Just realised why schools are not closing

[NearlyGranny]

Going by the Spanish experience, half the London chatterati would make a dash for their closed-up holiday homes where they would strip our supermarket shelves and no doubt create a virus hotspot among us privileged year-round residents. I'm pretty sure the unmanageable spike we're all fearing would only be hastened by a general school closure.

If we could rely on people isolating at home, it would be a different matter.

@Karwomannghia
The entire world including the WHO disagrees with you and Boris Johnson. But I’m sure you’re right and literally everybody else is wrong.

The state is also setting up emergency childcare for health care workers but with strict limits - either both parents must be essential healthcare workers or in a single parent household the single parent must be.

This sounds very sensible to me. It would make more sense that I was working somewhere like that than sitting at home while the schools are closed, or trying to cover a class of 45 while the school stays open.

Schools remain open on the UK so that every family in the country has an infected person/carrier within a matter of months. Then we see how the NHS Magics 100,000s of ICUS beds from thin air. Welcome to loony land. Apparently this is “delaying”. ROFLMAO. Hysterically.

The logic of not shutting schools is in part about people not shifting around the country as has happened elsewhere, although my youngest is at a very affluent primary in london and I don't know a single family with a second uk home, I must say. It's more widespread in countries where housing isn't as extortionate

I think our MPs should have to stay in London and not have surgeries in their constituencies. We know MPs have been exposed, having an exposed group of people travelling to literally every corner of the country is madness.

We're heading to a remote part of Cornwall with supplies. Doubt we will come within 50m of other people.

The reason schools are not closing is the economy. That is all. Any other reason is a lie.

Actually @Cam77 it’s not a case of being right or wrong and predictions vary widely. I’m concerned about the kids who will be neglected if they’re kept in at home for a long period of time.

Thinking about this more. The cost of living and housing is so high in London. We all struggle to live actually and live in tiny homes on top of one another.

Gone are the days when people had second homes.

@roarfeckingroar How long are you going for? I felt very safe on Dartmoor last week with only sheep and a rainbow for company, but I had to come home!

Same thing happened with the black death. The infected townies took it with them when they ran to the countryside. 1/3 to 1/2 of the wold's population were wiped out by the biggest wave of the black death though, just to get some perspective.

@Echobelly
There are already 10,000 cases in the UK we are told. There are dozens of cases everywhere. Sending kids to school means that dozens morphs into thousands. Schools have shut in Ireland and no one is going on the hols to Butlins or Centre Parcs. People are not idiots, but if you ridiculously and irresponsibly tell people to keep kids in school so you can keep working because we are all doomed anyway, many will. That’s not what the rest of the world is saying, though. Only the UK Tories and their advisors.

I’m in Ireland now and outside the window of my house looks like a car park. People are responsible and don’t want to cause deaths. Stop with this nonsense about people popping off on holiday. The vast majority of people are responsible adults and will respect the curfew. A damn site better than 20 million families sending in one Coronavirus representative into the classroom in the form of a child.

@FurrySlipperBoots Do you think demographics have changed since then, or roughly still the same proportions of people in town/countryside? And we're they bring advised to self isolate during the Black Death?

London chatterati

I've not heard this term before

I live in London and am most definitely NOT in that group

I’m in Birmingham which has two cases. Friends have holiday homes in Devon with has many more. I fail to see your logic. Exactly. Torbay alone has 7 cases with a population that is probably a tenth of Birmingham. People are crazy sometimes.

I work at a UK wide caravan holiday company. We live on park in staff accommodation. We're staying open and caravan owners are flocking here in their masses, our advice from management is to send home any owners who admit to being in isolation. As if they'd do that. They don't care about us staff who live here with our families and have nowhere else to go. Monday we open to holiday makers too.. and I'm stuck here!

@Eckhart

The vast majority lived in the country back then - towns were crowded, but far far smaller than those of today. I don't think 'advice to self-isolate' would have gone down too well, as the illness was basically a death sentence, and no-one wants to die alone. Instead officials ordered whole households to be locked in together even if only one of them had symptoms, to try and prevent the spread. Unfortunately enough seemingly healthy people escaped to the country, only to go on to develop it and pass it to their hosts, eventually decimating the whole population.

I thought Cornwall had a high number of cases because of wealthy residents who were on skiing holidays in Italy. Not because of UK movement.

Yes the Black Death was spread by fleeing people. But some villages that isolated themselves and stopped anyone entering did not have a single case. They didn't suddenly get it when the Black Death died down. Isolating themselves worked.

Is the UK really that different to Ireland? I honestly don't know one person over here who has gone or is planning to go to their caravan/holiday home/holidays. The majority of people are taking this really seriously.

I don’t know anyone with a second home. I do know a few of with caravans or motorbikes but their “children” are no longer school age so closing schools would make no difference to them.....

I would not be abandoning my home right now to go on holiday. Your house is safer with you in it. Plus, there's no guarantee you will be able to get back to it in the near to medium future.

Isn’t it better to contain Covid 19 in schools rather than out and about which is what will happen if the kids are off school

Fred, that is dreadful!