Manx Yeller

"Almost all" - wow that's some stretch in the definition of that phrase

Probably because the government website doesn't seem to have any reference to 2 a week and in fact says: Home testing kits If you have been encouraged by contact tracing as a close contact to take part in a free-seven day home testing scheme, you can collect your Home test kits – called lateral flow devices –from participating pharmacies. Please check the pharmacies list below to see which pharmacy closest to you is offering this collection service. If you are doing the home testing course you will be encouraged to take a test every day for seven days from when you are identified as a close contact. An anonymous online reporting system is available for people to confirm their negative results.

Yes it's 100k tests so based on a "kit" being 7 tests and with currently around 2,000 active cases, if each of them has 7 close contacts, that's the 14k "kits" used up. Seems as though there should be more on the way, but probably only once someone realises that we are out and places another order which will be here in a week or so.... Shame they didn't order 700k tests (100k kits) - might have been enough then.

Just when I thought I couldn't dislike the CM more..... The Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK said: 'Overnight, a number of members of Tynwald have approached ministers to request that the Government again brings forward the proposed changes to the Island’s COVID-19 regulations. The Council of Ministers has agreed to do so. 'I hope those members of Tynwald who were unsure, or who wanted to more fully consider the proposals, have had the time they need. The changes we are proposing broadly reflect a workshop with Tynwald members held on 8 July. 'If Tynwald votes the same as yesterday, then I must be clear that the changes proposed will not be brought forward.' So Tynwald members say they'd like advice from EAG before voting and HQ slags them off for doing so. EAG get 5 minutes notice to provide some advice on it before a meeting but don't get all the information. They say they'll issue a further more in-depth analysis by middle of next week and CM says vote for it today or I'll take my ball away. Ridiculous.

My recollection is that we went from 10 weeks to 12 weeks, not 12 to 10. The 2 week delay was because they finished the last 10 weeker 2nd jab and then had to wait 2 weeks for the first 12 weeker 2nd jab. They could only have avoided the 2 week gap by changing the 12 weekers to 10 weekers.

Maybe @Julie Edge (Onchan) can answer this. Can the PAC recall Minister Ashford and then just read out Dr Glover's statement point by point and then after each point, just ask Minister Ashford if he can rebut that point?! Would clear things up nicely and would seem to be the only way we might get the promised point by point rebuttal...

We are effectively being asked to risk assess and act accordingly. I'm very happy to do this but I do require information on which I can base my assessment. Biggest problem is that we don't really have enough information to do this as, firstly, we don't test enough and secondly, the government hardly reveal anything about the active cases due to their fear over GDPR. The number of cases is about the only information we have on which to base these decisions. Ultimately, if there are only a handful of cases, I'll act differently to if there are a couple of hundred cases.

You seem to forget that the Government agreed a 'robust and speedy system of genomic testing is vital in the fight against' Covid-19. Not sure they have ever agreed the same about tarot card reading...

What was the cause of the 2nd lockdown? I thought it was to do with 2 travellers to the IoM potentially passing covid between them in between the day 1 and day 13 Tests, which wouldn't have been able to go unnoticed if they'd have had day 8 tests. However I could well be wrong!

Agreed, the January lockdown could easily have been prevented if the government had actually brought in the 3 test strategy earlier as many including Dr Glover were asking for. I believe it could actually have been prevented if when they brought the rule in, they had applied it immediately rather than saying it was only for those arriving after a specific date in the future For this lockdown, Dr Glover was very clear on twitter saying that at the start of the outbreak, since it was the new strain, we should be testing school children and be more cautious since it was a more transmissible strain. Instead all we got from our leaders was that the strain doesn't make any difference (which has been blatantly proved wrong) and the whole nonsense around it's all ok as it's all part of the same cluster. If, and it's a big if, they had listened to Dr Glover, we would have been locked down earlier and so, in my opinion, would have got it under control a lot quicker.

I think he did when he went off script to try to clarify things! Should have just left it at the statement.

I enjoyed the "we've been working very hard behind the scenes on this for a few weeks". I mean how hard do you have to work to copy Guernsey's? 😉

I really hope so @Gladys. To me, one of the big issues going forward is going to be different strains that the current vaccines may not work as well for. Having agreed that Hooper phrase about "robust and speedy system of genomic testing", if we don't get something on Island and therefore know about new strains within a day or so rather than a week or 2 so that advice can be given accordingly, we'll be shooting ourselves in the foot *again* Maybe @Julie Edge (Onchan)could ask whether any progress is being made on this? PS. I'm ignoring all the other help that genomics could provide for tracing transmission as I'm hoping we won't get any more large outbreaks as the Government will be all over that having learned all the lessons from the previous outbreaks...

The whole "there's no evidence of blood clots with the 2nd dose" I would have thought that the vast majority of AZ jabs were first doses at the moment? So whilst it's likely to be a true statement, would suggest it's slightly misleading....

Now you are just making up stuff and telling me it's scientific - next you'll be telling me we could use that gernomix thing. No scientific proof whatsoever... 😉