Wales and Scotland Loosen Restrictions – But Very, Very Slowly
Wales abandoned its tough stance on Covid today as its self-isolation period was cut to five days in the face of plummeting reported infections, while Scotland axed work-from-home guidance. MailOnline has more.
From Friday [in Wales] people will be able to end their isolation as long as they have two negative lateral flow tests on days five and six.
Health Minister Eluned Morgan confirmed the changes would come into force from January 28th, the same day the country is expected to complete the move to alert level zero.
It will bring the nation in line with the measures already in place in England and Northern Ireland.
And it comes the day after Nicola Sturgeon drastically softened Scotland’s Covid rules, including ending working from home guidance. …
Scottish First Minister Sturgeon bowed to pressure to axe working from home rules last night as she revealed a ‘phased’ return to the office for millions of Scots.
She told MSPs the Scottish Government is updating its guidance to take effect from next Monday.
Ms Sturgeon has said a requirement for two-metre physical distancing in settings where face coverings are exempt is being reduced to one metre.
The change will apply to settings such as religious services and those carrying out receptionist duties.
Updating MSPs at Holyrood yesterday, the First Minister also announced a change affecting organised activities for children.
She said: “From Friday, face coverings will no longer be required for any adult taking part in organised activities when they are directly interacting with children under the age of five.”
The requirement for secondary school pupils to wear face masks will receive “careful consideration”.
Slow progress in the right direction, but still struggling to let go it seems.
Worth reading in full.
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Now the slaves are conditioned and obedient they can ease off on the leash during half time.
The second half is going to be something else folks !
A period of loosening followed by a false sense of hope. Interesting how Covid and school terms work together. Mid-term is coming up and we’re allowed out to play but what happens after that? We’re still under restrictions which makes it easier to impose new ones for spurious reasons.
Is this what’s around the corner?
“Unvaccinated man denied heart transplant by Boston hospital“.
And the man is 31 years old.
Maybe some crowdfunding to pay for his surgery is in order?
even in the face of the supreme court jab coercion ruling?
Wow this needs to go to court.
What kind of mindset does it take to downvote a comment like this?
Our 77. Different names, but he’s usually around.
the hidden venereal disease. Infects every post. Coward too.
A determinedly contrarian one?
If ever there was a case for someone NOT to get the clot shot it would the 31 year old man who already needs major heart surgery, as is already in the greatest risk category for myocarditis.
If he had had the jab likelihood would be he wouldn’t even make it as far as the operating theatre for his heart transplant.
Absolutely disgraceful.
In other news Pfizer BioNTech working on next gen covid jab for omicron variant. One of its uses is to be given in 3 doses to the unvaccinated. That is obviously how they plan to “catch up” the unjabbed to get them all ‘on the programme’.
“Struggling to let go” is when your Chief Medical Officer, or senior manager in a trust, doesn’t appear to see that the end is in sight and says something like “NI is still in the middle of the pandemic”. As reported on BBC News day before yesterday.
You know when statements like that are being read by the public that the Executive government is going to be very disinclined to remove the remainder of the restrictions, espec mask wearing, in any kind of a hurry.
As Prof Mesmet said, the pandemic has given a lot of people who previously had isolated, meaingless lives, a purpose and an identity, and the post-COVID world will constitute a return to obscurity, isolation and a meaningless existence again, so little wonder they hold onto COVID like grim death, because they face a psychological death when COVID is gone.
Great comment. Self interest drives much of what we see.
Sturgeon?
I was thinking more about all these “public health” experts who are all over our screens, but if Sturgeon is going to return to obscurity I’m all for it.
The sooner the better,
She’ll want to control her people until they vote for independence. She’s in her element at the moment with no opposition at all.
Do you mean Prof Mumsnet?
Desmet, apologies, but Prof Mumsnet describes a lot of the COVIDians very well.
I find the Mumsnet community very depressing. The children they are brining up will hopefully form their own opinions and be less herd-like and more accepting of different opinions. (Whatever happened to diversity and inclusion, eh?). We have a neighbour of the Mumsnet demographic who reported her daughter’s friends to the head teacher when she discovered they were wearing their mask under their noses…
You are right, but people hang on to their every word and while that continues to happen it is very hard to break the vicious cycle and wake people up. They are the narrative and to constantly have to push against that narrative, however gently, feels like trying to push a double decker bus up Mt Everest single handed.
there’s a pandemic of lying by governments.
Nothing more.
Well said.
Meanwhile in “enlightened ” England, on national ‘you can chuck your muzzles away’ day, at least 90% of the customers I saw in my local Tesco’s were still covering up! Un- effing- believable!
As an expat Scot I will be maintaining my policy of remaining at least 480,000 metres away from Nicola Sturgeon.
LOL! That’s very good.
Thank you.
On a more serious point I would ordinarily go “home” several times a year to visit friends and family and explore the beautiful landscape but I have little desire to go there while her regime remains in power.
Understandable.
Presumably, the remaining virus is so enfeebled that a 2-metre jump is now beyond it?
Be free, my little ones, be free… but only until someone sneezes….
Ms Sturgeon has said a requirement for two-metre physical distancing in settings where face coverings are exempt is being reduced to one metre.
She added that this would, over the course of several months, see a further staged reduction: 0.75m, 0.5m, 0.25m ….
You can tell that Nicola Ceausescu would rather sing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ while wearing Geri Halliwell’s Union Jack minidress than ease restrictions.
LOL!
What a vision… Nightmare actually!
https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/welsh-businesses-demand-vaccine-passport-exemptions-after-government-fails-prove-they-work
“The government responded to to first two questions by stating, “This information is not available. There is no guarantee about where someone caught Covid-19, therefore there is no data on cases caught in specific locations.”
In other words, despite imposing COVID passports on nightclubs and numerous other venues, the government has no information on whether they work at all.
Publican Jon Bassett told Wales Online the response to the FOIA request was “unbelievable” and clearly shows that the restrictions aren’t justified.
“My WhatsApp group with other licensees is going crazy since this has gone into the public domain,” said Mr Bassett.
“I would have thought there would have to be more evidence for them to do it. I just don’t get it,” he added.”
Evidence? What has wrinkly little cheap-edition-of-Stalin Dungford to do with evidence? You might as well mention compassion, or humanity, or sanity.
If school kids must wear masks all day, why shouldn’t all office workers?
the kids are being abused.
It’s incredibly frustrating that the devolved governments seem to desire an upturn in infections/hospitalisations/deaths to justify their approaches and to be able to say “I told you so.”
I know it’s nothing new, but I would have been much more content over the past 2 years if the UK had reclaimed its health powers to ensure a unified approach…it’s so tedious having subtle differences
Subtle???
You would have thought that in such a “state of emergency” as presented by a global pandemic of a deadly plague that the UK reclaiming its health powers to ensure a unified approach would have been absolutely essential wouldn’t you?
Very odd that they didn’t do that – and the ensuing differing of restrictions, especially in border areas between England and Wales and England and Scotland has at times made a total mockery of ALL the restrictions and still no one gets it.
Like the golf course that straddles the Welsh border. About three holes couldn’t be played when Engkand first relaxed restrictions, because those holes were in Wales.
And then there’s the football ground that has one set of terraces in Wales, so until last week, fans couldn’t sit on those terraces but could sit on the English ones.
Or the supermarket in Hay-on-Wye., which is in England whereas most of the town is in Wales. So in spring 2020 shops in the town didn’t demand face nappies whereas the supermarket did. And in summer 2021, the supermarket didn’t demand face nappies but all other shops did.
And so ad infi-nitwit-um.
You literally couldn’t make it up??
I assure you I didn’t.
Gulag Wales still muzzled and with Nazi passports. Some relaxation.
In North Wales for a few days at the moment, Annie. About 90 miles away from home and feel we have travelled back in time. Some cafes are still asking for contact details. No problems going maskless in shops as “we’ve been told that we shouldn’t challenge people”.
Escaping tomorrow!
Lucky you to have an escape route.
My contact details in pubs are a pretty piece of fiction, perfected by long practice.
Ours too!
Even England won’t drop everything fully, the testing exemption for arrivals into the reserved only for those willing to prove they’re a fully established member of the vaccinated morons union
If her easing of restrictions is anything to go by, Sturgeon would probably consider continental drift irresponsibly hasty.
If she was in the first episode of Red Dwarf, she’d say three million years wasn’t long enough for Lister to be in stasis.
She knows it is. It was continental drift that welded England on to Scotland. Bad mistake. Before that, they were happily separated by thousands of miles of ocean (Iapetus, the proto-Atlantic).
Bring back Iapetus, say I.
‘Loosen Restrictions’.
I suppose, once you’ve become accustomed to corsets, that it wouldn’t do to step out of them too quickly.
If you become accustomed to being punched by Frank Bruno, it wouldn’t do to have him stop punching you too fast….
They test for the flu since they’ve never isolated Covid-19. Which makes me wonder how they can tell there is a delta variant. They never isolated the virus but they use a test to show the damage of a solution does on monkey kidney cells then show the cellular debris as proof of the virus. So, they can use this method to claim an UNENDING! amount of variants. A lot of cancers and “viruses” are probably just different forms of parasites. Since the tests can’t differentiate between cold and flu and covid then doesn’t that mean ivermectin cures both the cold and the flu? Welcome to “they’ve been lying to us our entire lives about everything”. Get your Ivermectin while you still can! https://ivmpharmacy.com
McSturgeon and Droneford will never relinquish the powers they’ve grabbed during the past 2 years. Powers will have to be ripped out of their antiseptic hands by rebellious Celts! True freedom is being able to say enough is enough.