ADs and their pampered poodles

[BogRollBOGOF]

Here we are again, gaining sequels even more rapidly than the Fast and the Furious...

It looks like the trial vaccine (Jansson) that I received last week could be approved for use in the UK very soon. I am pretty sure I had the real thing rather than saline as I had a sore arm for a few days and a slightly raised temp for one day.

They are saying one dose will/may be enough with this one although I am scheduled for another in a month.
Like everything else it's just wait and see. The trial goes on for 2 years but I can't see that it needs to stay 'blind' for 2 years if I need to know my vaccination status before that.

Thanks for the replies. I should imagine that if they find asymptomatic results in 1 in 3 that they test, it's extrapolated it up to the wider population from there. However if they're testing in an area that has high numbers, against an area with low figures it would skew the figures. I've always said (banking and accountancy background here) that you can manipulate any figures to fit whatever scenario you like.

@110APiccadilly

Also, is it just me that gets slightly Nazi Germany/ North Korea vibes from the idea of your children reporting you to their teachers?

I once told my teacher that I had a pet squirrel in a cage in our kitchen.

My nanny told me that a little girl she looked after once convinced her that her family had all gone on a massive camping trip with hundreds of people at the weekend, which was nonsense.

Telling my teacher that we’d seen a whole bunch of people at the weekend when we hadn’t been anywhere or done anything was exactly the sort of thing I would have done.

Many teachers say
'We agree not to believe everything they say about you/home life if you agree not to believe everything they say about us/school'

My daughter told school I stayed in bed all day during the holidays and she had to cook all the meals.

Out of interest going by the stats, do you ADs think we’ve reached the ‘peak’ of this wave? Or is it too early to tell yet?

I only ask because it seems cases are going down steadily but deaths seem to be all over the place, so is that due to delays in reporting? I can’t get my head around it.

My DS told his teachers we kept his brother in the attic. He’s an only child!

"I once told my teacher that I had a pet squirrel in a cage in our kitchen"
Brilliant! I thought, when I read about that letter from the headteacher, that some children are prone to exaggerating, & others simply & innocently turn a chance 2 minute encounter with the neighbours on a walk to the park into, "We played on the swings with the boys from next door." Or a zoom birthday party with grandma becomes, "We had a massive party at my house."

Did I read the end of the headteacher's letter correctly? Did they say that home-learning was "nigh on impossible"? If so, that's not very helpful from someone who is supposed to be showing leadership. Where are the words of support & advice for stressed parents?

I think the story made the BBC News website last night (I didn't read it properly).

Anyway, I have a filthy house to clean this afternoon. DS has made an omlette - he has cleaned up but the smell is something else.

@DWPmisery1972

I only ask because it seems cases are going down steadily but deaths seem to be all over the place, so is that due to delays in reporting? I can’t get my head around it.

Deaths are about 4 weeks behind cases, aren't they? (Allowing for lots of muddle about whether they're reported by date of death or date of registration.) So I'd expect death figures to start going down in the next week or so, to reflect the downturn in cases since early January.

Curlygirl06 that's an excellent question! No idea of the answer I'm afraid

When I was starting to feel overwhelmed last week, I did some number crunching. On the worst day for infections last week there were 40000ish. If we multiply that by number of days in a year it comes to 14.24million. Which means that even if we had recorded 40000 infections every day for the past year there would still be 53.76 million people in the UK who haven't been infected with Covid!!! which is just shy of 80% of the population. I hope my maths is correct as it stopped me worrying about catching the bloody virus and got me really frustrated/angry (again) about the lockdowns and restrictions! 😁

According to the Zoe app we are well past the peak and a smaller one than that of November. However, it's a seasonal disease that looks likely to rumble on until the warmer weather anyway, then drop off as quickly as it did last year. (Peak deaths last year was April 8th).

I think we made a big mistake surpressing it in May/June. By then we understood more about what we were dealing with. People weren't dropping dead in the streets in dramatic ways like in Wuhan. We'd set up a pattern of caution and distancing that people could continue to follow without the continued levels of isolation.
The curve was flattened, the sombrero well and truly squashed and the hospitals ( and people's immune systems) better able to cope then than with the cases that they pushed in to this winter.

I remember my sister announcing in school assembly that my dad was off to compete in the Olympics. I think the teachers might have guessed that one wasn't true since my dad was an overweight middle aged man!

But I've had it the other way. In my class I had an angry parent complain that her child had jacket potato every day at lunch for a whole term. Turned out mum always asked the girl what she had for lunch and if she couldn't remember she said jacket potato. Totally agree with the we won't believe what they say about you if you don't believe everything they say about us.

@DWPmisery1972

I only ask because it seems cases are going down steadily but deaths seem to be all over the place, so is that due to delays in reporting? I can’t get my head around it.

It takes a while for deaths to drop after infections have already done so. I think the lag is a few weeks. The people who are seriously ill in ICU now are likely to have been infected a few weeks ago. As infections drop, hospitalisations and deaths should too, so I would expect to see this over the next couple of weeks, as according to both the ONS data and the ZOE data, infections in the community are dropping really quite fast now.

Hmmm, so schools back on the 8th of March? Fingers crossed it's a full return, and not phased. Last year DD got to go back as she was year one but they brought back a year group at a time, so she actually had to wait three weeks after the "schools are reopened" date to see the inside of a classroom.

Will also wait to see the union reaction, not going to put it past them to stamp their feet and say no.

Torn between wanting to look on the bright side and have a date to count down to, and not wanting to get my hopes up only to have them dashed!

Everything crossed, but I haven't forgotten the 15th June date from last summer - I'll believe this shower when I see DD walk through the school gate and not before.

@DrRamsesEmerson Thank you for reminding me about 15th June. I'm sure Saint Boris set that up so that he could say "believe me, I tried to send the schools back in June, but I was stymied by parents who would only let me if I could guarantee immortality, and by the unions".

Thanks everyone for the explanations; I must admit I’ve found it hard to keep up with the reporting of stats on this - so by all accounts we should see deaths falling in the next couple of weeks I suppose

We've got a lag time on the peak of cases around here, we're about that point. Localised hotspots still going up, but most areas ceasing to rise or dropping. Friend was expecting the hospital trust she deals with to reach their peak of hospitalisations over the next fortnight.

Normaly the peak of respiritory illness season is Dec-Feb, fluctuating with factors like weather or flu vaccine efficacy. I think last year was the anomally with the virus gradually being introduced into the community through the winter, combined with a mild winter and milder flu season, hence the late peak. Being more established through the community this year, it's behaving with more normal timings. I can't see cases surging beyond late Feb anyway.

So tired of the psycological warfare of homeschooling. Engagement was crap before the honeymoon wore off.

@SirSamuelVimes

Hmmm, so schools back on the 8th of March? Fingers crossed it's a full return, and not phased. Last year DD got to go back as she was year one but they brought back a year group at a time, so she actually had to wait three weeks after the "schools are reopened" date to see the inside of a classroom.

Will also wait to see the union reaction, not going to put it past them to stamp their feet and say no.

Torn between wanting to look on the bright side and have a date to count down to, and not wanting to get my hopes up only to have them dashed!

Yes, I am also going to struggle to manage my expectations about 8 Feb. I don't want to chuck what remains of my energy and mental reserves at just getting through until 8 Feb only to discover they aren't going back then after all.

Unions - I think that there is a significant chance that they will kick off and demand that teachers and school staff be vaccinated before any year groups return. However, that may depend on infection rates and how as at 8 Feb those compare to when schools were open before. Hard to predict. Some of the teaching unions are more reasonable than others. ASCL (Association of School and College Leaders) tends to be the one the gov takes seriously. They're pretty sensible.

Looking at world meters it looks as though deaths on the 7 day average have now leveled off and are starting to fall. Obviously out of the weekend lag this could still change but hopefully we are at the end of the peak.

"But I've had it the other way. In my class I had an angry parent complain that her child had jacket potato every day at lunch for a whole term. Turned out mum always asked the girl what she had for lunch and if she couldn't remember she said jacket potato. Totally agree with the we won't believe what they say about you if you don't believe everything they say about us."
yeah, I never believed mine when they said they'd done "nothing" at school all day. I suppose the teachers could have made them all sit in silence all day, but somehow I doubted it!

8th March? Haven't seen that yet. I'm not holding my breath, either, although of course I think they need to go back. DS only has a few months until school ends forever. It feels a bit pointless.

I'm also trying to keep up with Israel's data, hoping to see the vaccine is helping there since they are leading the way.

Sweden data is interesting, cases and deaths have fallen very quickly. Does anyone know what life is like there at the moment? I know they introduced some restrictions but they aren't as strict as the UK, right?

That’s another 5 weeks at least of lockdown ffs!

Have just picked DS up from work. He says that he feels angry all the time and is struggling with his feelings again. I’d hoped we were past this but all his coping mechanisms are gone! And I told my boss to fuck off and I’m sick of my job.

Had better days!

Cases are going down in my area week on week, they even said on local news about drop. Still high death rate which is infection from weeks ago. Also there were 9 deaths in cottage hospital and we all know where they caught it. We have high elderly population so affects our sats.