Are we a couple of weeks behind Spain and France?

[BKCRMP]

If Spain is v.likely in a second wave and France not far behind them does that mean we are also heading straight in to one again?

Will schools open regardless this September?

"I will feel devastated if schools are closed again at a national level again".

I will feel devastated if any of the older colleagues I work with are hospitalised and or die due to contracting covid because the government guidance does not provide covid secure workplaces or if pupils that I teach pass on the virus to older parents or grandparents that they live with.

These risks must be weighted and balanced in a measured way. At the moment I am not convinced they are. Rather guidance seems to be about getting people back to work etc because the measures for school staff and pupils provide far less protection than is available for everyone else.

Numbers of cases have been gradually creeping up over the last few weeks. Noone has mentioned it on the news but it's there. Gone from 400 a day to about 740 odd a day.

@Orchidsindoors

Numbers of cases have been gradually creeping up over the last few weeks. Noone has mentioned it on the news but it's there. Gone from 400 a day to about 740 odd a day.

Cases were low pretty much everywhere around Europe until holiday season started a few weeks ago and everyone started flying again.

Case numbers are all over the news @Orchidsindoors. Coverage of hotspots, fears of second waves.....

I agree @Orchidsindoors, lots of chat about other countries, very little clear reporting of our own cases just now.

How did this get on to schools? If people are saying 'it's a pandemic, forfeit your children's right to an education as schools can't re-open until the unions deem it 'safe' according to any old bullshit criteria they invent', why is it not also reasonable to say 'it's a pandemic, so for the sake of saving others, forfeit your two weeks on Costa Collapso'

Would be interesting to know if any of those unions/teachers/parents who are saying it is not safe to go back to school without a million impossible conditions are also deeming it 'safe' to jet off for some sun.

Walksen what measures do you want to protect members of staff?

If we want to protect adults then I hope we all lose weight and stop smoking. That would be more effective than shutting schools.

By extra money do you mean for masks? Cleaners? Outside classrooms? What will make the moaners happy? And are the unions asking for these things? What are parents meant to do to help I wish someone would ask if there are problems so solutions can be found!

I’m a teacher, it’s not safe, and I’m absolutely not jetting off to the sun. That’s unsafe too.

I'm a teacher too. It's not safe and I've put my lovely holiday on the back burner to Switzerland and Italy and will be camping in Scotland instead.

I’ve put my holiday to Italy on a back burner too.

@Oaktree55 spot on

Anyone who calls people moaners can right off.

This isn't a little trivial matter, it's not just moaning.

For some reason the word 'fuck' was missing, you can decide where to put it in the sentence

@daisychain01

What are people observing? What is actually happening?

What I'm seeing is a lot of compliance wearing masks in shops (almost everyone in my local supermarket was wearing one today and an odd one or two not wearing one may have been in an exclusion group), quite a stringent control of those not wearing a mask, security on the door asking people if they can wear a mask or please consider not coming in unless they're prepared to buy a pack of masks - big pile of them at the entrance.

Shops aren't wall to wall people, restaurants aren't all packed out day after day. The numbers from the Bournemouth beach debacle haven't shown a massive surge or spike in new infections.

So why are we suddenly thinking Wave Two is definitely going to happen, all the "why aren't we learning" yada yada. Are people just trying to find a problem or do they have real concerns, based on real facts?

UK is doing well in general, many many people are trying to do the right things. It isn't perfect, but please let's stop the hating, get on board keeping safe and stop adding to the negativity. People seem to want instant results, 100% certainty everything black and white all the time, it's crazy.

Thank you @daisychain01 for some actual positivity. People on Mumsnet are falling over themselves to vilify everyone and guess how bad and terrible life is going to be. I’m not a huge Boris fan but I find his positivity at least more pleasant than the doom and gloom of MN. As everyone says covid isn’t going anyway- constant lockdown isn’t living with it. We will find a way.

@Newgirls schools don't have the money for extra cleaners, they don't have the money to pay supply teachers if any teachers go off sick. They certainly don't have money for extra classrooms. They don't have money to get extra laptops to ensure all pupils can have access to technology if they have to self isolate. Most schools won't have the money to pay the teachers' pay rises so will have to make some staff redundant. Schools really have no money.

I am not a teacher, I am a governor who has had to sit in many meetings trying to find ways for schools to balance their books. We are pretty much having to go cap in hand to parents to ask for money, it is so sad.

How realistic is it for people to go from obese overweight healthy ot stop smoking etc in time for September?

It is also not my job to determine these measures. I am not an epidemologist nor do I have access to the scientific advice the government do. I have some measures that I'll mention later albeit I will probably be told it's child abuse or similar.

It seems to me that the government simply decided well masks don't work for long so you can't have them. Anyone who works in a school also knows SD is virtually impossible to maintain so there's lip service to that. The two major protections have basically been discarded as the government can't figure a way around them.

All the talk about bubbles and staggered starts gives an illusion of action without significant risk reduction. Secondary schools might use different entrances but with no reduction in teaching time allowed staggered starts won't really help much either with kids mixing freely on buses and on entry to the school grounds

It will realistically be impossible for staff to stay 2m away from all students at all times either. You can't do this in a supermarket because you are relying on others to also maintain their distance from you soon don't see how it is possible with teenagers who do not take SD seriously at all. If I was a vulnerable student I don't have SD protection at all.

I know other countries like germany have mandated mask wearing when moving around school etc entering and leaving classrooms. I don't see why this can't be done for the 5 or 10 minutes it takes to do this when it is necessary in shops etc. ( Except it would cost money as schools would need to provide masks to some students). I don't think it is realistic to wear them all day and nor do I think we can have perspex pods like in South Korea.

It would also be useful to have random tests on say 2 or 3 staff/ kids in bubbles each day or week. The problem with kids is that they are often asymptomatic so may be missed as index cases. If we can't have any other protections there should be some proactive monitoring going on at least.

There should also be punishments be it fines or exclusions allowed for parents sending symptomatic kids in ( which happened in march when community transmission was higher) etc. Sorting out ssp or similar so low paid parents don't feel obliged/forced to ignore isolation procedures because they can't afford to.

RedToothBrush

I think you’ve summed it up well with the following

Places which are economically deprived are more vulnerable to Covid-19 but its places where the more affluent move around widely which allows its undetected spread and new clusters to pop up.

So perhaps the government are acting quickly to avoid the situation we had in February half term with people skiing in Italy?

I think the frustration comes from the fact that alot of the suggestions for schools are not practical.
Part time - me and my partner both work full time. I am a teacher myself. Where will my kids go? Do I have to put my career on hold for this? How will we pay bills? Women will bare the brunt of childcare needs sadly. Older secondary could be left alone but all younger children could not. Yeah other countries might be doing it but we have high levels of both parents working and alot of families are reliant on 2 wages. I know we are!
Online learning - there has been research that says it hasnt worked for most children. Also it isn't teaching, it is just activities. I am a y2 teacher and one of my sons is y2. Home schooling obviously not an issue for us. However the amount of parents I had texting me - what in an array? What is an expanded noun phrase? What is a subordinate conjunction? I cannot imagine having to teach secondary without any training or knowledge of the subject.
I can understand the arguments on both sides. I am worried about my kids going back, but they love school and miss it so much.my older son has lost all his confidence. I really hope they are back in september!

@walksen DH and I are teachers. We knew from March that obesity was a risk factor for Covid so we actively started losing weight from 16th March. I also stopped vaping then too. Almost 6.5 stone lost between the two of us. We were both clinically vulnerable as had BMI of over 40 then. I was 42. Now I'm 32 and DH is 29. Both of us really want to lose at least 7lbs to drop another BMI number before September and I want to be below 30 by end of September. That's the fear of Covid in our house.

[quote monkeytennis97]@walksen DH and I are teachers. We knew from March that obesity was a risk factor for Covid so we actively started losing weight from 16th March. I also stopped vaping then too. Almost 6.5 stone lost between the two of us. We were both clinically vulnerable as had BMI of over 40 then. I was 42. Now I'm 32 and DH is 29. Both of us really want to lose at least 7lbs to drop another BMI number before September and I want to be below 30 by end of September. That's the fear of Covid in our house.[/quote]
That's amazing- well done

Well done Monkey worth it

Thank you @MarshaBradyo @cautiouscovidity

@walksen I agree with you on everything else. As secondary teachers we knew the huge amount of contacts would put us at risk.