Prime minister announcement at 12

[Hugglespuffed]

Is it going to be drastic changes? Or just 'work at home if you can'?

@steppemum If you look at the typical school day - My kids have 6 40 minute lessons.
That's 30 lessons a week. Essentially 20 hours learning a week (based on 6 40 minute lessons)
3 of which are PE
Life skills/citizenship typically 1 lesson
Leaves 26 lessons.
So 17.33 hours
the first 5 minutes of a lesson realistically are kids getting ready and settled
All in all that's 15 hours of actual learning in a week.
Considering children will be working alone, without distractions you would assume they will get much more work completed in the same amount of time. You could have each child doing 15 hours of work - (3 hours a day) allowing them all to use the spare laptop between 9-6pm each day.
If the schools close I intend to have my son working in the morning next to me, as i'll be working from hoe where I can monitor he is working and my daughter in the afternoon.
It wont be easy with 3, but it can be done - and lets face it, whats the alternative?!

Press conference shortly www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-51847128

the thing is the NHS is already at breaking point so can it really take any more strain? Maybe they are going for the everything is fine option to reduce panicking as there is no other option.

I think that depends what the situation is @alloutoffucks

In a war zone that's what it means. You don't treat those you know won;t survive, because you have limited resources.

In the normal run of the mill a&e, usually it's the other way round.

i think the medical field were more worried of schoolclosures because of the lack of how everyone is approaching being careful.there was a lady that said that at least in shcools they can control and make sure proper hygiene is inforced at every level.where as if they were out at home or becasue of work in more social situations people wont be so hard on keeping the hygiene approach thatthey can inschool

BackInTime, exactly. This is why its is important to take a long term view with investments.

Falls in global stock markets can be very dramatic and short term are bad for your capital. However, it eventually makes very much for a buyer's market while stocks are cheap. Buy into some carefully chosen areas while things are relatively cheap and you could maximise your gains when they do bounce back.

The economic impact of potentially so many people being unable to work all at once plus countries going into lockdown is what is worrying the money markets.

I'm still more concerned about vulnerable people getting coronavirus though. The money markets will recover much more easily than some of them will.

How can a school enforce hygiene?

The guy on BBC News channel is saying he will be very surprised if schools are closed. But what authority he has I don't know!

It will be economy before hath. They won't close schools although if what I have heard is true probably assemblies will need to be stopped but what about lunchtimes when we have 500 pupils to feed in one hall?

@kateandme I have teenagers. Trust me hygiene is not being enforced in schools.

hmm, 3 kids, two schools (all secondary) one laptop (apart from my work laptop which I will be using.)cannot see how that is going to work at all.

They'll be set work and then do it in their books, exactly as they do at school. Each child looks up their set work, then goes and does it surely? They don't have individual lap tops or gadgets at school do they?

Health not hath!

@alloutoffucks I just would love to understand what you would have done to stop this. What advice did we not follow. You can’t stop people travelling into your country until a vaccine is found in 18 months. I am genuinely struggling to know how we could have stopped this. Which advice did we not follow ?

Yes, the BBC reporters are 95% convinced, by the sounds of it, that schools will not close. The poor guys are stalling for all their worth. BoJo's time-keeping is sub-par.

@bool Just read the WHO advice. They recommend early aggressive measures. Italy recommends preparing the NHS. Neither have been done. China built 2 extra hospitals and still could not cope with all the cases.

*they're worth

What's taking them so long?

The NHS is well prepared, it's being taken very very seriously.
Some of these posts seems to want to ramp up panic even further.

Welsh govt have said schools won't close here.

Dominic Cummings still not happy

No idea. But they're 20 minutes late. Seems rather rude to waste the time of all the journalists (and the people at home watching an empty podium).

When Wales has the lowest number of beds and an older population.
If they keep stalling more people will die.

The NHS is well prepared

After 10 years of a Tory government, it most definitely is NOT.

@alloutoffucks what are the early aggressive measures you talk about. Sorry but I genuinely am confused.

Well yes, there is the issue of underfunding stretching back years, but people saying that Italy told us to prepare and we haven't are just chatting shit.