Uk coronavirus deaths predicted to be 66,000 the worst in Europe, 2nd worse in world.

[HerstoryInTheMaking]

Why does this not surprise me. We were appalling slow to allow lockdown. Govt u-turn on herd immunity. Allowing Cheltenham and other events to go ahead. Those in charge need to be held accountable when this is over.

metro.co.uk/2020/04/07/uk-set-66000-coronavirus-deaths-becoming-worst-hit-europe-12521377/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Several teacher and support staff have had it, and thankfully recovered, at my school!
There have most definitely been teachers that have does from this.

@DippyAvocado finally someone talking sense!

Everyone else seems to think mass gatherings doesn’t apply to schools. One of the biggest daily mass gatherings going.....
and just stuff the staff getting ill. Collateral seemingly.

I also agree with Xenia.

@Tonyaster are you having a laugh??!!! Are teachers either not worth treating as humans... or miraculously immune? Loads have been sick it’s just not newsworthy. Because everyone wants the schools to reopen. If anyone dared suggest we were in fact humans and not robots they couldn’t keep pushing this stupid agenda.

Thank fuck I live in NZ. We have had one death so far thanks to our governments quick and decisive action. I fear for my family in the UK and can’t believe the incompetence and lack of ethics demonstrated by the British government.

School have been shut for just over two weeks here - thankfully. I’m a secondary teacher.

There have only been 452 deaths aged under 60 in England. 92% of deaths aged 60+ (which is a smaller proportion than seasonal influenza, even if it sounds large)

There are around 450,000 teachers on England, and around 44 million population under 60, so you'd expect to see around 4 or 5 dead teachers at this point.

Quick Google search finds

Kate Fox Thorn Collegiate Academy
Wendy Jacobs Roose Community Primary
Keith Whittlestone Joseph Leckie Academy
Darren Webb Coppice Primary Partnership

I imagine there are others yet to be named

Exactly how many dead teachers would make people happy? 10, 20, 50?

I suspect many countries are trying to get some sort of immunity - they just haven't specifically said so.

"Herd immunity" versus "locking down" are not either/or---virtually all countries will end up having to do a mixture of the too. If you try to do herd immunity only and let the virus rip without restraint, your healthcare system will probably not be able to cope because too many people will get sick at once. If you tried to lock down for months on end until a vaccine is available, your economy would fall over.

So all countries are going to have to do both of these things.

UNLESS they were able to stop the influx of infections very very early and are now able and prepared to keep the country sealed from outsiders for 18 months-very very strict regulations and a long period of quarantine for those entering the country and so on. New Zealand seems to be trying to do this. They went on lockdown almost as soon as they got a single case, and I assume that at some point they will stop doing this but will instead seal the country off from the rest of the world and try to keep things that way until there is a vax. It might just work, but even China has found it impossible to stop cases leaking back in from overseas-perhaps a smallish island nation in the southern hemisphere can just about do it, though.

user1477391263 good post.

Teachers who were deemed medically vulnerable would not have to work, in the same way that nobody who is medically vulnerable has to work through this. The collateral damage of otherwise fit, young and healthy people is happening across all sectors that are still up and running. Police, supermarket staff, NHS staff, cleaners, carers, binmen, anyone who cannot feasibly do their job properly from home but fufill a very important function in society. Why should that not include teachers?

As for the 66,000 claim: this thread makes good reading.

twitter.com/LawDavF/status/1247645249293385729

"You only have to look at the graph for a nano-second to realise it has no relation to any actual numbers. It assumes twice as many deaths today than reported. (I have no idea what the eventual death toll will be and I don't care to speculate.)"

I have no doubt that there will be plenty of deaths in any case--let's not make this crisis even worse through scaremongering that is not well founded in facts.

User yes NZ is an interesting approach. They may do it.

Oth Sweden, haven’t found a solution as yet numbers are starting to rise quickly and they may change course.

The forecast is not prejudiced against the UK, but it is very US-centric

• and btw the US deaths estimate is lower than most other sources estimate it

It doesn't consider developing countries, where there may be carnage, just the "West"

They assumed current bed occupancy for non-COVID would remain about the same and
also did not consider the plans that most countries would have to increase capacity.

But they did this for all countries not just the UK,
probably because those additons would be too estimated and their model dealt with the figures they had from say early February when they created the model

The forecast is only until 1 August, so only calculates the first "wave"

Until there is widespread herd immunity, there will be more waves in Autumn and winter
so the UK -and Sweden - might have lower deaths in those than other countries

So we can't tell the final total in the 12-18 months before we have the vaccine

I also agree nearly all countries in West can’t contain until vaccine so we have to move through numbers.

On teachers my sympathy lies with them, and opening too early would not be the way to go.

The collateral damage of otherwise fit, young and healthy people is happening across all sectors that are still up and running. Police, supermarket staff, NHS staff, cleaners, carers, binmen, anyone who cannot feasibly do their job properly from home but fufill a very important function in society. Why should that not include teachers? totally agree

And if there is a shortage of teachers then ask third year degree students to teach early. As they are doing in the NHS.

Thank fuck I live in NZ. We have had one death so far thanks to our governments quick and decisive action. I fear for my family in the UK and can’t believe the incompetence and lack of ethics demonstrated by the British government.

It was late arriving in NZ so you had much more of a warning and a longer run up time to come up with a strategy to start with. Also it is a pretty inaccesssible and sparsely populated country with not many people in it to start with. While I am glad for you that NZ are dealing with it well, I don't think the issues it faces can be compared to the UK, or even just London. London alone has almost 7 million people whereas NZ has less than five million in the whole country.

@AnnUumellemahaye the problem is that many schools were struggling to operate before they closed due to the number of staff absent because of needing to shield.
Lots of schools have long-standing vacancies they cannot fill. Take out 10-25% of the workforce they actually have, and it's very hard to run classes.
Add in social distancing, and it would become impossible.
My school is bursting at the seams- there are so many more on roll than it was actually built for. We cannot have a whole school assembly any longer as we cannot fit all pupils into our hall or our gym.
The corridors are narrow and crowded at the best of times. It's impossible to pass without pupils touching one another, let alone having 2m of clearance.

"The collateral damage of otherwise fit, young and healthy people is happening across all sectors that are still up and running. Police, supermarket staff, NHS staff, cleaners, carers, binmen, anyone who cannot feasibly do their job properly from home but fufill a very important function in society. Why should that not include teachers?
totally agree"

^Yep
everyone who cannot WFH will be at higher risk
but we aren't stopping businesses which are less essential than teachers and childcare

Like it or not, unless at least primary schools open, the economy cannot restart properly

• and we cannot wait another 12-18 months (when the vaccine should be available) for that

From early summer, infections are predicted to get v low and stay there until Autumn
If that happens, people must get back to work

Otherwise - there will be no money for anything later, including schools, the NHS, benefits etc

My late dad grew up in the NE during the 1920s and 1930s - had to leave school on his 14th birthday to work ft for half an adult's wage.
There was never quite enough to eat and the family were literally all barefoot
That's what A Great Depression can mean for low income wc families with kids

They can’t remain closed until vaccine but even China has opened cautiously with stringent SD measures. We wouldn’t be able to implement the same.

For me before May half term is too early and September feels about right. But it depends on numbers.

Thank fuck I live in NZ. We have had one death so far thanks to our governments quick and decisive action. I fear for my family in the UK and can’t believe the incompetence and lack of ethics demonstrated by the British government.

The British government haven't done anything much differently to the other major European nations. That have all locked down at around the same stage of the spread (which is not necessarily around the same date)

Easy to criticise when you live in NZ and not densely populated, with many transport and airport hubs, western Europe

The problem is there is no exit strategy at the moment other than a vaccine and no vaccine has ever been developed for any coronaviruses to date. When the world was relying on Chinese data that suggested covid-19 was much less infectious and much less deadly than it triunes out to be, you can see how that might have lead to the view that herd immunity was ultimately the only exit strategy. Now the future is very unknown. Even countries like New Zealand that locked down early cannot isolate themselves from the rest of the world indefinitely without facing other serious consequences. I am not sure there is a proper medium to longterm plan anywhere yet. We are still in the eye of the storm.

turns

Thank fuck I don't live in NZ which is going to have to cut itself off from the outside world for possibly up to 2 years while a vaccine is found!

Yes Tonyaster, I'd much rather live in UK and die of coronavirus as part of the government's herd immunity strategy