Surely they can’t keep schools open as normal if cases keep going up like today!

[Worriedmum999]

My daughter went back to school last Thursday. She really needed to go as lockdown played havoc with her mental health. She was fine doing her academic work but she is someone who needs the social side of school.

We are a vulnerable family and, with this shitshower of a government, I had no faith that cases wouldn’t rise and I wouldn’t be forced to take her out of school again. But I cannot believe that she has been back 2 days and the jump in cases has been so huge. I honestly expected us to be able to get to half term. Of course deaths are going to rise now. Why wouldn’t we follow the pattern of the other European countries. Add to that the fact that people can’t get tested now and we’re fucked. And I’m so fucking angry and upset about the damage that this is doing.

What are the government going to do? Surely it will be impossible to expect parents to keep sending their children to schools when the death toll is huge again and the ICUs are full.

[quote FlySheMust]@epythymy
Those people have now and have always had a risk of dying from any infection. Flu, coronaviruses, a sore throat. And we didn't shut down society and destroy the economy, starve African children to death, ruin the life chances of a generation of school children before, so why now?

No one is suggesting we do. those things.Your resort to hyperbole is ridiculous.[/quote]
That's literally what is happening though, it's not hyperbole. The UN has claimed as many as 10,000 African children will starve to death per month due to the coronavirus response, every time a family books a term time holiday they're told they are putting their child's education at serious risk by missing a single week. They have now missed six months and counting. Education is everything and our children are suffering despite the fact more die of flu every year than have died of coronavirus. Our economy is suffering the biggest recession for hundreds of years, this will inevitably lead to deaths. Cancer deaths are going to rocket over the next five years thanks to missed tests and treatments. You talk of wanting to protect hypothetical cancer sufferers now at the risk of thousands of extra lives due to the measures proposed to save them. That's at best hypocritical but most likely simply dangerously stupid

@DianaT1969. Do you actually think about what you say? Yes they’re low at present but sure as night follows day they’ll rise. Look at other countries. We went into lockdown reducing cases, we then opened up piecemeal with restrictions and we’ve had warm weather. As soon as people gather inside this will spread more. It’s not hard to understand. As for my children they’re v well educated and v happy thank you!

@DianaT1969

You are catastrophising. Hospitalisations and deaths are low. That's despite bars, restaurants, hairdressers etc open for months. Let your DC enjoy their education. They deserve some normality.

But it's also with most people taking precautions. Things only started opening up again in July - that's only 2 months ago. We were starting with very low numbers of cases, so at first, very low increases despite opening up was entirely expected & predictable. Just like the beach and demos in May. If no one is infected at that time (due to the lockdown), then there was nothing to spread. As the weeks have passed since some things being open again, and lots of people ignoring precautions, the numbers inevitably rise. A pub may have been safe in July because no one in the community had covid. Now, a small number have covid, so it will be spreading in that same pub if someone close by has covid. What was "safe" in July isn't so safe anymore today. It's a balancing act. Keep infection numbers relatively low and keep "R" under one and we've cracked it. But if covidiots ignore precautions, "R" will become 1.5, then 2, then 5, then 10, exceptionally quickly.

[quote Oaktree55]@epythymy the issue is a significant number of people require hospitalisation. No these aren’t the elderly who often wouldn’t survive icu. Hospitals were full of people, men, late 40’s/50’s. Pregnant women too. You may quote a stat that may we’ll be true when the actual number infected is known but this only stands with decent healthcare. If you look to South America then the rate is way higher. If you take an average town/city in U.K. it doesn’t take long for it to fill up. Skilled nurses etc are the issue kit beds. I live near a major City in U.K. and a friend works there. They were full. She was working at below standard care standards. That was when the NHS was cleared to only pretty much deal with Covid. Don’t underestimate this. They’re gearing up for big winter influx.[/quote]
I work in a major city in the U.K. as a doctor and the local hospital was not full. Some wards were bursting at the seams while others were not. They attempted to put all the coronavirus patients into one area before moving onto the next, therefore if you were working in that particular area you would think the hospital was bursting at the seams but it wasn't. I know because I spoke to a wide group of people around the hospital, not one person in one area and had mixed reviews. Some friends told me they had nothing to do most days and were massively overstaffed with a ward team of double what it used to be.

BadBadBunny what restrictions would you put in place now? More than we have currently?

every time a family books a term time holiday they're told they are putting their child's education at serious risk by missing a single week. They have now missed six months and counting.

When you miss a week due to a holiday, the rest of the class have moved on and you're left behind. When the entire cohort has missed 6 months, they're all in the same boat. Can you not see the difference??

Not to mention a holiday is non essential. A worldwide pandemic that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and could have cost millions of lives had drastic action not been taken all over the World is a very different scenario.

@Badbadbunny

every time a family books a term time holiday they're told they are putting their child's education at serious risk by missing a single week. They have now missed six months and counting.

When you miss a week due to a holiday, the rest of the class have moved on and you're left behind. When the entire cohort has missed 6 months, they're all in the same boat. Can you not see the difference??

Not to mention a holiday is non essential. A worldwide pandemic that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and could have cost millions of lives had drastic action not been taken all over the World is a very different scenario.

Yes, a race to the bottom makes it all alright, doesn't it?

@MarshaBradyo

BadBadBunny what restrictions would you put in place now? More than we have currently?

I'd say that people actually following current guidelines/rules/restrictions would probably be enough. Trouble is far too many can't be arsed to do pretty simple things like keeping 2 metres away when they can, wearing a mask when they can, washing their hands when they can, and avoiding huge social gatherings!

@FlySheMust

Did you see the statistics that another poster provided you? 'Everyone under 50 has a 99.9% chance of surviving Covid. The only ones that don't are those with one of more chronic conditions where that chance plummets to a terribly scary 99.8% chance of survival. ' Does this does make you feel a little better?

Surely you can see that the country cannot have a full lock down again. The very vulnerable need to take measures to protect themselves (I'm on the list). I don't expect everyone else to lock down for me. Children need school, people have to work. We know so much more now and the vast majority that died were very old and had one or more existing health conditions. People in those groups need to take extra care ongoing. The fit and healthy can and will continue to catch it - unless you lock down forever that will eventually happen.

I understand that you are terrified and lots of people are worried but we have to think about the majority here now.

That's literally what is happening though, it's not hyperbole. The UN has claimed as many as 10,000 African children will starve to death per month due to the coronavirus response, every time a family books a term time holiday they're told they are putting their child's education at serious risk by missing a single week. They have now missed six months and counting. Education is everything and our children are suffering despite the fact more die of flu every year than have died of coronavirus. Our economy is suffering the biggest recession for hundreds of years, this will inevitably lead to deaths. Cancer deaths are going to rocket over the next five years thanks to missed tests and treatments. You talk of wanting to protect hypothetical cancer sufferers now at the risk of thousands of extra lives due to the measures proposed to save them. That's at best hypocritical but most likely simply dangerously stupid

Still the wild exaggeration and made up figures. Quote sources.

I am a cancer survivor and my treatment continued through the lockdown. I don't know anyone whose treatment didn't. All of us in my support group continued treatment. Routine mammograms were two months late. Not a huge delay.

Your wild exaggerations are what is dangerously stupid. You sound unhinged.

a race to the bottom makes it all alright, doesn't it?

In a GLOBAL pandemic when nearly all major countries are similarly affected, what is the alternative???

It's like the economy. If it were only the UK, we'd bankrupt ourselves by the furlough and other support schemes, lack of business, costs of covid, etc., but given all other major economies are doing the same, we can get away with it due to the relative nature of worldwide economies - they're all in the same boat and affected to a similar extent.

How many MILLIONS of lives would you sacrifice so that we wouldn't have short term temporary restrictions???

@epythymy I can categorically tell you the icu in my city was full. Can’t speak for other areas.

I really wish they would make online schooling optional here. I realise key workers and vulnerable children need to be there. But surely it's better if those that can do it from home do?

Maybe if they aren't getting the work done teachers can have a word and say they will have to come back to school?

Our Dcs actually made much better progress over lockdown and surely taking the stress away from schools at this point would be ideal?

@FlySheMust

That's literally what is happening though, it's not hyperbole. The UN has claimed as many as 10,000 African children will starve to death per month due to the coronavirus response, every time a family books a term time holiday they're told they are putting their child's education at serious risk by missing a single week. They have now missed six months and counting. Education is everything and our children are suffering despite the fact more die of flu every year than have died of coronavirus. Our economy is suffering the biggest recession for hundreds of years, this will inevitably lead to deaths. Cancer deaths are going to rocket over the next five years thanks to missed tests and treatments. You talk of wanting to protect hypothetical cancer sufferers now at the risk of thousands of extra lives due to the measures proposed to save them. That's at best hypocritical but most likely simply dangerously stupid

Still the wild exaggeration and made up figures. Quote sources.

I am a cancer survivor and my treatment continued through the lockdown. I don't know anyone whose treatment didn't. All of us in my support group continued treatment. Routine mammograms were two months late. Not a huge delay.

Your wild exaggerations are what is dangerously stupid. You sound unhinged.

Well my OH had his cancer treatment stopped in mid March and it only started again in August after we had to cause a massive fuss to even make contact with the oncology dept which closed (shutters down) for 3 months. They moved "essential" treatments to a different hospital but couldn't be arsed to tell us and wouldn't answer the phone when we tried to ring them (went to answer service which they never replied to!). It was a typically NHS admin/management cock up. When he finally spoke to his oncologist she hadn't a clue he'd not been having treatment - nor had she noticed that the monthly blood tests weren't being done. You'd have thought they'd have some kind of admin system to keep track of patients. We'd still be waiting now if we hadn't made such a fuss and were ringing almost every day in June to try to get some information from them. None of that is Govt's fault - it's local admin/management failure.

[quote WALKING2]@FlySheMust

Did you see the statistics that another poster provided you? 'Everyone under 50 has a 99.9% chance of surviving Covid. The only ones that don't are those with one of more chronic conditions where that chance plummets to a terribly scary 99.8% chance of survival. ' Does this does make you feel a little better?

Surely you can see that the country cannot have a full lock down again. The very vulnerable need to take measures to protect themselves (I'm on the list). I don't expect everyone else to lock down for me. Children need school, people have to work. We know so much more now and the vast majority that died were very old and had one or more existing health conditions. People in those groups need to take extra care ongoing. The fit and healthy can and will continue to catch it - unless you lock down forever that will eventually happen.

I understand that you are terrified and lots of people are worried but we have to think about the majority here now.[/quote]
I have never said I want a full lock down again. Where did you get that ridiculous notion? I hate it when people pretend I said something I didn't - sloppy and rude.

I said we'd come as far as we could for now and people need to keep the rules to make sure schools stay open and the vulnerable can regain some normality.

I haven't said I'm terrified either. I'm not. More lies. I'm concerned for the elderly and the vulnerable. It's called altruism.

Please stop putting words in my mouth, it makes you look silly.

Also my relative's ICU was full. There was a massive general Covid (non-ICU) ward also. Some hospitals in the area moved their Covid patients to other larger hospitals, so they might have been quieter.
Current issue in hospitals is testing. Those with positive tests are sectioned off, those with negative tests get treated as normal. Those with some symptoms, e.g. cough, get put on a query ward where they could catch Covid of someone else even though they actually have a smokers' cough, COPD, etc. The tests take too long to get the results back. The government needs to target the fast accurate testing at the NHS not the blooming aviation industry. I despair about that.
Then many areas are more important than not having to quarantine after your week or two in the sun. Namely, fast accurate testing for those in education.

BadBad me too. I don’t want a free for all but I’m ok with SD as it is in open businesses. And the rest.

@Albustydumbledore Presumably your DC aren't taking their GCSEs or A levels in the next year or 2?

How are you all coping if you have found news of positive case in your school.

I don't think my DC is going to thrive from learning new A level subjects from his bedroom on the laptop, especially not while the pubs in town are full and Greggs is open and the airspace full of people flying off on their holidays.

No very large primary school. But that's where the kids are the most snotty and grim.

Even if it was optional for certain years or just for primary I think it would ease some pressure just for the winter flu season.

It is easy for me to say that though. The digital learning we had access to was brilliant and I understand it's not like that across the board. Just thinking of ways to reduce numbers.

@Hereinthesticks

I don't think my DC is going to thrive from learning new A level subjects from his bedroom on the laptop, especially not while the pubs in town are full and Greggs is open and the airspace full of people flying off on their holidays.

I agree with you. Learning complex subjects in isolation without your peers and completely on line is a poor substitute.

Here in the sticks you are spot on. The R number where I live is above 1.

We were lead to believe there would be a trade off with pubs closing for schools to open.

Pubs being open is at this stage a complete failure of leadership.

@albustydumbledore

No very large primary school. But that's where the kids are the most snotty and grim.

Even if it was optional for certain years or just for primary I think it would ease some pressure just for the winter flu season.

It is easy for me to say that though. The digital learning we had access to was brilliant and I understand it's not like that across the board. Just thinking of ways to reduce numbers.

The problem is if it’s optional, teachers are then in the situation of having to provide both the excellent online provision that you had before while teaching in school too. Our school doesn’t have any vulnerable teachers so it wouldn’t be the case that the vulnerable teachers could provide the online education to those staying at home.

@MarshaBradyo Thanks. Often the discussions about schools really mean primary schools and older pupils are not considered. The teaching gets more intensive the older you get, and it gets harder to learn remotely on a laptop in your bedroom the more complicated the subject matter, especially if you are starting new subjects, practical subjects etc. or are about to take a life-changing exam this year (or even next).