The Anti Dementors, danger-buffooning their way through life!

[Drivingdownthe101]

New thread!

I honestly don’t think my children will be going back here in England. From what I’ve heard from a friend who works at the school, they’ll need all the available staff and space just to accommodate years 6, 1, R and the key worker children following the distancing measures.

It makes me want to cry just typing this. When (if!) they go back in September it will be nearly 6 months since they last set foot in there.

@Drivingdownthe101

I am in Wales. I know that things are far from perfect in terms of testing etc, but in terms of easing restrictions I think Wales has it right and it's no coincidence that NI and Scotland are taking a similar approach

Just us darned irresponsible English messing everything up

I do think England is taking a slight gamble! Johnson is a risk taker as we all know. We will see how things pan out, no-one can really know what is the right approach, we will only know after the fact. But I am content with what Wales is doing in terms of easing the lockdown and I haven't really heard much complaining about it where I am (South Wales). Plus not rushing things gives us more of a chance to see how Spain, France etc fare as they come out of lockdown.

I stupidly ventured onto a thread about the shielding now being “allowed” out (which is BS as no one was under house arrest before). Apparently this is akin to rolling vulnerable people in covid and is being done to reduce the number of people claiming pensions and disability benefits and this is all being done on the cusp of the second wave. Argh...no one is being forced out or forced to stay in, the shielding people aren’t a homogeneous group all with same exact medical reasons for shielding.

I've always got a house full of food, so no worries there.
I also have an outside loo, a couple of chemical loos, a social distancing grave stone and some hazard tape. I'm pretty well covered.

Can I ask something. I don't understand why some people keep trying to engage with dementors or asking their opinions on stuff

I'm trying really hard not to as you can't change their minds but to be honest, they're doing harm by spreading fear and it does need to be challenged. Sometimes someone will be reading their words and believe it (and get into a spin) and if you can give a different opinion it might help someone. My most dementor like friend on FB is generally someone whose opinion is highly respected because she's clever and thoughtful and balanced. I hate the idea people are looking at what she's posting and not challenging it in their own minds. She's full of 'lockdown can't end because of what's happening in Weston Super Mare, people going to beaches are spreading this AND KILLING PEOPLE.' And I'm so grateful to the person who mentioned above they've traced where the outbreak started there because that does make me calm down - I still get sucked into being scared. It makes sense too - a small number of nurses will have the virus at any one time and be asymptomatic and they (with care home staff) do need to be particularly careful about social distancing at the moment. If they are coming into contact with elderly patients in wards, they will spread it around and that will result in deaths. It's no different to if norovirus was spreading or we had a worse flu year.

I saw the Guardian article about blended learning in September. I don't even have children and my heart just sunk down to my toes. It's criminal. Women will be absolutely shafted by that happening and it will affect some for the rest of their lives in terms of their finances and their job prospects. And children - they are at such low risk and yet the unions and some schools want to harm them like this? What the hell is happening? I want to emigrate! I have to hope that as schools go back next week and the virus doesn't spread, people come to their senses. Anyway, it had a very bad impact on me reading that so I can't imagine how much worse it is if you have children and will experience direct negative consequences. I'm so sorry.

the shielding people aren’t a homogeneous group all with same exact medical reasons for shielding.

Exactly. And I know it must have been incredibly frightening for many vulnerable people over the last few months. I'd have been terrified if I'd had asthma or something. But I do actually know someone with very bad asthma - bad enough she's nearly died in the past because of it. And she had the virus and was honestly fine. It was a mild case and she picked up quickly. Bearing in mind she's been in ICU on and off in the past, it just goes to show how it's not as a simple as if you're vulnerable and you catch it, you die (or even need hospital care). Most vulnerable people, even most elderly vulnerable people, survive this. We've collectively been unable to understand that.

Are all primary schools in England opening up next week? What's happening in the areas where local authorities/mayors said they wouldn't go along with it? Have they backed down now?

Well I got up to so little yesterday as it was so blooming windy, couldn’t sit properly in the garden..blown to bits and cold.
Didn’t even fancy going out out
Will do today to make up for it.
I did repaint our garden statue and made a bloody mess of it, as the sun was in my eyes, so I have that to redo

I’m sure the sunshine and rain will re- weather it , if I leave it long enough

I have to hope that as schools go back next week and the virus doesn't spread, people come to their senses.

I think we need to see how things go over June. Will the virus thrive in the general population? Raging in care homes and hospitals is one thing and hasn't been dealt with well. However, they are to an extent in their own boxes. Are the majority of people going about a normal-ish range of activities going to be generating a Nightingale activating number of new cases?

I'm in wait and see mode while getting on with what I am allowed to do in the meantime.

I'd have been terrified if I'd had asthma or something

I do and I was a little bit worried at the start but it's well managed and I don't believe asthma is having as much of an effect as you might expect which is great.

My asthma nearly killed me as a child. The thing is there are many more things that could kill me as an adult and I don't put my life on hold for them and for me this is no different.

Agree it’s a gamble bibbitybobbitycats but (and I say this as a left wing, non Boris fan) I think he has a much more difficult job to do in terms of balancing the economic risks vs Covid risks.
No, not all schools will be returning next week. Boris said in his last press conference that he understood some schools wouldn’t be in a position to do so. Ours is opening for year 1 and year 6 next week and then, all being well, reception from the 15th.

WishingChair I live just outside Weston, it's where my nearest shops are. Nobody is dropping dead in the streets, I promise.
Even the military testing centre that was set up, for anyone in town who might have a sniffle or have heard a Brummie accent, had nobody turn up at all for the first 2 days ( not sure if they have had any uptake since).
It was blindingly obvious from the start that the hospital was responsible as they were mixing staff across wards and not segregating patients with symptoms if they hadn't been tested.
Unfortunately people living there seem to have far too much invested in the lethal outcome of a daytrippers buying a stick of rock on the prom, to actually research facts.

@Drivingdownthe101

Agree it’s a gamble bibbitybobbitycats but (and I say this as a left wing, non Boris fan) I think he has a much more difficult job to do in terms of balancing the economic risks vs Covid risks. No, not all schools will be returning next week. Boris said in his last press conference that he understood some schools wouldn’t be in a position to do so. Ours is opening for year 1 and year 6 next week and then, all being well, reception from the 15th.

Thank Driving. I agree that there has to be a balance between the two risks, it's an impossible situation. I veer between thinking, just end this, it's unbearable, I want normal life back and then being scared about what might happen if the wrong decisions are made. I am an antidementor dementor!

Jourdain I don't have children. Can I take a cat to the supermarket if I make him wear a mask and roll condoms over his paws?

Thank you for explaining Wishing chair. Yes that makes sense. I think for my own mental health just now I find it difficult to engage with them too much I need a break. But I agree for others.

The people I know who are in the group for shielding are pretty matter of fact and doing as they feel. Just bumped into one in the park and we had a chat at 2m she was walking her dog as has been since the start.

I suppose so, just make sure you don't take three cats, and at no point should they look like they are having a good time.

My DD1 has been in tears this morning because she says she and DD2 were giggling in the cereal aisle and she thinks it "made the lady cross" and she feels bad.

And she's worried because she picked up the wrong apples and had to put them back, and the apples might have given someone the virus.

Honestly, what about this is right and healthy? 😕

It's good to know Weston isn't full of zombies Weedsnseeds thank you. I am easily scared. Logically, I can't think the virus is going to spread on beaches even if they are packed. I've never gone to a beach and gone up and licked strangers. Even before the virus if I got into a conversation with a stranger on one, I'd stay several feet away because, you know, they're strangers.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/30/calls-to-lift-lockdown-in-uk-care-homes-over-fears-for-residents-mental-health

This is an interesting article in the otherwise doom-filled Guardian. Care homes are obviously the most vulnerable places when it comes to the virus but even they want a balance in terms of people social distancing. It's quite striking actually to see them saying 'we can't sustain this and not do people serious harm.'

TrusttheGene it sounds like you have it in proportion which is very sensible. That's the best approach I think.

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/30/calls-to-lift-lockdown-in-uk-care-homes-over-fears-for-residents-mental-health

I'll try again!

My DD1 has been in tears this morning because she says she and DD2 were giggling in the cereal aisle and she thinks it "made the lady cross" and she feels bad.

Fuck sake. This makes me so angry. As if kids haven't had enough stress over the last couple of months (which, in my opinion, they've dealt with extremely well), they're now worrying about upsetting GROWN ARSED ADULTS with their giggling.

Some people, like that woman in the supermarket, and a lot of the posters on that thread, should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. And I hope their lack of empathy, and the disgusting way they've treated others during this pandemic, comes back to bite them on their arses.

@bibbitybobbitycats

Are all primary schools in England opening up next week? What's happening in the areas where local authorities/mayors said they wouldn't go along with it? Have they backed down now?

Ours were originally opening - then the LEA sent about 5 barrages of contradictory guidance over the space of an hour and now the heads of our schools have decided to defer indefinitely but possibly a couple of weeks because of the whole union shitstorm.

They sent the email saying Monday wasn't happening about 2pm on Friday which is lovely for parents planning and kids expecting to be going back.

Thankfully mine are in the keyworker bubble so ARE going back

I'll be doing a tip trip later, so quite happy to assess the actual beach situation, as opposed to the wide angle lense situation, if that helps.

Just tell your daughter the woman was a silly old bat and not to worry about it Jourdain

My head went to some extremely dark places yesterday.

Noticed a dementor celebrating "the death of the handshake" and that we will never hug anyone outside of our immediate families again.
My Dad died in January and I will never forget my first day back at work when so many of my friends were able to give me a hug. (we're generally very hot on Business-like and Appropriate Contact, but the fact that people just went 'ah, fuck it' and did something genuinely supportive made the world of difference at a point where I really didn't know what to do with myself but sure as hell didn't want to be at home.) The thought that in the future that might be seen as PRACTICALLY MURDERING SOMEONE is a horrible one.

I’ll be seeing my dad today for the first time since lockdown. I haven’t really spoken to him much because we do group family zoom meetings once a week rather than individual phone calls, and just tends to drift across the back muttering about his home grown potatoes. He’s been a life long guardian reader but he’s also an extremely sensible, rational thinking type who likes to look at all sides of a situation. I’ll be very interested to see what he makes of the guardian’s recent coverage of the crisis.

I feel like the situation with shielding people can’t ever be a blanket anything. My stepdad died a few years ago, he had COPD and in the last years of his life he was very ill. Every time he caught a cold he ended up in hospital, if he was alive now he is someone who would almost certainly not survive covid, and he also wouldn’t have been able to afford to go to hospital for other reasons because of the risk of him catching it there. He, and by extension my mother, would have not been able to leave the house until a vaccine. In contrast I have a relative who had a shielding letter because they’re in remission from stomach cancer. They have been going out for walks all along because this person feels that the risk of them catching it is minimal enough and that they’re currently in good health.

I feel so very fortunate in that I live in a village where the average class size is 20 (and at least one of those 20 will be shielding as she has/had Kawasaki a year or so back) and it's not - yet - an issue.
And that sounds very self-satisfied but the thing is...if mine, who's not more than nominally disrupted, in a town with a low rate of infection, and who can reasonably expect to be back in some kind of education before the end of the summer - if he's struggling, wanting to read baby books, handwriting deteriorating, tearful, frightened - what the hell must it be like for parents who aren't as lucky as we are??

My heart goes out to all of them, poor buggers.