To think that Boris May also regret...

[hippohector]

Reopening schools too early.
He ‘deeply regrets’ the loss of life in care homes. If things had been handled differently at the start, then care homes may not have suffered so badly.
I really hope that we don’t find ourselves in the same situation in a couple of months time if they decide to reopen schools from June 1st.
Children may only suffer mild symptoms, or even be asymptotic, but the potential to spread the virus to their parents, school staff, etc, is a huge unknown still.

June 1st isn't too soon. I can't fucking wait

There is nothing that has been said that schools will definitely reopen on 1st June.
In fact the information set to our school is that schools will be given notice of at least 3 weeks (we shall see, it was 1 day notice for closing) and that is most likely to be phased reopening for select groups - possibly certain workers, children most in need, certain year groups, maybe part time, maybe partial classes) so no one actually knows right now!

Out of interest does anyone know the percentage of the nation's children that have been going to school during lockdown, and if they've been distancing?

Why are some posters banging the ‘we can’t go on like this forever’ drum? It’s a virus, not a government decision. We are all suffering to some extent but opening schools and lifting lockdown isn’t going to solve anything, it’s going to make the vulnerable more at risk.

I can’t sympathise with anyone who is shouting for lockdown to be lifted and schools to return asap, it’s selfish. I wonder how many of those posters will actually be the ones will have to put themselves and their families at risk by going back at work?

Care home deaths were inevitable unfortunately (and I’m speaking as someone who has just lost my gran who was in a home to the virus). The lack of PPE is not acceptable but we can’t blame politicians (Boris) for everything. I don’t think schools should reopen before July, it’s too risky.

The kids in school have not been.distancing. Despite the best efforts of teachers. At least, not in.secondary.

FFS the virus is highly contagious and kills the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, we were warned people would die in those categories at the start and to some extent it was inevitable.

The statistics show that it is unlikely to affect children and those under 45 without underlying health conditions.

We have to start doing something.

Try : Start paying adequate rates and decent sick pay to carers so that anyone sick can take time off if they think they might be ill and are willing to take tests so that their families aren't going hungry and they are completely unable to pay the bills. If rates were raised there might be more people willing to work in the sector too, so their won't be staff shortages.

See this thread by newsnight's Lewis Goodall, which makes some alarming observations and asks difficult questions about this:
twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1258143691010703360

Instead we have this ridicilous false economy going on where we haven't been prepared to do this, so we've ended up with much higher numbers of dead in the most vulnerable populations than if we'd taken the fact it was spreading like wildfire in care homes (and then onwards into the general population) much more seriously. The spread in carehomes has meant the level of infection has been considerably higher than it could have been and thats meant the economy has had to be closed for longer...

Honestly we should do something. Thats take it seriously how economic inequality is causing knock on social and healthcare problems of a huge variety and think about the false 'savings' we've been making for years and how we have justified this rather than saying 'how can we improve on this'.

When it comes to reopening schools and relaxing lockdown,
the Uk has the advantage of being able to look at other countries doing this 2-3 weeks ahead
(because their epidemic started eatlier)

If all goes well, the UK can join them, taking what worked best elsewhere
but if death rates rocket in Germany, France, Spain ...
then the UK will know to slam on the brakes instead.

@ScubaSteven Where is the money to keep everyone at home, in lockdown going to come from?

There are also the many other deaths which are occurring due to lack of health services.

People out there will be gathering the data around deaths and analysing it constantly. By which I mean, looking at the people who passed away and putting together the figures as to who had an underlying health condition, how old they were, how long did it take etc.
When it comes to the care homes, they’ll be analysing whether Covid was the ultimate cause of death or the final straw.
My grandpa had cancer at 90, but the cause of death on his death certificate was pneumonia. Likewise pneumonia was the cause of death for another relative who made it to 96 and another grandparent who also had cancer.
Pneumonia was the straw that broke them and they couldn’t fight anymore, and sadly for many of the people in care homes I think Covid is doing the same thing. It’s horrible.
For the first time ever I’m actually relieved that all my grandparents have passed away so that I don’t have to worry about their safety or them sitting in their homes all alone. My last elderly extended relative so to speak passed away in January. I am relieved, which I hate myself for but I just think thank god they haven’t got to experience this.

I don’t know the answer. I do know that the average Joe out there won’t ever fully understand the science if it was properly presented to them. I agree with what a poster said above about parents sending children in when they have symptoms, they will. You get it now - children shoved through classroom doors who vomited that morning, are sick again and the parents conveniently take 5 hours to pick them up and try and drop them off again the next day.
So maybe if schools were given stronger rights of refusal to have the child in, or were able to go higher if parents don’t comply. But that will never go down well with parents either.

What I think Boris regrets right now is becoming prime minister. He thought he would just be able to do his Brexit thing, then step down and hand the reigns to someone else.....then he got a pandemic. Same with Trump. You can see how he had a plan of what he wanted to do and suddenly a pandemic has stomped all over his monopoly and he hasn’t got a clue how to handle it and you can see it in his yelling, when he shouts at Americans to take a stand for their freedoms you can see a little child stomping his feet because this isn’t how he wanted to play.

We have a total catch 22 situation and there is no route to keep the whole population happy, or safe, or healthy. I just hope so hard that by this point next year this will be a memory and a vaccine will be on its way.

We need to be guided by science @hippohector

The final call with be the PM's but he is the mouthpiece for the science.

It is a VERY hard decision and no one really knows enough about the virus yet. This is very new territory.

I get so annoyed with people criticising the government all the time as if any other political party could have done better.

The only fault may have been the NHS was slow to allow private companies to do tests; they did in Germany which is why they may have had fewer deaths.

That was not a government decision - it was NHS execs and civil servants.

The science at the moment says that there have been no known cases of an asymptomatic child passing it to an adult.

So teachers catching it seems unlikely, but they don't know yet for sure.

It is more likely that teachers will pass it to teachers, catching it from their own partners and contacts.

The country can't keep on like this. Sunak will reduce or remove Furlough soon, then watch everyone want to get everything open and back out.

When do you want him to open the schools and what do you think should have changed by then?

I’ll also add that I’ve got two people in my life with cancer right now- one is deemed urgent enough for treatment to continue and the other (a friends mum) is waiting. Because her cancer is early stages. Will it be early stages by the time she’s next checked or can finally start some treatment? Who knows! She’s terrified. We’ve got to get some normal things back up and running.

I still think why can’t we send all Covid cases from now on to the Nightingales and keep the hospitals clear for everything else where possible? The nightingales are fitted out for Covid - use them! Or is it coming down to staff? (And cost )

Care homes are the homes of the most vulnerable of our population. I cannot begin to comprehend how when this crisis first arose senior scientists and infection control experts were not instructed to work with the care home organisations, such as RNHA, to come up with formal guidance and implement it. there should have been PPE supplies before lockdown, testing for care home staff, guidance on how to eep them healthy and regulation about visitors etc. Instead, even now, Public Health England issues "guidance" for "interpretation". In my view the only way to keep residents as safe as possible is to ban new admissions altogether. A great many residents have had their health and lives put on the line because local authorities have pushed care home owners - and in some areas threatened them- into taking new admissions, some of these people have not tested negative before admission and can in any event pick up the virus after any test and before they move in.

I don't think the government care, I don't even think they gave care homes a second thought in their planning. The sector is in dire straits financially in any event and larger care home groups that are managed on the finances and not on the basis of compassionate care are certainly guilty of not making the existing residents welfare their priority.

I belong to an on line group of Social Care managers. Those who have jobs managing care homes are very traumatised, some are intending to end lengthy careers because the deaths and lack of support have affected them very badly. One poor woman was moved to manage a home in the group she worked for and there were three deaths in her first day, she was devastated. In care we always feel like the poor relations, struggling to get PE originally allocated to the NHS. To add insult to injury ( a very minor issue) care staff get 25% discount at a local restaurant turned takeaway, NHS get 50%.

We are the biggest employer in a small market town.I have not had a single enquiry as to how we are coping, how we feel or could they help from our MP, District or Count Councillors or CCG leads. The local authority seem more interested in binding us to the strict terms of our contract than anything else.

Stay fit and thin if you can, no one really cares much when you are old.

What part of "Lockdown is NOT to prevent infections, it is to SLOW the spread so the NHS is not overwhelmed" do people not understand???

I'm sorry for having a rant, but it's really starting to piss me off seeing constant posts about "I'm not putting my family at risk" "How dare you put my family at risk with your selfish reasoning for wanting kids to go back"

We are GOING to have to live with this virus. The sooner some people realise this then perhaps we can get past the hysteria.

Yes I understand "The Shielding" are at a substantial risk and that Will give people cause for concern. Those people quite rightly want to take as many steps possible to protect themselves.

And just to add my Nan died from it last week in a care home, so please don't do the whole "Well it hasn't affected you, so why should you give a shit etc's"

We need to try and get the country back on its feet. I'm not saying back to normal, but certain steps NEED to happen.

Rant over. Sorry.

Yep - and if that is the case, we might as well not have bothered having a lockdown in the first place. All the damage of the past 6 weeks will have been for nothing.

This. If we sprint out of lockdown too soon and too fast (and those right-wing newspaper headlines today are encouraging people to do it regardless of what Johnson says on Sunday), we'll have seriously damaged the economy for nothing.

There was an analysis today by UEA that showed that closing schools was by far one of the most effective ways of slowing the virus across Europe, that and avoiding mass gatherings.

Social distancing/lockdown at home was less effective, I think that's because in Europe we have at home quarantine of affected cases, so you have whole families getting sick and even dying more than one of them due to viral load. Once corona gets in the household, the close proximity means everyone is much more at risk as viral loads are higher than getting it say off a bus.

So, schools (which the non-corona research suggested weren't so important) are really important in this particular pandemic, which suggest we shouldn't rush to open them again, definitely not in their current form (squashed, packed in classrooms and corridors).

He doesn't give a shit. They wanted a cull, but didn't realise how far it would go.

Oh FFS.

So when they open the schools it's because they want to do a King Herod and slaughter the children?

(The statistics show that it is unlikely to affect children and those under 45 without underlying health conditions.*

How do you think infections were introduced into care homes? People aged under 45 are still at risk of becoming infected and will then spread the infection to those at greater risk.

I have several underlying health conditions that means my likelihood of dying from this virus is pretty high.
When schools go back, yes, I can chose to keep my children home still. But my DH will have to go into schools every day, mixing with hundreds of children and staff. He could easily bring the virus home to me.
I might be selfish, but all I can think is that I don't want to die and leave my children motherless. In reality, I've almost finished planning my own funeral over the last few weeks.

Apparently Denmark is not seeing any adverse effects from having reopened schools. Fingers crossed we don't either.

I’d be interested to know how many people have actually taken the time to do things like listen to the select committee briefing that took place on 5th May on lifting the lockdown chaired by Jeremy Hunt?

Or have listened to the daily briefing everyday, or have actually reviewed the statistics from other countries who have sent schools back already?

I always get the impression that most people haven’t because in many cases what people say is explained or contradicted by the information that is actually out there.

It all seems like brexit all over again, lots of strong feelings about lots of things but in general based on nothing but assumptions.

Cut him some slack please. NO-ONE knew what the best course of action was back then. Twenty-twenty vision only exists in hindsight when it comes to decisions made in uncertain times. Some countries got lucky, some didn't.

What matters is that he makes the best decision he can going forward. But even that will depend on the quality of advice he gets. He isn't a medical expert any more than most of us.

Boris May

@OneandTwenty
It’s not “me time” for many people. How insulting! Both my husband and I are trying to fit full time jobs WFH around 3 primary age children whilst also trying to do some sort of home schooling. They are too young to get on much themselves but to old to just be drawing pictures- they have to learn new topics in maths and do creative wiring everyday. They need almost constant help.
I am making myself ill staying up until after midnight every night working to fit in enough hours. Working at the weekend and all hours god sends in between trying to look after the children alternating with DH.
We have also had to take a pay cut on top of this and if any more cuts are made, might lose our house.
If furlough stopped tomorrow and it was work or no income, so many people would soon change their tune about going back out there