Coronavirus

[orkneycadian]

BLataently copied accors from a site here in Orkney......

Someone looked Into this for Lockdown Skeptics and wrote:

What about the cost of the Nightingale Hospital in Glasgow that is shutting its doors. Eye watering!

Further to your story today on the decommissioning contract for the NHS Louisa Jordan facility at the SEC in Glasgow, I had a quick look into the costs involved with this empty COVID-19 hospital.
The contracts page you provided a link that shows it's costing £429,877.48 for a contract merely to appoint a "Lead Advisor consultant to support the decommissioning of the NHS Louisa Jordan temporary field hospital at the Scottish Events Campus (SEC) in Glasgow".
The minutes of the NHS Louisa Jordan Governance Board on May 21st states that total decommissioning costs were estimated at over £4 million, so there's considerably more to come.

A Scottish Government FOI release published on July 22nd shows that no patients were treated at the facility.
This recent spreadsheet from September 10th shows that the final build cost was £30.9 million and monthly running costs have been £2.4 million.
The Herald featured these figures in a story on September 11th.
The Daily Record ran a story on the costs on September 20th, stating that the hospital with no Covid patients will cost taxpayers £67 million.
]But, all is not lost – it has been used to provide healthcare training.
And it may have hosted some orthopaedic outpatient consults.
Multiply these staggering sums of cash across all of the standby Covid facilities, and there's a colossal bill to be paid by taxpayers.
And for what in return?

[ecb]

Article in the Groat online, "New Covid map shows number of coronavirus cases in Caithness areas":

https://www.johnogroat-journal.co.uk...-areas-214081/

[aqua]

What numbers, or ranges of numbers, do the colours on the map represent?

I don’t see a caption or a key.

According to the forum, this is my first post since 3 June, so 4 months ago. Not much has changed here since then.

[aqua]

Ok, I see, you have to visit the Public Health Scotland website.

Having done so, I learned there were more than 100 new cases per 100,000 population in North East Caithness in the week leading up to 1 October. That’s quite a lot!

[Alrock]

From my reading of the map...

25th Sept to 1st Oct...
Wick side = 1-4 positive cases
Thurso side = 0 positive cases

[aqua]

Yes indeed.

If my arithmetic is correct, 4 cases in NE Caithness is more than 100 in 100,000, but 3 cases is not. So according to the map above there were 4 cases in NE Caithness during that 7 day period.

[Scunner]

2 in Thurso area in the past 2 weeks. abroad on holiday, visit Cumbria, and back to Caithness. Tested in Dornoch

[Fulmar]

Yes, well I have heard of cases in the county too. Sadly, Forse of Nature have just had to close for a deep clean and will not re-open until it 100% safe to do so. That is on their Facebook page.

[Neil Howie]

BLataently copied accors from a site here in Orkney......


And for what in return?

the suppression of a pandemic.

Would you rather we take off the masks, stop social distancing and accelerate the spread? Really?

[orkneycadian]

I think Neil you are missing the point of what the original author was saying. They were noting that the total cost of the Louisa Jordan hospital will be at least £67 million, yet has never seen a conoravirus patient. The original author goes on to question the total cost, multiplied across all the temporary hospitals, most of which have also seen no conoravirus patients, and those that have, at a tiny fraction of their capacity. The author then asks what we get in return for all these empty and unused hospitals.

[Fulmar]

Well, it is good news as far as I'm concerned that the hospitals were not needed and I hope that they will still not be needed but until we come through the pandemic, we are not going to know that for sure. Further restrictions will be announced today and polls show that around 70% of the Scottish public support the Scottish Governments approach and have confidence in what they are doing. Must be very galling for you orkneycadian but there it is.

[orkneycadian]

It's also great news that a further 26 billion plus of taxpayers money is going out the door, never to be seen again, including an estimated 1.9 billion going to scammers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54432916http://


Bounce back loans: Taxpayers may lose £26bn on unpaid loans

As you never know when you might need a scammer, it's good to see them being so well supported.

[orkneycadian]

Further restrictions will be announced today and polls show that around 70% of the Scottish public support the Scottish Governments approach and have confidence in what they are doing.

Seems like her approach isn't working though.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54435870http://

"The first minister said in June that she believed Scotland was "not far away" from eliminating the virus.
But the number of people testing positive has increased sharply in recent weeks - in keeping with some other parts of the UK and Europe - despite Scotland generally taking a more cautious approach to the virus than England."

[orkneycadian]

So here we are again. Orkney, Shetland and even Highland being tarred with the same Southern Belt brush;


Source = https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54432006

Glasgow, Lanarkshire and Lothian all with infection rates above the UK average. And somehow, this is considered an achievement for Holyrood, as they are supposed to be doing better than Westmister.

And remember, Aberdeen had a very serious lockdown imposed from Holyrood when they hit 14 cases per 100,000. Its taken until Glasgow reached 176.5 cases per 100,000 before a lesser lockdown was applied there. And the various areas of Scotland are supposed to be treated equally?

So as well as Aberdeen now being very aggrieved with the Scottish Government, you can understand from the graphic above why hospitality businesses in Orkney are wondering why, with 0 cases per 100,000, they are having to effectively close. Drinking outside in an evening in Orkney and Shetland, in October? Aye, right......

On the plus side, Nicola has given a huge boost to the Orkney and Shetland "lets get the hell out of Scotland and secure our place in the UK" campaigns today. Not hearing many folk here tonight thinking that being run by the Southern Belt is still a good idea.

[orkneycadian]

So looking to see how the 4 nations are doing with cases per 100,000

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/cases



And taking the 6th, as the data for the 7th looks incomplete so far.

England - 7138 positive tests out of a population of 56,286,961 (source = wikipedia, 2019 estimate) = 12.68 per 100,000
Scotland - 949 positive tests out of a population of 5,463,300 (source = wikipedia, 2019 estimate) = 17.37 per 100,000
Wales - 130 positive tests out of a population of 3,153,000 (source = wikipedia, 2019 estimate) = 4.12 per 100,000
Northern Ireland - 763 positive tests out of a population of 1,893,700 (source = wikipedia, 2019 estimate) = 40.29 per 100,000

So Northern Ireland are making the biggest pigs ear of it. Scotland are in second place. England are doing considerably better than Scotland, and Wales are glad they managed to go so long without farcemasks. But as we saw from the grpahic above posted yesterday, its the south of Scotland that is really dragging the rest down with it. She's not doing very well is she?

[orkneycadian]

Some interesting data in this link, reported from the Oxford University Centre for Evidence Based Medicine

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...AVID-ROSE.html

Most interesting is that the average age of people dying with conoravirus is 82.4

Meanwhile, the average age of folk dying with other causes is 81.5

And this against a backdrop of an average UK life expectancy (source = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ife_expectancy) of 81.2

So its official. People with conoravirus live longer. OK, well, maybe not quite. But given that the average age of people dying at the moment is higher than the current life expectancy for the UK, its not the most aggressive of pandemics this. Especially since the worlds population has increased by 60 million since the start of the year.

[orkneycadian]

Oh dear, its not working, is it Nicola?

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18...rded-24-hours/

Covid in Scotland: 1246 new cases recorded over 24 hours

You told us it was Weegies going to each others houses that was the main cause. So you banned them (going to each others houses, rather than banning Weegies, per se). Why's it not working Nicola? Your Southern Belt compatriots are dragging down the country, and nothing you are doing seems to be working. Instead, you are shutting down businesses 300 miles away. Will you be surprised, Nicola, when you find that doesn't work either?

On the plus side, the herd immunity is now coming along nicely!

[Fulmar]

I would simply appeal to people, even if you fundamentally disagree and hate what I am doing right now, at least try and remember that I am not doing it because I want to harm you. I am doing it because I want to keep people safe and strike that balance as best I can.


Nicola SturgeonFirst Minister

[orkneycadian]

So she gives no explanation why its not working then?

[orkneycadian]

Dear Auntie Nicola,

Thank you for printing my letter in your Agony Aunt column.

My problem is this. Some months ago, I found a crack in an egg in a box of 6 I bought in Tesco. This worried me a lot, so I tested the other 5 by tapping them with a small hammer. They all cracked too. I bought another box of eggs and tested them with a bigger hammer. Not only did they all crack, but they smashed to bits. Concerned by all of this, I have ramped up my checks on eggs. This has included using nail guns, tarmac whackers, and the latest, a road roller, to perform mass testing on thousands of eggs at a time. They all keep breaking, and I am now finding tens of thousands of weak eggs every day. There's egg everywhere, including on my face. What should I do?

Love

Orkneycadian




Dear Orkneycadian

Stop testing the eggs and just eat the damned things like you used to.

Love

Auntie Nicola