The headline “SOTA in England” seems clear enough to me…
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I’ll wait and see what the legislation says. (it hasn’t changed yet!)
The guidance hasn’t changed much at all as far as I can see. The overriding message is stay at home if possible. So, if it’s possible to stay at home, stay there! If you need to go out to work, for medical reasons or for other necessity, carry on. We should be thinking of how to best comply with the guidance and not how to find a way to make it fit our own limited circumstances.
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I agree Alan. The guidance has been slightly altered. Why? It must be to improve health - mental and physical. I intend to comply with the guidance, including availing myself of new opportunities that are good for my health and wellbeing.
It has just been announced on the radio that fishing will be allowed again from Wednesday, and golf courses will be open. Those are useful parallels.
As you say, the published legislation has not changed yet, and the first priority will be to study that in detail as soon as it is. I would be astonished if it turned out to contradict the content of last night’s PM broadcast though.
Seems several people on here, and a great many more on social media, feel they know more and have a higher moral authority on this matter than the UK Government. As I mentioned earlier, I understand why this is the case, but I don’t think it is particularly healthy or helpful.
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Drawing the Fishing parallel (I have enjoyed fishing, but don’t play golf…) and comparing with a SOTA activation…
Walking involved in both, to get to the location of the activity, probably more in the case of an average SOTA summit.
Sitting in the fresh air & hopefully sunshine in both. Potentially less time for SOTA activation, depending on contacts of course.
Risk of encountering others? Possibly less in fishing if on a Lake / river, it Canal fishing would be more I’m guessing, with towpaths being popular for excercise currently.
On balance, I’d say that the overall risk to yourself & others is equal for both activities - and I wouldn’t expect the Government to know about SOTA, but by mentioning fishing & golf, I’d say they were giving us a chance to compare activities and make an informed decision?
All depends on the individuals decision of course, but they are seeming to be passing the onus to stay safe to us, the public, more now - and personally I would want to be as safe as possible at all times, so would certainly be practicing safe distancing whatever I’ll be doing outdoors.
Won’t be rushing straight out to a SOTA summit, as I’m not physically close enough to that many anyway, but will define be absorbing the more detailed guidelines when they are published to see if there’s anything that specifically prohibits a SOTA activation- as I’m sure a lot of people with their outdoor hobbies will be too.
SOTA is by its nature a solitary hobby - well, for me anyway! And I have always activated as early as I can, primarily to avoid busy times on the hills anyway - so I believe it’ll be one that may be resumed sooner rather than later, with due deference to travel requirements of course.
Just my two ‘pennorth.
Bob
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I too listened last night to the Boriscast.
I too think it was a clear message that we can go outdoors and drive there, to another location, for exercise.
It would be rather perverse that it is now acceptable for me to drive the 20 miles or so to my nearest SOTA summit, (TW-003) and either walk or run the two or three miles and the same on return to my car, but not OK to walk there and sit down in total isolation for, say an hour, whilst activating and then return home. - with or without a car.
BUT:- I live in Robin Hood’s Bay and I know that almost all us locals dread the thought of hundreds of visitors will now be able to pour into our village, where currently all the toilets are shut, along with most of the shops and car parks, park where they like and wander around without a care in the world.
Its OK saying to folk socially isolate and that the virus doesn’t really spread in the open but it just scares many people that many of the visitors will be travelling from places where the virus is widespread…
David
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On page 27 of Our plan to rebuild: The UK Government’s COVID-19 recovery strategy released at 2pm today to the public by gov.uk states:
“People may drive to outdoor open spaces irrespective of distance, so long as they respect social distancing guidance while they are there, because this does not involve contact with people outside your household.”
[England only]
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1st Gulf War - WMD? Respect is earned, not won in a populist vote. Just my humble opinion of course. Democracy may be the best solution we’ve found so far, but that doesn’t make it perfect.
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I’m comfortable with the thought of activating some of my local hills (TW1-3), they are big enough to maintain social distances. I think driving into other areas (LD, SP etc) would be wrong and unfair on the locals in those areas. I think we should also be mindful of potential demands on emergency services, so the more adventurous hills should also be avoided for the time being.
That’s my personal reconciliation of the new guidance.
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The new guidance specifically mentions angling (page 27) which in many ways is similar to what we do. It also says that we can drive as far as we like (presumably day trips only). I think that I will wait for a few days to see how things start working out.
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Well many of us use fishing poles and are often asked if we have caught any so following angling guidance is probably OK.
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The way I see it for England is that SOTA is permitted.
I see it also for Spain zones in Phase-1, with the difference that we are only allowed to drive in our own province territory and you seem to be allowed to drive within the whole territory of England.
It’s clear now that an activity such SOTA, aslong as it’s done with respect to the social distancing and hygienic instructions isn’t adding any thing to the risk of getting infected or infecting to others, particularly during the time spent in the mountain.
The demonstration is in SOTAwatch and the database. See all the many activations carried out mainly in HB9, but also in DL and OE, where we the infections have remained very well in control.
Much more risky is going to food stores and supermarkets, or getting together with other people in parties or living in crowded cities and running along really crowded tracks…
I was busy in the morning and I couldn’t do the activation I had in mind, but anyhow, I think I’m going to activate something easy this afternoon. I’ll definitely be much less at risk on my own in a solitary summit than walking along the mostly crowded Arga river walking track inside the city of Pamplona. The other walkers will also be less at risk without me around.
73,
Guru
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That might be the case. However, the UK government may fine tune the lockdown changes if social distancing rules are widely flouted.
There’s already push back from some authorities in England who foresee problems with large numbers of out-of-area tourists descending on their honeypot holiday locations, especially as the local hospitality businesses (cafes, pubs, etc) are still closed.
e.g. The Cumbrian Police [covering the English Lake District] are saying publicly, please don’t come here.
It would be prudent if activators stuck to their part of the country for the short term until we see developments.
73 Andy
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It is difficult to keep a sense of proportion about this, but if you take the population of the UK and divide it by the number of people who have, plus those who have had an infection by the coronavirus you arrive at one in every 305 of the population. Bearing in mind that this includes all the people who have recovered, the odds against meeting someone who is currently infected are manageable - as long as you observe social distancing you should be OK outdoors. I was probably very much more at risk when shopping in Sainsbury’s this morning! Convincing people of this is problematic…
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Hi Brian
With respect, you are quoting incorrect infection rates there I believe, how do you get 1 in 305 when there was no testing available for most members of the Public until around 10 days ago? The first declared two cases were found to be guests in a York Hotel on Jan 29th - confirmed by test on 31st Jan. If you read this story on the BBC website Covid was likely here a month or more before that, but we cannot be sure yet until anti-body testing is available: Coronavirus doctor's diary: The strange case of the choir that coughed in January - BBC News
I know three people who were sick with most of the listed symptoms in March but were told to self isolate at home. The symptoms were not severe enough to go to hospital, they had telephone appointments with a GP / ring 111. Of the three one is a supply teacher that stayed in a hotel in Almouth in early March. The couple work for the same employer who continued shop floor working to the guidelines recommended by the Health and Safety Executive. One of the couple started coughing on the Tuesday, her and her husband were sent home for one week. The husband was ill and coughing the Saturday after. Eight more staff were sent home coughing from the same factory the same week. Company furloughed around 50 staff from the factory the following week. One of the couple was very ill for three weeks, but not bad enough for hospital. None of these people were tested, they likely had Covid. Some UK scientists estimate the figure who have had Covid here in the UK is in the high 10s to the low teens of percent. That means six million, a long way off 1 in 305. I believe at the last census we were around 66 million.
73 Phil
I can only quote the figures available on line, everything else is just supposition. One thing to bear in mind is that mild symptoms are quite likely to be a common cold or mild 'flu, these diseases haven’t gone away to make way for the coronavirus. It might be tempting to ascribe all such occurrances of symptoms to COVID 19 but without testing it is just a hypothesis, and an unlikely one at that.
I’m not a mathematician but in the last week there have been between 4000 and 6000 new tested cases every day in the UK. 1000s more are being infected every day I would suggest, but without serious enough symptoms to bother arranging a test and driving to a test centre. I will be downloading the tracking app as soon as it is available for my own and others safety.
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It seems as though the Yorkshire Dales National Park is going to open, but reluctantly.
73, Colin
I’m no expert but from reading widely, it appears some of the media and politicians are conflating “infection rate” with “infectivity rate” (or reproduction rate, R0).
In any case, Infection rate as defined ….
… is not a very useful number for comparing different countries or regions according to the excellent BBC Radio 4 More Or Less programme [that explains statistics and debunks statistical claims].
The expert scientist interviewed pointed out the Number of Infections [on top of equation] depends on how widespread your testing is in the target population. So, test more and you find more infected people.
In the UK, until very recently, that was only tested-positive patients in hospital and not people in care homes or in the country at large.
I think the trend in the 7-day rolling average number of daily deaths is a better indication of how well the virus is being managed [e.g. still going up in Russia, going down slowly in many EU countries and plateaued in the USA - although it varies widely by US State].
I am convinced that this virus was moving out into the world as early as October last year. Just see the comments from those who attended the military games in China in October. Strangely we had an out break of some unknown virus here in Newcastle in December. The symptoms exactly match those that are listed for Covid-19. OK it is likely to have been a completely different virus but since many of the people here that I know, had already had the seasonal flue vaccination, it had to be something “different”. I just wish there was an antibody test so we could check.
This is a key number. For Boris Johnson, his R0 value is only 1 this year. If we keep him under lockdown
we will be able to contain his reproduction rate then women of the UK will be safe to go out again.
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