Chris Witty "We're at the limits of the contact we can allow"

[confusedandold]

I've been watching the Press conference and I always find Chris Witty the voice of reason. He is saying that we are at the limit of what we can open without the virus spreading further and we may even have to take a step back. So where does this leave the opening of schools in a few weeks time?

@netflixismysidehustle

Which countries have no Test and Trace (or app?) like England?

Schools going back needs robust contact tracing especially in secondary school and each seat in a classroom is used by up to 6 people daily.

In organized countries like South Korea I'd be told that my child sat in the same chair as a child who tested positive and would be able to get a test.

Current testing capacity is 200,000 per day (cough) but there's 9 million children (and lots of adults) at school.

Though it doesn't matter if school can provide accurate data on their contacts in school - there is no way to identify and trace the 20+ people they shared a bus or a train carriage with on the way into school even with the best will in the world.

There's also the reality that most of us don't answer a call from an unknown number and those of us relying on our earnings to survive will not voluntarily call back the track and trace system that's going to tell them they have to isolate. Even those who just don't want to rather than can't for economic reasons are going to ignore those calls.

No. I think once you come out of furlough now you can't go back in. I'm presuming that's why 2 out of 3 pubs/restaurants in our village have remained closed so far. At the minute they can avoid sacking their staff - if they open up only to be told in 10 days that they have to close again having ordered in stock, brought workers back etc then they're fucked.

I'm not criticising them. I can totally understand their reasoning.

Maybe if they backed up the track and trace system with a certificate that you send to employers and HMRC which guaranteed you wouldn't get sacked and would be paid 'isolation benefit' the system would be more effective.

@TheHoneyBadger
@netflixismysidehustle

There is no standard test/trace app in NL that I know of (I have lived there since 2017). The government’s advice is always crystal clear and well-promoted so you can be sure that if there was one we would know.
There is also a teacher shortage in the Netherlands (like in many countries I suspect).
Even if cases have risen, schools have not needed to be closed as a consequence.

Hancock said that he would make isolation after being contacted by T&T mandatory if people ignore him asking nicely.

I can totally see why people would avoid the call especially as there's no limit to the number of times that you can be asked to isolate and some people have jobs where you can't avoid large numbers of people. I wonder how many callers contact T&T out of malice and make false claims to inconvenience an ex or something?

It's good news that children in the Netherlands have had a successful return to school. A quick Google says that your country has had just over 6000 deaths which is a number that England could only wish for.

Google also suggested that like the rest of Europe, there has been an increase in infections and an R of 1.40. I hope that things can be contained quickly or that this turns up to be a mini spike.
www.rivm.nl/en/news/number-of-covid-19-infections-continues-to-increase

Yes. We don't need to be distracted by oranges and pears thinking.

You can't compare unless there are the same levels of infection and deaths. the same class sizes and facilities etc etc etc.

Saying, for example, that NZ had reopened schools and no one had died would tell us nothing about the UK.

@Rainbow12e

That is very unfair and worrying for people who work in the restaurant industry. To have the knowledge that effectively, they could be unpaid for a good few months.

I think that's why some employers have chosen not to reopen..I have a friend with a catering business and her responsibility to her employees meant she couldn't rush to open without risking their livelihoods. Lucky she took that track as the area her business is in was thrown back into lockdown recently. Staff would have been unable to be put back on furlough and the business couldn't have afforded to pay them whilst shutdown again.

She only has a few employees and feels responsible for them and concerned in a way that clearly amazon or any other big business doesn't.

It's rather disingenuous to say schools in NL have been back in full and then to reveal they were actually in on rotas which is a huge mitigation : the very thing we are not allowed to do.

Sweden is trotted out, and yet no school for over 15s.

And shall we continue to ignore Israel?

pft Israel? We're well practised at ignoring that kettle of fish.

There is a proper U4T mouthpiece on one of the school threads this evening.

Sorry, posted too soon : which is all well and good if they would be honest that they come with a missionary zeal and studies which are small and outdated and tell only one side. I am worried about the influence they have, about the anonymity they post under despite being clear lobbyists.

Hmm, anyway.

Balance and discussion is what is needed.

Now I’m wondering which thread, I reposted an article below.

I could never belong to a group with a name like that ;

I do think the name is a big problem. It's a bad starting point for me.

What I have a problem with is the army of acolytes being sent out with stock phrase and the same repeated scientific research which is actually already, much of it, invalidated.

I have no problem with the desire to get kids back . I have a problem witht he 'at all costs' mentality. I keep saying it but it reminds me of Phyllis Schlafly and her Stop ERA mob!

Again no evidence of infection in school doesn't mean evidence of no infection in school.

Yes, www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/how-sweden-wasted-rare-opportunity-study-coronavirus-schools

Yet Swedish officials have not tracked infections among school children—even when large outbreaks led to the closure of individual schools or staff members died of the disease.

Definitely - when they 'us' they don't mean them at all. They mean 'us' as in all school staff. And the them they mean is actually them - as in us, the school workers, risk safety in order for them, the parents, to get back to normal.

They pretend the us means them and the them means children. In reality plans that gave the most chance of schools staying open and providing continuity of education, even if it is blended with some time at school and some at home would be the best option for children - obviously. When you see u4t teachers announcing they will refuse to teach if students are allowed to wear masks it's pretty obvious that pupils aren't their priority.

The problem is, going back as planned will end up with closures far sooner than with decent mitigation (as in other countries) in place.

Thanks JK. I'd seen reporting on Swedish not recording infection rates in school but hadn't saved the sources. Some of the 'being threatened with having their children taken away' parents were shielding and knew damn well there'd been confirmed cases of covid within the school.

A friend of mine is a Swedish citizen but Polish by origin and quite happily makes and laughs at jokes about how compliant Swedes are and how criticising laws or government is taboo.

There are costs to every system no matter how idyllic it may appear from outside. In Sweden it is mass conformity and obedience.

The covid situation has forced otherwise conforming and obedient parents to disobey the system when their children are at risk and face the realities of the power of the state coming up against them.

honey did you want any more pronouns in that post?

pretty hard to avoid when unpicking a lobbying name like that. I'm sick of asking who exactly they mean by 'us' without response. Their slippery use of pronouns is actually core to the disingenuity of their agenda. Talk about it is what it says on the tin.

Not ‘my’ country, thanks.

@TheHoneyBadger hear hear. The 'us' is definitely not 'them' (as in the parents) but 'us' the school workers.

@IceCreamSummer20 that Texas risk chart looks far more useful than anything the UK government has provided. Armed with something like that and the most up-to-date info on local infection rates and local hotspots, the vast majority of people would make sensible decisions.

I'm not commenting on whether they have assessed the risk of schools (or any other activity) accurately or not. That would depend on what the local arrangements are. A chart like this is only as useful as far as it is accurate.