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?

There won't be any level of compliance. I have definitely reached my limit. So much do as I say and not as I do.

Bubblesbubblesmybubbles wrote...

*Most people i know are only mixing with those where the children will be at school together come September so the optimist in me hopes that they're all mixing already so maybe it will be less impactful as we expect.....the realist in me thinks get masks on all secondry school and teachers (or visors for teachers maybe!?!) And maybe prioritise who goes back in secondary

Not that my opinion counts really but I still keep expecting to wake up from this odd dream*

Yes me too, and your opinion certainly counts. I think its a good point you make.

And if there is any protest marches I can go on I will be there.

We need to get back to normal and just deal with the fact that people will unfortunately die. Hopefully the disease will then burn out naturally.

Scroll through this article to the bit by Mark Woolhouse. He explains very clearly (imo) why kids need to get back to school and why the whole lockdown thing may have been a massive mismanagement of the whole situation. If you don’t fancy reading all of it, this is the vital sentence: ‘ In the UK, the chances of dying from Covid-19 are at least 10,000 times greater for the over-75s than the under-15s. Yet we worry as much about schools as we do about care homes.’
www.newstatesman.com/2020/07/where-did-uk-go-wrong-coronavirus

Would that be the scientist who evacuated his family to a remote Scottish island to avoid the pandemic?

In the UK, the chances of dying from Covid-19 are at least 10,000 times greater for the over-75s than the under-15s. Yet we worry as much about schools as we do about care homes

Maybe because those under 15s have teachers, families etc plus no one knows the long term health implications in full yet of recovered children or adults.

[quote lowcarblifer]Scroll through this article to the bit by Mark Woolhouse. He explains very clearly (imo) why kids need to get back to school and why the whole lockdown thing may have been a massive mismanagement of the whole situation. If you don’t fancy reading all of it, this is the vital sentence: ‘ In the UK, the chances of dying from Covid-19 are at least 10,000 times greater for the over-75s than the under-15s. Yet we worry as much about schools as we do about care homes.’
www.newstatesman.com/2020/07/where-did-uk-go-wrong-coronavirus[/quote]
School staff, their families, families of the pupils... what a short sighted comment by that man.

I didn’t realise he’d done that. Hypocritical. Even so, if children stay out of school any longer, it will blight many young lives. I’m not a pandemic expert but I do know that much.

@Piggywaspushed

Would that be the scientist who evacuated his family to a remote Scottish island to avoid the pandemic?

Ha brilliant 😆.

The good news is that even in our underfunded schools with our teacher retention crisis the vast majority of teachers are not over 75 and, indeed, they are predominantly female, which is a positive risk factor.

We have been trying to get granular data about outbreaks in school and at the moment the information is very general - outbreaks only means at least 2 people with respiratory symptoms and there doesn't seem to be any data reported yet about spread within the primary school bubbles even when a bubble has closed.

First rule of citing research : check the credentials and question the source .

Who are we?

Oh, sorry, governing body/SLT at a primary school. No one important or high up. Just trying to find out some more genuinely helpful data. The top line number of outbreaks in educational settings doesn't tell us if it's 100 people or 2 (though I guess we'd have heard from a media source if it was 100 in any school). The data must exist somewhere.

School education can't be done remotely without proper support from schools and families and opportunities for kids to socialise with their peers and have some sort of structure in their lives. The thought of many parents once again trying to deal with half-assed homeschooling whilst trying to work and keep DC mentally well is laughable. Kids need to be back in school. Whatever way you cut it children are less affected by this virus and it is their turn to be properly considered in this mess. Yes there may be localised shut downs but that shouldn't make us take away their chances. Also as a society we will be screwed if we don't give some priority to educating the young. I also think we would see serious social unrest if we just left our teens to do next to nothing for months on end.

I keep seeing a minimising of the definition of outbreak on here, as if trying to undermine any significance. Do the details coming out of North American summer camps not cause any concern? Or the outbreaks in Israel? Or the fact that, whatever an outbreak may be, thete were many even in socially distanced partially open schools, including 23 cases in one nursery.

Nice to hear male teachers can be written off, and those with underlying conditions.

These are does exist. It comes out weekly.

The data

I don't understand why they don't say masks on outside of own home. Yes some people will disobey but it's a numbers game surely.

I don't think anyone is writing anyone off - I'm certainly not. Assessing risk to individuals and communities is not the same as 'writing people off'. It's very difficult to have discussions about risk because of the emotive nature of individuals' situations.

Mark Woolhouse says there are no known cases where a child has passed Covid to an adult.

Mark Woolhouse is wrong.

The summer camp in Georgia where staff and children caught the virus was referenced on a thread recently. Those children then also went home and infected their parents. This means there definitely have been known cases. This means Mark Woolhouse is wrong.

Please stop citing this one man, who no-one else appears to agree with, and who is demonstrably wrong.

@MarshaBradyo

I can see it going a bit the same way as the states, infection levels will rise but lots of people will just keep going pretty much. Probably no large scale events but the idea that you will stop people hugging their friends and family for very much longer is misguided in my view. People will just do it, lots of people are doing it already.

Sunshine I agree with you. Stopping families etc meeting up may seem the solution (no economic impact / virus transmits there) but it’s pretty much impossible to enforce.

Then you get government closing things as that does stop that behaviour but this has economic of social impact and it really should not be schools.

@SengaStrawberry

Masks couldn't be worn back in March due to a global shortage at the time

Was there a global shortage of cloth and elastic, which is all that people are wearing now?

No because research done at the time didn't advice the use of cloth masks. Research since has reiterated that things like bandanas aren't worn, yet government said these, socks and t-shirts were fine.

Other countries are cited as wearing cloth masks, which is true, however what often gets overlooked is that they are the correct the number of layers and filters are used.

It is also overlooked that this allows for the time in between to be changed is longer and up to 24 hours. UK some people think leaving the mask on the side for a week will be fine. Or that they only need one, can pop into several places with the same mask etc.

And not everyone is wearing reusable, many are wearing the disposable ones before they involve less faff. Wear for 4 hours/until starts to get wet, bin and replace.

How long is that mans disproven hypothesis going to keep being quoted as fact on here?

You can’t cherrypick. One mans misguided opinion doesn’t trump the body of evidence to the contrary just because we wish it was true