I wish we would get consistent messaging

[Clariman]

The lack of consistency is driving me a bit nuts. Here in Scotland we have to wear face coverings inside public buildings and on public transport, which I think is a good thing. Wearing a mask has little impact on you as an individual but helps protects others and yourself to a lesser extent.

One musical organisation I am a member of is following guidelines to the letter. We are all 2 meters apart, no sharing of music, must register attendance with the app, sanitise on arrival etc. Another we are about 2 feet apart but in small numbers, so I am OK with it. However in a choir that I sometimes help out, everyone was squeezed together singing (producing a lot of aerosols) with zero social distancing. Nightmare. I said I wasn't going back unless they changed it. Thankfully they were thinking of doing that anyway.

This weekend I will be at a wedding with dancing etc where there will be over 150 people, which I am uncomfortable with but Mrs C wants to go. What do you do? I'll go but if it feels unsafe then we may not say beyond the meal.

Hopefully my booster a few days ago will give a tiny bit of extra protection.

I just find this all very difficult.

C

[pje16]

Well here in London TFL (Transport for London) has signs up everywhwre saying your MUST wear a mask while travelling on their transport system (tubes and buses)
BUT
loads of selfish individuals (IMHO) don't bother and TFL no longer have the power to enforce it

PS I went to my firm's conference last month, 290 of us in one very large room
we all had to prove double vaccination, to get admission
now 5-6 weeks later no reported cases AFAIK

[thebarns]

You are not alone C, and I live in Scotland as well.

Scotland does many things differently to England, for reasons well known.

On masking I agree with you and think there is a lot of sense in the Scottish government position.

However, I disagree with their stated intention to either broaden the scope of vaccine passports to more venues such as theatres, restaurants and cinemas from 6 December, or as an alternative introduce further opening and closing restrictions on these venues. I think the latter option unlikely, especially if any financial recompense does not come from a U.K. wide fund, a furlough type arrangement for the affected businesses.

They just produced a so called evidence paper on this that actually had very little evidence at all and basically ignored the most obvious comparison with our closest neighbour England and the fact that infections, deaths, hospitalisations have been very similar throughout the pandemic, each ebbing and flowing. The introduction of vaccine passports in Scotland looks to have had next to no impact of any meaningful differences with English rates of infection, hospitalisations, death, nor the uptake in vaccinations of the unvaccinated. So what’s the point in them and even in extending them further ?

Over 90% of the adult populations of both countries have now had at least one dose, some of the remaining 10% will have had Covid already, vaccine passports do not stop infections passing between the vaccinated who attend these venues and the unvaccinated, if banned from certain venues, will just meet up in households where statistically most infections happen anyway.

I share your concern on wedding venues as we are due to attend a wedding at a venue which recently hosted a large student ball, an event at which vaccine passports were in place, only double vaccinated were allowed in, all catering staff at the venue were masked (is there anything more pointless than having catering staff mask up when literally hundreds of guests are all unmasked !!), and yet there was a significant outbreak of Covid amongst the attendees.

I think we all just have to make our own judgement primarily based around mainly two things 1) where one is individually on the vaccination cycle, ie double vaccinated but more than 4-6 months ago, or boostered with the third jab which appears to give good protection for a number of months. And 2) the nature of the event -70 people at a venue with lots of space and ventilation, or 25 people in a crowded room etc etc etc. So basically leave the choice to the individual.

[EverybodyKnows]

Sounds like the choir group are being irresponsible and you are being sensible.

I think the reception is the big risk here rather than the ceremony. I would go to one but not the other.

(I tended to avoid receptions given the chance pre-covid....so would be keen to avoid them more so during covid.)

[88V8]

The consistent messaging from me this winter is that good ventilation is very important.

We will be going again to a country-house hotel over Xmas, last year they kindly agreed to seat us in a separate room where we opened a window immediately adjacent the table.
Not sure what we'll do on that front this year.

But we certainly won't be visiting any cafes etc where the lack of ventilation is betrayed by steamed-up windows.

V8 (thrice jabbed)

[Clariman]

Well the wedding and celebration is over. I haven't been with more than 20 others at any time in the last 20 months and that was only recently, so >150 felt mad and high risk. Everyone was asked to do a lateral flow on the day so let's hope they did.

Luckily our table was the one nearest the door so we were not in the midst of the throng. We did just one dance because there were too many people. I was adamant that I wouldn't do any set ceilidh dances I.e. group dances. That would have been madness.

It makes no sense to me that we have to wear masks indoors and on public transport. This includes hospitality settings when you are walking around. However the fact that you eat and drink in a wedding venue means you can dance close to others with no masks.

I'm thankful that the latest data for Scotland is only about 1 in 95 having covid. So if a cross section of the population were there only 1 to 2 people would have had it. Given that everyone was asked to do a lateral flow then hopefully there was noone with covid there.

I'll relax more if and when I get a negative lateral flow in a week's time.

After that, my booster should be more or less up to strength and I'll br further protected.

C

[MrFoolish]

Get vaccinated to protect others has been the persistent message.

But then I heard recently that whilst the vaccine will reduce your symptoms, it won't do much to stop you contracting covid and passing it on.

So who knows what to think any more?

[servodude]

Get vaccinated to protect others has been the persistent message.
But then I heard recently that whilst the vaccine will reduce your symptoms, it won't do much to stop you contracting covid and passing it on.
So who knows what to think any more?

None of this stuff is absolute, the only way to prevent transmission is to remain absolutely isolated from anyone else; which is impractical and serves only to define the limit of the problem in one part of the space of possibilities
- most of us will live and operate in a difference part of that space

Vaccination greatly reduces your chances of become badly ill; the amount of reduction will depend on a lot of things, age, dosing, time since, etc
- but you can be sure it is not making your chances worse

It also does reduce your chances of contracting the virus.
If you do get the bug you can expect to suffer less than you would have without it; you can expect to experience lesser symptoms, to be ill for less time. All this compounded reduction reduces the chance you will pass it on.
It (along with restrictions/masking/testing etc) helps close the window of opportunity for the virus to pass from "someone" to "a different someone"

From a pandemic perspective, at the gross population level - "every little helps"

It's that concept that leads to what appear to be conflicting conditions such as Clariman describes:

It makes no sense to me that we have to wear masks indoors and on public transport. This includes hospitality settings when you are walking around. However the fact that you eat and drink in a wedding venue means you can dance close to others with no masks.

The fact of a wedding, and its associated relaxing of restrictions, doesn't negate the benefit of all the other mitigations at a macro level
- it just opens the window of opportunity for the virus to spread that little bit wider for a brief period of time in a localised place
at the personal level though it does raise awkward and interesting quandries

- sd