oaksoft

If only scientists and governments across the world had listened to you at every step of the way there would have been zero deaths from covid. When oh when will the experts learn to immediately call in bakers, butchers, candlestick makers and biology teachers in these difficult situations? It's just not on you know. Hmmmph!

In that case, simple is the wrong word and here's why. What exactly are they waiting for? Zero covid cases anywhere in the world? That will never be the case in just the UK never mind the rest of the world. So the only logical conclusion to your argument here is that they're going to stop all tourism permanently. No trade, no tourism, no imports to the area, no exports. You can't "fear" your way out of covid. That sounds anything but simple to me but then again, I don't have to live there so I'm not affected by this madness.

Just saying that trust in people is a political thing not health based.

So why are the pubs not fully open on the islands if nobody is allowed to visit those islands and there are no cases there? Why are there any restrictions at all at zero cases with nobody allowed in?

I do like the smell of a bit of melodrama first thing in the morning. Cannae beat it.

OK so that is called not trusting the public and is a decision based on politics not health data. That's all I'm saying.

Are you actually splitting hairs over a couple of cases? Fair enough.

A political decision then.

Feel free to contribute something constructive once in a while. It's OK, the government have not banned that activity.

Zero cases baz. Zero cases. Perhaps they are cautiously waiting for cases to drop into negative numbers before reacting. You are welcome to attempt an answer to my question about why pubs are currently not allowed to fully open in those areas when they have zero cases.

How does banning the full opening pubs in Orkney, Dumfries and Shetland when they have zero infections cause an importation of cases? That seems a reasonable question to ask.

Fair enough. The point still stands though about restrictions being in place despite the data saying that this isn't necessary from a health point of view.

So like I said, the decision is political rather than based on health data. At the moment you can't travel to those areas outwith your own local authority without good reason anyway. Once the law changes I'm not sure what people on the islands can do to stop others visiting if they want to do so.

I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that at this stage it can't be anything other than political. BTW you can add the Western Isles also at 0 covid cases. Then there's Dumfries and Galloway with just 2 covid cases. In tier 4. Then the entire Scottish Borders area with just 4 covid cases. In tier 4. Shetland Islands with I think just 1 covid case. In tier 4. Argyll and Bute with less than 5 covid cases. In tier 4. That's half the geographical country right there. Closed down almost completely because of fewer than 12 covid cases with most of those being asymptomatic. But seemingly you are not prepared to acknowledge that there might be politics afoot in these decisions. Oh well. Fair enough.

OK then. If this is all based on health data, explain why Orkney is in tier 4 of restrictions with no travel allowed outside their local area despite there not being a single case of covid on the islands?

Yes.

And why would that be? Any and all restrictions could be removed tomorrow with almost no repercussions given most of the population and almost all vulnerable people are now vaccinated. And yet this isn't happening. Right now, continued restrictions are not based on health data but politics.

It had better not be me or I'm going to be very pissed off.

There are differing opinions on all of this. I just wanted to highlight that SNLT had no business labelling these things as facts. He has a habit of doing that.

What on earth is Hladky doing getting involved in something like this when he wasn't even in the stadium at the time. Jeezo.

If you don't care about whether the headline or the article is actually true or not then there's not much to discuss I suppose.

Ah yes I do remember that now. My memory.......pfffft.

Let's see how those "truths" stack up. 1) Joining the EU would be an economic union not a political one. You might not like the EU but joining the EU is simply not the same as being in the UK. Totally different beast. The EU will not be telling us how much to spend on welfare, defence, prisons, pensions, or a raft of other things which right now are dictated to us by the UK parliament. To claim the two unions are the same is intellectual dishonesty. 2) New members are NOT forced to accept the Euro as currency. 3) Joining the EU would NOT have forced us to rely on their vaccination program. 4) He said "You can't be an independent country and be in the EU". Tell that to Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands and all the other countries in the EU. I think, they would disagree. You talk about the "troof?" You can't handle the "troof" boy. Ah the memories. Good ol' Jack. One last point. Farage is spouting his opinion which he is perfectly entitled to do. They are not facts or truth bombs. They are opinions. Best not to confuse the two, Mr Peach Slices.

For spelling I excuse teachers and blame mobile phone operators who thought it wise to charge per letter at the xkluzn ov vwlz! Whit? I am proud to say that I am not old enough to have gone through that. I didn't buy a mobile phone until pricing became child's play to understand. I remember them charging differently based on the network the person you were calling was using soo I just refused to play that game. If you are whooshing me I'm going to be very annoyed young fella me lad. And a bit embarassed too.

I might be mis-reading the article but the author claims there were 3,358,814 deaths in the US with an excess of 503,976 and provides a link to a JAMA article as evidence. That JAMA article actually states that there were 2 801 439 deaths in the last year with an excess of 522 368. Also, you can't credibly compare absolute deaths with previous years because population growth makes that illogical. The population of the US has more than doubled since 1955 for example and has more than trebled since 1900. It's a fatal error to any analysis whatsoever. The author states this so he understands his error but he doesn't correct the heading. The heading and the premise of the article is rendered meaningless at this point. Someone is either manipulating data or has made a mistake. Maybe it's me.