Prime minister announcement at 12

[Hugglespuffed]

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

there is evidence that influenza vaccination increases vulnerability to corona viruses

I’m calling alarmist bullshit on this.

there is evidence that influenza vaccination increases vulnerability to corona viruses

Where is this evidence?

there is evidence that influenza vaccination increases vulnerability to corona viruses

Where is this evidence?

I'd be very interested to see that 'evidence', too.

Surely if there was evidence of that schools would've been first to shut given that primary kids make up a large majority of the recipients?

@Steppemum - in the video he said behaviour wasn't his area of expertise and then went on to discuss behaviour. With regards to school closure I understand the impact on working parents and especially where they are doing critical work but what is the data telling the government

• how many young children have both parents working
• how many kids are old enough to stay at home without parents
• how many have older responsible siblings that could look after younger kids
• where is the research to say kids would mingle anyway if school closed (mine wouldn't)
• how many parents could look after their kids and work from home (there are some jobs that would allow for that)

They seem to be making decisions based on lots of assumptions with very little evidence to back it up. And why did all the other countries not have the same concerns?

Decisions about our futures are being decided on computer modelling - I'm guessing Sims V6.6

I heard a virologist on radio today saying that also closing schools increases the risk to the elderly- many of those are the ones to care for the children while parents work when schools are shut.

#speakout - where is the evidence for that? It is an assumption. If they closed secondary schools many many students would not need to be looked after. It will come to it anyway and they will have to close schools in all likelihood.

@wonkylegs

“where do you get the idea that "most grandparents to small children are unlikely to be over 60 "”

Based on average ages of mothers when they had their first for past 2 generations.

On mn age of mum at first child does tend to the older but actually in the general population it’s generally mid-late 20’s, the current average is 28.

The rest of your post supports what I’m saying about the skew on mn. You’re thinking of your family and friends who are most likely of the same background as you which is likely aspirational working class - middle class - you yourself say “professionals” most people aren’t professionals, there’re far more on mn than in the general population.

Working class are

A more prevalent

B more likely to need to use grandparents in this scenario, as they’re waged not salaried and also unlike to have jobs that can be done from home.

C more likely to have at least 1st dc under 30. I think around 26 currently?

Average age of mum at birth of first child of current grandparents (being parents of those born early 80’s) was 25-26

@loppy10 agree nhs and other frontline staff should be tested. But were you aware there are people who’ve had it more than once already? Having had it doesn’t guarantee immunity even short term apparently.

Where is this evidence?
here's one
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31607599
Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017-2018 influenza season.
Wolff GG1.
Author information
Abstract
PURPOSE:
Receiving influenza vaccination may increase the risk of other respiratory viruses, a phenomenon known as virus interference .Test-negative study designs are often utilized to calculate influenza vaccine effectiveness. The virus interference phenomenon goes against the basic assumption of the test-negative vaccine effectiveness study that vaccination does not change the risk of infection with other respiratory illness, thus potentially biasing vaccine effectiveness results in the positive direction. This study aimed to investigate virus interference by comparing respiratory virus status among Department of Defense personnel based on their influenza vaccination status. Furthermore, individual respiratory viruses and their association with influenza vaccination were examined.

RESULTS:
We compared vaccination status of 2880 people with non-influenza respiratory viruses to 3240 people with pan-negative results. Comparing vaccinated to non-vaccinated patients, the adjusted odds ratio for non-flu viruses was 0.97 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.86, 1.09; p = 0.60). Additionally, the vaccination status of 3349 cases of influenza were compared to three different control groups: all controls (N = 6120), non-influenza positive controls (N = 2880), and pan-negative controls (N = 3240). The adjusted ORs for the comparisons among the three control groups did not vary much (range: 0.46-0.51).

CONCLUSIONS:
Receipt of influenza vaccination was not associated with virus interference among our population. Examining virus interference by specific respiratory viruses showed mixed results. Vaccine derived virus interference was significantly associated with coronavirus and human metapneumovirus however, significant protection with vaccination was associated not only with most influenza viruses, but also parainfluenza, RSV, and non-influenza virus coinfections.

Do you think countries will start imposing travel sanctions against the uk?

Do you think countries will start imposing travel sanctions against the uk?

100% - the "get corona done" save-the-economy plan will backfire when no-one lets us in for months. Everyone else is desperately trying to stop the virus from spreading and we seem to be doing the opposite. Good luck to British Airways and all the other UK travel companies, I better start job hunting....

Czech Republic have closed all borders, and were being denounced earlier.
Apparently they’re all supposed to ‘work together’ not ‘close their borders to each other’, so they can’t seem to make up their minds....

Do you think countries will start imposing travel sanctions against the uk?

Yes. As I've just said on another thread, we will be pariahs. Other countries will start to recover, and won't want idiot Brits with their magical 'flattening the curve' germs around.

What with this and Brexit, we are truly the stone-cold envy of the world.

I'm booked to travel to UK next month.

Am beginning to think that I'll get there OK, but not be able to get back home!

Poland are closing boarders from midnight. Spain are now turning flights back that are inbound and ferries are being cancelled.

• how any young children have both parents working

well, we live in an area of low income families, on the edge of a large estate. Pretty much as soon as th eyoungets child is school age, both parents are working, at least part time.

• how many kids are old enough to stay at home without parents

mine are 12, 15 and 17. So technically old enough to stay home without parents. Would I leave them for one day, no problem, 2-3 days, fine, probably. Would I be happy to leave them, at home, with nothing to do (becuase school work will only take an hour or two) for day after day after day. No way. Either they would 'sneak out' because teenagers risk assessment is poor, and they do stupid things, because they have an 'it will never happen to me' mentality. Partly becasue they would kill each other. And I am not joking, there is at the moment a high level of sibling squabbling in our house, and they would not be able to keep up the good behaviour under those conditions for a long time. Cooped up at home with no physical release of energy is going to be a nightmare for younger kids too.

• how many have older responsible siblings that could look after younger kids

see above. My 17 year old is great, he would do an amazing job looking after someone else's kids, but his own sibling sta the moment? No.

• where is the research to say kids would mingle anyway if school closed (mine wouldn't)

well then I would say your are unusual. I cannot imagine most families around here, in small houses, with few distractions, managing to keep all the kids indoors. They will be out on the street playing after the first week.

• how many parents could look after their kids and work from home (there are some jobs that would allow for that)

again, WFH sounds great, except it really is for white collar workers. Factories, shop workers, wharehouse workers, delivery drivers, taxi drivers, carers, cleaners, etc etc, all the low paid workers, all of wholm would NOT get paid if they didn't show, all from familes where the loss of even one weeks earnings is critical. None of them can work from home.

and many many of the families aroudn here are very dependant on relatives for childcare anyway, so closing schools will mean grandparents will be picking up the slack.

On the video, I did think that a key comment was - closing schools only works if we know what childrne will do when they are not in school. And the porblem is also that what people can and will do for 1 week, is very different to what they can and will do for 2-3 months.

I do feel that people like BJ really really don't understand how impossible this is going to be for many many very ordinary families.

I agree with steppe. We have always both worked full time. Many jobs cannot be done from home of course and younger teenagers cannot be left home alone for months. Keeping schools open is the best option for now.

I can WFH, as can the majority of my colleagues, but as my employer doesn't like WFH as a general rule they aren't set up for it & won't spend the money required to get set up for it (although both directors are set up for WFH) so we won't be allowed to WFH - it's go into work or live on SSP.

My point is where is the data/evidence. Lots of assumptions about mass behaviour but I have seen no research. My story would be different to yours @steppemumteppe. Closing school would have little or no impact on me and family. I suspect I am not common but I have no idea as no data or research. I just think it is prudent to make decisions on evidence not anecdotes.

Keeping them open may be the right thing but who knows.

I just think it is prudent to make decisions on evidence not anecdotes

given that this has never happened before, what would you like, for the government to hold off making any decision either way while they do a survey of parents to decide how many would use grandparents and how many would WFH etc?
Bearing in mind, that if you had asked people this questions even 1 month ago, their answers would probably be different to being asked now when it is becoming very real.

how else do you gather this particular data set?

There is no data for some of this, so they are having to make some assumptions about behaviour.
And they may be wrong. In Spain, lots of Madrid residents have fled to the coast as soon as the schools closed, thereby spreading the virus and causing chaos. No-one predicted that, they assumed people would stay at home. I am assuming that they fled in an effort to be far away from the virus rather than thinking it was a great spring holiday, but who knows?
In a crises, people don't always do what we expect, so it will ALWAYS be an element of guess work.

Some data - they do know roughly how many people work. I think they probably (not sure) know how many SAHP there are (based on last census) They do know how many people claim certain benefits and from that can extrapolate some information eg you only claim child tax credit if you work less than 15 hours per week.
So they have some basic statistics, but to go from that to behaviour is always a shot in the dark.
The problem is always that they are having to double guess what people will do, but they have to decide something.

Closing school would have little or no impact on me and family.

ironically, despite what I have posted, it would have very little impact on me, as I already WFH, and my kids are old enough to let me get on with my work.

I still don't think we should close them yet.

One reason for that is that when we do, we want kids to stay at home for as long as possible, and I think the first week or two, people will work hard to make it work, and they everyone will slacken off, as it is going to be HARD. So do it when those first 2 weeks or so have the maximum effect.

Social research could have been done as soon as they heard reports from China. Could have been done when swine flu was happening. They could even do some now (perhaps even using Mumsnet). Would not be perfect but might provide some evidence.

If you read the nurses thread, if their children are not looked after at school, they will not be able to work. So it makes sense for those that need it for education to be provided.