Until there's comprehensive tracking and tracing it's absolutely pointless opening schools right now, and even before September. The government are showing quite well that they're not hitting their own measures fully on testing yet, and even struggling to get it right in the healthcare sector. Until that's sorted then there is no way schools can even consider opening. Currently social distancing is the only protective measure against covid19 and realistically in schools it's extremely difficult to observe that.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Until there's comprehensive tracking and tracing it's absolutely pointless opening schools right now, and even before September. The government are showing quite well that they're not hitting their own measures fully on testing yet, and even struggling to get it right in the healthcare sector. Until that's sorted then there is no way schools can even consider opening. Currently social distancing is the only protective measure against covid19 and realistically in schools it's extremely difficult to observe that.
The unions have set out their tests for what a safe situation is and it's largely them wanting similar measures to other countries such as Denmark and to start under a comparable infection situ. Nothing unreasonable.
Have you seen any evidence to say they aren't a risk? And what evidence is there that its outweighed by other issues? Bit of a bold claim.
The burden is very clearly on the government when it comes to workplace law here, as it is on any employer. Parents not following government guidance in their own time has no impact on the responsibilities of the government to teaching staff and the children themselves whilst under school care. It's only relevant if those same parents then complain about schools safety.
Not sure if I'll be going back un yet when schools return, I work across 4 schools as a it techie.
My boss & colleague are both on the vulnerable list. I've not been in since lockdown. My boss has been in a few times. I've been mainly doing website stuff from home. Certainly kept me busy.
They are looking to open to year 1-6 on the 2nd and Nursery/Reception from 10th.
My main concern is getting teacher devices thrown at me to resolve, 2months off is more than enough time for half of them to have more problems than Covid cases. Do I just hand gel 400 times a day and bring back the sleepless ezcema raging nights.
My boss & colleague are both on the vulnerable list. I've not been in since lockdown. My boss has been in a few times. I've been mainly doing website stuff from home. Certainly kept me busy.
They are looking to open to year 1-6 on the 2nd and Nursery/Reception from 10th.
My main concern is getting teacher devices thrown at me to resolve, 2months off is more than enough time for half of them to have more problems than Covid cases. Do I just hand gel 400 times a day and bring back the sleepless ezcema raging nights.
O'Keeffe's working hands is a saviour for that problem.
Schools are opening along a similar timeframe to other countries in terms of the pandemic and how "raging" it is, so I don't get that argument. They've been given nearly a month to prepare and if the infection rate doesn't follow the pattern expected they would put the date back. It is raging at a point where based on figures and the percentage of people who are in hospital or self isolating, I would need to go out and bump into 1,000 people in order for on average 1 of them to have the virus. If we're talking about up to 30% of the population having been infected at some point, that's not what I would exactly call raging.
We are actually testing at a higher rate than a majority of countries at this point. We were certainly criminally slow off the mark with that but the problem now is you are getting slightly skewed figures in terms of case numbers...we're testing 3-4 times as many people as during the peak of the virus and yet the confirmed case numbers are coming down. That tells you straight away you can't just look at the numbers on their own as a reliable basis. It does though tell you that testing resources are more and more available which is an extremely key factor to something like opening schools.
Is there any evidence where they have re-opened schools as to how much of a risk it is and how much difference it makes? I'd be interested to see as I've not seen anything either way other than conjecture and tabloid level rubbish. I've only seen evidence that in the past with other diseases it's had little effect either way, and even then I'm not sure how extensive or reliable that is or how it translates to corona virus. Admittedly I'm not going to scour through 900 pages of this thread to see if anything has been posted that I've missed.
And again. I have no idea what people seem to think the plan is at this point. I keep saying it and I'm still yet to see an answer. We went into lockdown to help the NHS cope. The mantra around containing or basically eliminating the virus had figures of around 20,000 deaths attached to it in order for it to be succesful...we're on our way to it being over 100,000, and possibly much higher depending on how severe the likely second wave will be. So anything based on this plan is already well past the point of being written off, and was weeks before we even went into lockdown. It's beyond even being an argument. The question anyone who still thinks that was the best course of action should be asking is why didn't go into lockdown weeks earlier or sort out our testing facilities months sooner...and it's all an irrelevance in terms of how to move forwards. At this point people are standing knee deep in water arguing that if we just don't open any doors ever again the flood water wont come in, instead of trying to figure out how to best deal with the fact it already has.
On the last point. I certainly agree it's a different situation when it affects all kids...but it's a different situation for SOME of them. For others who are stuck at home with parents who can barely afford to feed them and start seeing them as a burden it is a much worse situation. https://twitter.com/NSPCCLearning - try speaking to these guys and see what they think of the effect the situation is having on children and particularly on not so well off families. Or just read through some of their twitter timeline. It's a quite serious problem. There are 4 miillion+ people in this country who were living in absolute poverty BEFORE the pandemic. Most of them families. If you have people losing jobs and income because they are being asked to go to work but aren't able to send their kids to school, it becomes a potentially massive disaster. The problem with doing nothing until after the summer break, is you will have the same people putting the same obstacles in the way at that point. it is an inevitability because anxiety is a natural human trait. It's a harsh thing to accept but there is a much bigger and more complicated picture at this stage than just measuring every risk against 1 factor.
Honestly I'm suprised how many leftists there are who are happy to pin themselves to arguments that are completly out of touch with or ignorant of the situation most working class people are in. Not aimed particularly at you but the general attitude from the leftie internet dwellers is more tunnel visioned than most brexit voters views on immigration.
Also I apologise for the long posts. I have no idea how to talk about this subject without writing essays.
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Won't the severity of a second wave be strongly related to the length/quality of the first lockdown?
E.g. if 10 cases grow exponentially for a week before being traced, a second lockdown might not be required. But if 1,000 cases grow exponentially for a week, it's a significantly different problem.
Pick for Britain 
They've only gone and pedestrianised the Curry Mile! Never thought I'd see the day.
I'll post a pic when I get back home.
I'll post a pic when I get back home.
nature is healing, we are the virus
Schools is tricky
Essentially there's Berlin data which suggests that kids can have comparable high viral loads
https://zoonosen.charite.de/fileadm...s-of-SARS-CoV-2-viral-load-by-patient-age.pdf
This was echo'd by CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e4.htm
"persons with asymptomatic and mild disease, including children, are likely playing a role in transmission and spread of COVID-19 in the community "
There's a good summary of the data regarding covid and children here
https://www.businessinsider.com/can...ronavirus-to-others-evidence-2020-5?r=US&IR=T
Incidentally the often-cited study from Vo, Italy that is being used to support re-opening of schools hasn't yet been peer reviewed
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1
Infectivity is difficult to measure and how many adults have become infected in the community as a result of infective kids (as opposed to other adults) is something I'm not sure will be the easiest thing to study. PMIS seems to be rare with cases of about 100 in the UK (higher in the states), deaths in single digits so far, unsure about the mortality data from states.
Basically issue is about kids passing it to each other, which they likely will as they're kids despite the measures in places, now the issue comes in how likely is it that they'll pass it onto their teachers and who they'll pass it onto (given infectious asymptomatic period of disease) and if they'll suffer from the disease and how much they'll suffer from it.
Obviously a lot of social implications of not reopening schools needs to be taken into account. The BMA in the face of scientific uncertainty has packed teacher's unions that are skeptical of re-opening even though editorials in the BMJ have said we should re-open including opinions from many others including infectious disease doctors.
Provided that now that mass testing is available to everyone over the age of 5, if we could get a mass track and trace system in place and if we can have a quick turnaround in results (currently a lot of regional variation, median time of result around 48 hours but a lot of docs, patients reporting longer time depending on where they are)
What I find astonishing is anybody thinking that we absolutely must open schools and vociferously disparage those (including teachers) who express reservation. Most healthcare workers childcare has been a nightmare and juggling that with work.
One of the more nefarious things now is any criticism of government policy by doctor and healthcare workers is being disparaged as political bias. Note how guido fawkes and other papers are targeting doctors who appeared in PPE documentaries as if they were members of some banned rebel group and their opinions disregarded just because they may have been in some form of left-wing activism or loose association with the labour party. I've seen such criticism regurgitated on LBC, talk radio, daily mail
When in actual fact a lot of what doctors are suggesting - border control, quarantine, checks, lockdown goes against their political beliefs.
And if you dare mention risks or nuance with decision making or question government in any way we're getting shouted down as unrealistic.
Essentially there's Berlin data which suggests that kids can have comparable high viral loads
https://zoonosen.charite.de/fileadm...s-of-SARS-CoV-2-viral-load-by-patient-age.pdf
This was echo'd by CDC
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6914e4.htm
"persons with asymptomatic and mild disease, including children, are likely playing a role in transmission and spread of COVID-19 in the community "
There's a good summary of the data regarding covid and children here
https://www.businessinsider.com/can...ronavirus-to-others-evidence-2020-5?r=US&IR=T
Incidentally the often-cited study from Vo, Italy that is being used to support re-opening of schools hasn't yet been peer reviewed
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1
Infectivity is difficult to measure and how many adults have become infected in the community as a result of infective kids (as opposed to other adults) is something I'm not sure will be the easiest thing to study. PMIS seems to be rare with cases of about 100 in the UK (higher in the states), deaths in single digits so far, unsure about the mortality data from states.
Basically issue is about kids passing it to each other, which they likely will as they're kids despite the measures in places, now the issue comes in how likely is it that they'll pass it onto their teachers and who they'll pass it onto (given infectious asymptomatic period of disease) and if they'll suffer from the disease and how much they'll suffer from it.
Obviously a lot of social implications of not reopening schools needs to be taken into account. The BMA in the face of scientific uncertainty has packed teacher's unions that are skeptical of re-opening even though editorials in the BMJ have said we should re-open including opinions from many others including infectious disease doctors.
Provided that now that mass testing is available to everyone over the age of 5, if we could get a mass track and trace system in place and if we can have a quick turnaround in results (currently a lot of regional variation, median time of result around 48 hours but a lot of docs, patients reporting longer time depending on where they are)
What I find astonishing is anybody thinking that we absolutely must open schools and vociferously disparage those (including teachers) who express reservation. Most healthcare workers childcare has been a nightmare and juggling that with work.
One of the more nefarious things now is any criticism of government policy by doctor and healthcare workers is being disparaged as political bias. Note how guido fawkes and other papers are targeting doctors who appeared in PPE documentaries as if they were members of some banned rebel group and their opinions disregarded just because they may have been in some form of left-wing activism or loose association with the labour party. I've seen such criticism regurgitated on LBC, talk radio, daily mail
When in actual fact a lot of what doctors are suggesting - border control, quarantine, checks, lockdown goes against their political beliefs.
And if you dare mention risks or nuance with decision making or question government in any way we're getting shouted down as unrealistic.
That reply below about Karen from Facebook is brilliant!
I'm definitely expecting Denmark's numbers to climb in two weeks time though.
Where are all the chavs going to double park?
The two ends of the Curry Mile:
And here's a pic from the middle:
I've only just remembered that it's Eid in a few days. The pedestrianisation will put off a lot of kids from renting out a Ferrari with their parents' money and gunning it down Wilmslow Rd.
It was funny when people were panicking and bulk buying toilet roll in case there was a shortage, but the UK panicking and bulk buying hrmydrkcholtine in case there is a shortage is taking the piss.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/uk-to-test-hydroxychloroqine-as-coronavirus-treatment
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/19/uk-to-test-hydroxychloroqine-as-coronavirus-treatment
Did you also expect that when schools opened?
The decline in new cases slowed down quite noticeably then. This time we're opening way more things all at once as well as decreasing the distance from 2 to 1 metre.
I was hoping the streets would be paved with curryThe two ends of the Curry Mile:
And here's a pic from the middle:
I've only just remembered that it's Eid in a few days. The pedestrianisation will put off a lot of kids from renting out a Ferrari with their parents' money and gunning it down Wilmslow Rd.
It’s only half a mile long as well.
Fond memories of student life when I saw a mouse run into La Qila and told the waiter I’d be quiet if he got me free drinks.
Jeep beach week. Fecking hell. I’d honestly rather catch the virus than spend one hour on that beach.
I hope they keep the receipt.
2.4k cases but maybe some of it is missing with the systems down although they say it's a slight overestimate.
Guardian said:
Slowness of UK testing strategy getting panned....anyone could've seen that in late March and hardly any being done when lockdown started.
I really hope in a few years time when the inevitable inquiry happens that isn't the key finding from it as that would be a complete fudge.
I really hope in a few years time when the inevitable inquiry happens that isn't the key finding from it as that would be a complete fudge.
The British revolution has started? We still have guillotines in working state if you need them.
Seems the one who said "I'm all gravy, baby" wasn't lying.
We need more guns. Reckon NRA could help out? I'm gonna shoot all the northern bastards (except scousers obviously)!!
Captain Tom knighted, which I think is fantastic.
But also, masks the fact that man of his age felt the need to what he did in the first place.
But also, masks the fact that man of his age felt the need to what he did in the first place.
Governments want schools open so that parents can get back to work or become more productive to reduce the economic damage. However, when you are in a country where the the virus is still almost totally out of control then opening schools is a terrible idea. Just because kids don't get affected as much (or possibly infected as much) ignores the fact that teaching is an aging profession and teachers and pupils alike have elderly relatives. Not to mention all the ancillary staff you endanger. When you factor in the lack of PPE and that social distancing is virtually impossible in schools it is a terrible idea. We only had 9 new infections yesterday in the whole country and we are only just beginning to contemplate a return to F2F school for the majority. Even then there is a great deal of trepidation. If I were a teacher in the UK I wouldn't go back to work if I had a choice and I'd be hoping the union would call a national strike if the government insists.
And lockdowns aren't just to avoid the NHS becoming overwhelmed. It was also to try to minimise deaths and not throw the elderly to the wolves or to take one for the team.
Hmm, Is it really still totally out of control? Doesn’t seem or look that way at all.
160 people died of Covid yesterday in the UK. Just because it isn't as bad as it was doesn't mean it is under control. Australia isn't claiming it is fully under control with only 9 new infections yesterday and 100 deaths in total, not per day - 35,000 in the UK and with the way they are unlocking even without having full locked down a second/third wave is likely.
The UK hasn't even started compulsory quarantine yet ffs. The government are criminally incompetent.
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You’ve gone from saying “totally out of control” to “not completely under control“. I agree with the second term its fine, first one seemed a bit over the top, that was all. Won’t catch me defending the U.K. government but it’s a lot better than it was. And is there ever going to be a time when it is completely under control? Is zero infections zero deaths ever even going to be a possibility in the U.K.?
Probably. When the vaccine comes.
Thing is, it took covid a couple of months to go from 1 to hundreds of thousands. Opening now when there are tens of thousands of active cases, will essentially make it much easier for it to reach those large numbers it had. So in some way, it is totally out of control, and it is very likely that in 2 months, every country that is opening, will be in the same place they were in April.
The only safe way to open, is when the situation gets under control. That means, that you know exactly who is infected, and you can track everyone. What South Korea or Taiwan have been doing. Taiwan was widely expected to be the second most hit country in the world (after China). They have 7 deaths and 440 cases (in total). Patient 0 in South Korea was on the same day as in the US. They have 263 deaths compare to US's 93k.
So, countries that are opening pretending that they have the situation under control are fooling themselves. Until the number of daily cases reaches single digits, it is impossible to have the situation under control. So, the hope is that the exponential factor will be lower than it was before (cause people might take it more seriously, use masks, some gatherings are banned etc), but it is still gonna be an exponential function. This means only one thing: there is gonna be a repeat of April/May and there will be either be more lockdowns in the future, or the number of total deaths in the future would be significantly higher than it has been so far. Even with 'the worst has passed', it is extremely likely that the number of victims is gonna be a few times it is now. It will probably take longer, but the second wave is gonna come. This is a total certainty, unless a vaccine comes faster than it.
The curry mile has REALLY changed since my day then. Hardly surprising since my day was the early/mid 80's
I don't think that they really have any level of control TBH. The current level of infection if combined with a relaxation of the fairly mild lock down the UK imposed is very likely to see further waves of infection. So not controlled. The willingness in the UK and US and many other countries to let the old die seems utterly bizarre to me.
And zero infections is possible if we have a vaccine and make it compulsory and prevent the unvaccinated from travelling. Overseas arrivals must either have a vaccination from a reputable source or be vaccinated on entry and then serve 14 days detention quarantine at their own expense. Anyone who refuse vaccination without a proper medical reason should be barred from international travel and lose any government benefits they gate and their kids barred from attending schools. We have been held to ransom by antivax nutcases for long enough.
A dream for whalers.