To think Sir David King may be right about another lockdown?

[Hamsteratemylunch]

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/uk-heading-back-lockdown-next-22491159

Summary - track and trace a disaster, not safe to open schools, heading back into lockdown (possibly national ) very soon.

Schools have remained open for the children of key workers. You know; the children whose parents were most likely to be infected. Teachers haven't been dropping like flies. There arent sent cases of children infecting teachers; barely any of children infecting adults. And that was with teachers being in school with those most likely to be in contact with the virus.
Opening primary schools, and keeping then open, shouldnt be a question.

The issue is with older kids in high school. Bring in PPE and if any teens refuse then remove them from school but keep the schools open.

£60 million has been spent on the furlough scheme, just to give some perspective.

Up to £60 billion by October, not £60 million;

"the OBR has revised down its estimate of the gross cost of the scheme from March to July from £63bn to £43bn, and over the full period from £84bn to £60bn."

www.accountancydaily.co/furlough-scheme-costs-30-less-estimates

Also what’s stopping a green zone suffering from exponential growth if all they have as restriction is mandatory masks?

Another lockdown is not feasible. But individuals need to start taking some personal responsibility.

It doesn’t matter whether Dominic Cummings did X or Y, you’re responsible for yourself. Equally those other people going out and not taking precautions, you’re not responsible for them, if you don’t want to catch COVID then you need to use your own common sense.

Reality is that we are going to have to live with COVID. Even if there is a vaccination, people will still catch COVID, and people will still die from COVID or survive it with long-term health implications. It’s exactly what happens with the flu every year.

Interestingly the figures are actually now levelling off again following a slight rise, so there is very little evidence that we are heading into this alleged second wave that we were apparently also going to get in May and then July which hasn’t materialised.

And interestingly, no other countries have yet gone into full lockdown, even countries like Spain who are now reporting 5000 plus infections daily again.

The world economy just cannot manage another full lockdown.

FlySheMust

It's in our hands. If we are careful it may not be necessary. But there are too many idiots around refusing masks, social distancing, and attending large gatherings etc.

I'm very worried about the safety of teachers but most people don't seem to care about them.“

Completely agree.

@IsaLain

Schools have remained open for the children of key workers. You know; the children whose parents were most likely to be infected. Teachers haven't been dropping like flies. There arent sent cases of children infecting teachers; barely any of children infecting adults. And that was with teachers being in school with those most likely to be in contact with the virus. Opening primary schools, and keeping then open, shouldnt be a question.

The issue is with older kids in high school. Bring in PPE and if any teens refuse then remove them from school but keep the schools open.

You're comparing apples with lemons.

Yes schools were open for the children of Keyworkers - but there were FAR fewer children in School & in each 'bubble' and jammed in each classroom, a lot of schools spent a lot of time outside,

It's NOT the same as having 'bubbles' of 500 kids and teachers in classrooms with 30 kids

It's all well & good the Govt advising bubbles of 10-15 & SD from the teacher, but if they're going to insist ALL kids back FULL time from Sept, they're going to have to magic up a LOT more classrooms - and they don't intend to.

It's like me saying the £1 coin on the coffee table will be a thousand pounds by Tuesday
I'm sure someone could achieve that, but not if it stays on my coffee table and I don't ask for advice.

@MarshaBradyo

Also what’s stopping a green zone suffering from exponential growth if all they have as restriction is mandatory masks?

They would be locked down again if cases rose. I have to say I think we also need to look at South Korea, nightclubs and pubs are high risk and they tried to open them but couldn’t. Anything inside, with high respiration rates and low ventilation, like pubs, gyms, I think will need a strict SD and proper ventilation.

A really good test and trace is one of the keys to crush covid19. But some areas like nightclubs or meat factories need to be stricter in my book as they can cause very fast clusters.

And schools icecream

Is it so different to here? We have masks, SD and if an area has high cases then they do a local lockdown.

Perhaps to get to zero they’d lockdown earlier. That’s ok but costs either funding or jobs / businesses.

For me zero covid is the only approach that makes sense.

The options are either let the virus run (clearly a no), try to drive it down (zero covid) or carry on as we are, potentially for a long time.

Zero covid doesn't actually mean there'll be no covid ever - but it means you really try to get rid of community transmission.

Once you make that decision, policies then get evaluated for whether they help or hinder that aim.

Certainly seems preferable to our current 'drifting towards higher cases while government hides' approach.

@MarshaBradyo

Is it so different to here? We have masks, SD and if an area has high cases then they do a local lockdown.

Except they don't in schools

@IncrediblySadToo

But there are no cases of children infecting teachers, even in countries where the schools remained open. There are barely cases of children passing it to adults. That fact doesnt change whether you have 15 kids in a class or 30.

Except they don't in schools

No they won’t in Sept, but up until now schools did SD, if not masks.

The Ireland plans for zero Covid is not that different to what has been happening here, except proper quarantine and it would be useful to know when they would go from green to lockdown in reality - what is the threshold?

MarshaBradyo

I suppose that we will have a direct comparison between the two.

Its a shame about those that will have to pay the cost.

but hey, we are only teachers, plenty more where we came from, except that there isn't.

[quote IsaLain]@IncrediblySadToo

But there are no cases of children infecting teachers, even in countries where the schools remained open. There are barely cases of children passing it to adults. That fact doesnt change whether you have 15 kids in a class or 30.[/quote]
There are no confirmed cases. but lets ignore that who transmits to who isn't being tested, and there was a huge length of time were not testing was done at all.

www.theguardian.com/science/2020/aug/09/what-we-are-learning-about-covid-19-and-kids

@Hardbackwriter

And haven't I-Sage been rather more on the 'precautions are excessive' side of the policy debate? If so, worrying that they have had a turn-about.

I-Sage has always said that the government should be taking much more extreme measures, not less, and have argued that we should be working for Covid Zero. I'm sure they're absolutely right from the point of view of what would minimise the number of deaths from Covid, I'm just not so sure that this is actually the right choice for society overall and that it's the right thing if you consider deaths from all causes rather than taking an 'only Covid deaths matter' approach.

They don’t view it as a binary choice between Covid deaths and the economy. They argue that until community transmission is reduced to v low levels which can then be controlled by good testing, tracing and quarantining (what they call zero CoVid) the economy and community transmission are in lockstep.

@Guylan

They don’t view it as a binary choice between Covid deaths and the economy. They argue that until community transmission is reduced to v low levels which can then be controlled by good testing, tracing and quarantining (what they call zero CoVid) the economy and community transmission are in lockstep

Exactly!

We seem to imagine that this is a situation we are in control of, but as a PP said it's more like a natural disaster.

If numbers creep up, and then start to really increase (as we were seeing in March) and their experts are telling the government that either we take drastic measures to cut transmission rates or they expect that in 4-5 weeks A&E departments will be turning people away (whether they have covid or not), most schools are not expected to have sufficient staff to remain open, and the body count will start to rocket - do you really think the government will have a choice? (this is not a prediction but it is one of the possibilities for how this goes).

For those who really do believe it's impossible, how do you think a scenario where we let the virus rapidly run through the population plays out? I think it's a very grim picture.

With Test & Trace and local lockdowns I really really hope they keep a lid on things, but just as I have no idea what will be happening in 3 months time nor does anyone else, so to say that another lockdown is out of the question is naive.

We don't control the virus, we can't wish it away or pretend it doesn't exist.

It's also very disingenuous to claim that anyone wants another lockdown, I found it hard the first time and my MH took a knock last week when we started to see local increases. I have DC and I can't wait to be able to do normal things with them without queuing, restrictions, masks, and the general 'oddness'.

I don't think anyone sees at as a binary choice between lives and the economy outside the heads of people who think that other people don't care about people dying. The two are clearly very linked, and a successful strategy to eliminate Covid would clearly be excellent for the economy if it could be done in a realistic timescale and with measures that the country could sustain. The question is whether that could actually realistically be achieved without inflicting completely unsustainable damage on other areas of society - which isn't all about money. The massive worsening of educational inequality (which was already scandalous) isn't straightforwardly an economic issue, but it is something that needs very careful thought before advocating that the schools should stay shut, for instance.

[quote IsaLain]@IncrediblySadToo

But there are no cases of children infecting teachers, even in countries where the schools remained open. There are barely cases of children passing it to adults. That fact doesnt change whether you have 15 kids in a class or 30.[/quote]
Seriously

Many people died & no one knew how they'd got it, some of those people were teachers. Admittedly not more than people in many other professions, HOWEVER, we haven't had many children in school yet.

I disagree with your conclusion with very little worldwide data to go on.

Of course the risk changes when you have greater numbers in a small room, but you're working on the mistaken belief children don't pass it in, so ‍🤷🏻‍♀️

I can't honestly understand why more parents aren't confused shock about the absolute lack of anything to limit spread in and via schools

I don't think there is an "absolute lack of anything". I said this on another thread but I was looking at my son's old school's plan to return (based on 15 July guidance) and they had pretty much thought of everything.

I can't honestly understand why more parents aren't confused shock about the absolute lack of anything to limit spread in and via schools

Totally agree. I can only think posters like cologne are unaware of what other countries are doing/what can be done.

Staggered starts and finishes

This is in the plan for my son's school and requiring different year groups to use different exits and entrances, among many other processes and procedures.

Schools ARE putting thought into this. If they're just sitting there panicking and saying "oh it's not safe it's not safe" well that's a bad thing. But I don't think they are.