What would you like the govt to talk about in daily briefings?

[zafferana]

Since MN is something that is read by journalists and, I presume, people who work in government, what issues have you been waiting impatiently to hear about in the daily briefings?

Mine are, in no particular order:

• a proper plan for the reopening of schools in Sept for ALL children

• child care/holiday clubs and activities for the summer holidays

• outdoor sports clubs - things like cricket, football, rugby, outdoor swimming pools and lidos

• ditto gyms, health clubs and pools

• hair salons and barber shops

• playgrounds and other outdoor leisure equipment

• holidays - in particular UK holidays of the SC kind what would allow for social distancing.

I would like them to produce an ACTUAL roadmap, not that nonsense that we all waited to hear a few weeks back. One that actually takes us step by step back to normality, not just talks about two or three elements of the economy.

The things we care about are schools, family, and travel but the fact the Government roadmap misses all of these elements suggests that no work is being done on these which is atrocious.

@conveniencestore, and yet, the want people to shop in places that are far less controllable than the Briefing Room at N10. If, for some reason, they were unable to lay their hands on a ruler to mark our 2 meters (or 1, depending on their mood ), there’s always the Rose Garden. That seemed to work for them.

@SinglePringle yes, very mixed messages all around, different rules for different circumstances, a lot of control of the media and suppression of the opposition.

Also, yes - Shielding. The government should be working on reducing total infection levels so that those people shielding or in 'at risk' categories can join in the 'return to normal' activities. The current situation where only those who consider themselves healthy feel able to re-emerge from lockdown is totally excluding those who are at risk and leaving them stuck at home indefinitely.
The government's priority should be to reduce the number of COVID-19 infections in this country to levels that are safe for more people and more activities, rather than reintroducing activities too soon that will just prolong the high prevalence of this virus and delay the return to normal education, exercise, socialising etc

I'd love to see a politician answering a straight question.

FourTeaFallOut And every time there is an evasive non-answer and regurgitated sound bite a member of the public should be given the opportunity to pelt them with rotten veg, from a 2 meter distance, of course
I also feel that this would have been a satisfactory conclusion to Dominic Cummings bank holiday garden party.

Answers needed post haste on:

• Schools reopening and future contingency planning if they cant fully reopen
• antibody testing (this has gone very quiet - weeks ago it was being promised)
• test and trace update on capacity, numbers & compliance

-why Prof V T and the head nurse are conspicuously absent from the podium now

• how long the Nightingale hospitals are going to be mothballed for and at what cost? (If they weren't required in the first wave will they be needed longer term?)

-how much closer or not are we to getting a vaccine?

• how long are we going to be allowed to stand in massive queues alongside complete strangers for but not allowed to come into proper contact with (far more traceable) family and friends?

Plans for the shielding in England. Proper plans, no guff like "unprecedented level of support" and "we know it is difficult"

If they find a vaccine what will be the order of precedence for it?

And since there are several different vaccines currently being tested, how will they decide which is the most effective? (Please don't let the answer be "the cheapest".)

Oh and what mental health priorities will be opened to those shielding, many of whom are really suffering with depression and anxiety at the moment.

Schools opening
Teenagers
Mental health for teenagers

Antibody testing

This is being done on health and social care workers as a priority as well on a general sample to get an idea across populations. That seems like a sensible priority.

I would like to know about seeing family. That's what I'm missing.

All those things you said OP. Exactly

But don't we know the answers to many of these questions. There are still too many infections to hug the elderly and vulnerable people, too many infections to allow schools to fully reopen, too many infections to reduce the 2m rule, too many infections for those who are at risk to go to busy places.

But it doesn't have to be like this, other countries have much lower numbers of infections. In our country, we are being told that in 3 months time infection numbers still will not be low enough to reopen schools.

Why is the government not prioritising lowering infection numbers so that all these things that matter to us will be possible in September. If the government could say, stay at home a bit longer, we will reduce hospital-acquired COVID-19 infections, and by September the infection will be low enough that your children can go back to school, you can properly visit and hug your older relatives, you can properly visit the seaside, etc, that would probably be good enough for most of us, surely? Does anybody want things to start reopening now but infections to stay at the same level for months and months so that in September nothing has changed and our children are still at home, public loos are still closed, the vulnerable are still isolated at home?

What @ohthegoats and @convenience said. We need to get infection rates low if we're going to get anything of our lives back. Lots of people here are not seeing the wood for the trees.

How many people who entered hospital with Covid-19 were Vitamin D deficient.

How many men who entered hospital with Covid-19 had low testosterone (or unusually high).

Numbers, numbers, numbers.
Numbers of people whose tests have been completed every day - not numbers of swabs, not numbers posted out.
Actual test results every day - percentage of those numbers positive, negative and inconclusive.
More general numbers: of the total known cases so far, how many have fully recovered, how many are still ongoing and how many died.
On the subject of recoveries - numbers of “long tail covid” patients and numbers left with sequelae - e.g. known organ damage.
The numbers above won’t be definitive at this point, but it should begin to give a clearer picture of what we are looking at with this virus.

I would like to see something positive about the future. E.g.

all schools having an outside classroom,
councils stop cutting verges to allow wildflowers to flourish,
tips open and access for everyone to stop fly tipping - move the cost of disposal to the people who produce something in the first place
A green new deal - changes to agriculture to provide more jobs and less reliance on industrial agriculture and pesticides, move to sustainability
Food chain and food supply security in terms of jobs and local production
New network of walking and cycling routes

Lots more!

Acknowledging the massive sacrifices the public are making, especially teenagers and children. (Maybe they are? I don’t bother to listen to the daily waffle.)

Also, are they going to acknowledge how badly students have had it, being told they must pay full tuition fees for less than proper tuition, to say nothing of the likelihood of graduating into a very bad recession?

Getting all kids back into school, including secondary, ASAP

@Wanderings - yes, that sacrifice made by pupils whose qualifications have been affected in particular should be recognised and perhaps they are owed a very big apology by the government. A different policy and learning from other countries slightly ahead of us could have meant our country's experience was like Germany, Denmark, Norway, Australia, perhaps even New Zealand. It didn't have to be like this.

Or Turkey, or Greece, Eastern European countries, the list goes on... Not just Asian countries or countries in different hemisphere. Countries nearby with land borders, without the benefit of being an island.

Our country had 233 deaths today, when a lot of media and government would have you believe we are out of the worst of it and lockdown is over, and didn't we do well. 233 today, about the same as many countries' overall death count in the whole pandemic. This is not a success.

A clear plan for schools

Our country had 233 deaths today

No it didn't, 233 deaths were REPORTED today, they could have taken place weeks ago. The number of reported deaths is always lower on weekends and Mondays then is higher on other days. You have to look at a 7 day average to get an understanding of the death rate. It is going down if you use that measure.

My wish list would be

Plan for children - schools, holiday clubs, seeing friends and social stuff, sport and games, mental health etc

Plan to re- start 'normal' NHS and dental operations and how to clear the massive backlogs

Plan to support and protect shielded people and their careers/ families - many of us will be able to go back to work/ school/ shops/ fairly normal life but we have to protect shielded and vulnerable people and those who look after and live with them.