hadn't been logged in.

Yes, I've been analysing a lot of Covid statistics, and in Highland we have really got off lightly, although suddenly rather less so since 21st December. We had spent most of this second wave sitting at 5-15% of the case levels Scotland had - eg typically if Scotland was at 150/100K population, we would be at 15. For many weeks a rule of thumb applied that you would have to attend  half a dozen games with (a different) 300 at each before you were likely to have been in the same stadium as one infected person. Highland has the lowest death rate in mainland Scotland, and there have been just 3 Covid confirmed deaths since mid May.

As recently as December 4 there were as few as four people among 64,000 in Inverness who had been diagnosed with Covid during the entire previous week. Although we were allocated to what I call "Tier 1.5" (the original Tier 1, but with the original promise of limited indoor contact withdrawn) we did seem to qualify for Tier 0 but never got it. On Dec 20, our incidence was 14.9, around 15% of the Scottish figure (it had been just 9.3 on Dec 8 ) but suddenly things started to go wrong more quickly in Highland than in the country as a whole because today our incidence is 62.8, or round 40% of the Scottish figure (which in turn is around 40% of the UK figure). Test positivity had been 0.5% but it's now 3.1%, although low Christmas test numbers aimed at the most urgent cases will influence that. In the first wave we never got higher than 30% of the Scottish case figure although if our first wave cases had been diagnosed using the second wave testing regime, incidence might have reached around 85/100K.

So in Highland we have suddenly made a very rapid transition from being almost a Covid free zone to a rather worse place in just a week and indeed the areas which have suffered worst here do seem to be the ones which had been doing best before that - eg also Moray and Dumfries and Galloway. 

One major caveat with these statistics, though - there are so many variables that people can sometimes make them appear to say whatever they what them to say and I do believe that the media, various Governments and some scientific interests have been guilty of that.

My own view is that a better strategy would be not to try to scare the hell out of people to get them to comply to often over-vicious restrictions but to control the disease better by more stringent enforcement of less rigorous constraints.

[Scotty 2,666]

Canada banned flights from the UK for 72 hours when the new variant was discovered in the UK. They have now extended that to January 6th ... but only after 5 cases of the new variant have surfaced here. 2 people on the eastern suburbs of Toronto, 2 in British Columbia on the other side of the country and 1 in Ottawa. Initially none admitted to being in contact with anyone from UK but it turns out that the 1 in Ottawa just arrived from UK and had contact with the two in Toronto and that one of the ones in BC had also just come from UK with the other testing positive being their spouse. 

The ones in Toronto had omitted to tell of their contact with the person in Ottawa, presumably to try and not get them in trouble as there seems to be some familial connection and they stopped to visit on the way to Ottawa by the sounds of it. Arriving at Toronto airport {or any airport in Canada) and not going directly to your destination to quarantine for 14 days is forbidden right now but until its enforced its like trying to collect water in a colander. 

 

 

[Kingsmills 5,886]

In correcting their first abject 'apology' Queen of the South seem to have forgotten which country they are in by, more than once, referring to Dumfries and Galloway moving from 'Tier1' to Tier4' between the time George Galloway and his family were invited to their actual attendance.

The last time I checked, Dumfries was on the Scottish side of the border so, like the rest of mainland Scotland, is in Level 4. Tiers are only applicable in England. If you are going to try to apologise, however insincerity, try to get the basic terminology right.

[Satan 470]

Were they not tier 1 before boxing day?

[Kingsmills 5,886]

3 minutes ago, Satan said:

Were they not tier 1 before boxing day?

Only if they had somehow dragged the town 20 miles south.

[Satan 470]

I think Dumfries and Galloway did go tier 1 for a few weeks , whereas south of the border would have been tier 2 at best.

I think you'll find saint Nicola announced on the 8th that it was moving to tier 1 on the 11th December...

Edited December 29, 2020 by Satan
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