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.

There was a lady on this morning saying it was unlikely theatres would be able to open before Christmas.

I think we need to act now to stop a spike.
As crazy as it may seem as an idea. A level students are going to have a big change to adjust to anyway when they eventually go off to uni. Why not do evening classes spaced out in theatres?
It would make use of theatre space and in terms of environment, it would be like a lecture theatre so would allow a safer more spaced out way of educating them. They would have to adjust to lecture theatres soon enough anyway. Why not now while proper theatres are empty?

Here Yep I have a dc in yr11. I’ve seen his further maths, PowerPoint and voice over for hours over weeks and months doesn’t cut it.

Our online stuff was all apps, but it did work really well. We didn't have teacher interaction, we had learning menus, sumdog, spelling shed, TT rockstar and the likes. It did work well though.

news - 8 teachers have tested positives in Haverhill

@albustydumbledore

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.

I agree! Even in areas of local lockdown and restrictions on meeting any other household, the pubs and bars are still open. People in lockdown areas were apparently still going on holiday, not sure this was allowed, but no-one was checking so it happened anyway. It is madness that a civilised country would be suggesting schools closure before pubs closure. And to give the fast accurate tests to airports instead of the NHS? Also horrible.

@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.

African children

www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31647-0/fulltext

And

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/coronavirus-child-deaths-hunger-burkina-faso-un-a9641926.html%3Famp

And

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/world/middleeast/virus-linked-hunger-tied-to-10000-child-deaths-each-month/2020/07/27/84d349ca-d059-11ea-826b-cc394d824e355_story.html%3FoutputType%3Damp

And many more if you want to simply look yourself

Cancer deaths:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lanonc/article/PIIS1470-2045(20)30388-0/fulltext

And

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/01/millions-in-uk-miss-cancer-screenings-tests-and-treatments-due-to-covid-19

I also have a significant amount of anecdotal evidence of this as a GP. A huge amount of routine screening has been stopped, I have referrals that I have marked as urgent bounced back and those patients not yet seen. I know personally of patients that have had crushing central chest pain and have been too frightened to go to A&E and have waited over the weekend to telephone us resulting in likely negative outcomes and some unnecessary deaths.

www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3249

This article in the British medical journal has found six U.K. child deaths relating to Covid, all of whom had serious, life-limiting, pre-existing conditions. I can't particularly be bothered to find the yearly flu statistics for child deaths but trust that I am right, there are more than this. I will find them if I really need to. Roughly 20-25 children per year in this country die of chicken pox and yet in this country chicken pox is seen as something to joke about in order for your child to catch and get out of the way.

Please, feel free to continue your asinine "well I've been alright and therefore everyone else must be too" bollocks but you're wrong. As someone with cancer I'd expect you to understand the importance of early detection and treatment...

@mumwon

news - 8 teachers have tested positives in Haverhill

Could this be from inset training days?

@Albustydumbledore

Unfortunately, 16 year olds starting A levels are not the same as undergraduates. They would mature and develop intellectually a lot in those 2 years. They still need guided learning and a supervised environment.

@mumwon

news - 8 teachers have tested positives in Haverhill

When did they go back to school?

@Badbadbunny

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???

Not true. Some countries didn't lock down, many had a short break and have been back for months. This pandemic has killed ZERO healthy children in this country and six children with serious health conditions. Sweden has compared infection rates etc with neighbouring Finland and found no difference between lockdown and no lockdown on schools and the virus.

The alternative is to actually protect our children's education and to preserve the lives of those likely to have been negatively impacted. We owe it to our children to understand the evidence and react logically and proportionally and that hasn't been the case.

[quote Hereinthesticks]@Albustydumbledore Presumably your DC aren't taking their GCSEs or A levels in the next year or 2?[/quote]
One of mine is at this stage and I agree that online learning would be better than in school learning for them.

The issue is we are trying to force a single solution all the time. But actually we have a wide range of problems. For some it is motivation. For some equipment. For some understanding.

Bottom line: everyone is different.

The pandemic has thrown up some major (temporary) negatives with the way we school usually, forcing those who have little need back into school seems counterproductive for all of us given it increases virus spread.

We owe it to our children to understand the evidence and react logically and proportionally and that hasn't been the case.

Certainly didn't do this when we e.g. refused to cancel Cheltenham, failed to impose quarantine from Italy and tagged about before locking down.

[quote Oaktree55]@epythymy I can categorically tell you the icu in my city was full. Can’t speak for other areas.[/quote]
ICUs are often full. They often work to capacity. I remember a news report about a hospital somewhere that was hysterical about there only being "five beds left!" As though this is in any way abnormal. Every single winter there is an "nhs crisis", no beds, bed managers frantically trying to place people etc. This is not unusual.

Tagged should be faffed

Older pupils still need to ask the teacher for help and have a teacher know who they are and watch for difficulties. Especially those who did not go to a FE college but chose to stay in a school environment.
They seem big and old when you have younger children, but as the owner of a 16 yo, many still need a school structure. They still have 2 more years to be fully independent learners. It is part of the process and they are not there yet.

Here in the sticks - I mean like, could they have the exact same lessons with their teachers they would have in their schools but just in a bigger environment away from school with more space?
I appreciate that wouldn't work for practical subjects but it may take the pressure off in terms of numbers and with so many young people testing positive it might stop people of that age group transmitting to younger age groups in corridors ect.

@ChanceChanceChance

We owe it to our children to understand the evidence and react logically and proportionally and that hasn't been the case.

Certainly didn't do this when we e.g. refused to cancel Cheltenham, failed to impose quarantine from Italy and tagged about before locking down.

100% agree with you. Almost everything this government has done has been wrong and stupid and then they have carried on doing wrong and stupid. Don't get me wrong, I think in March lockdown was probably the right thing to do but schools in this country should have been back by May half term.

epythymy

But how much of the negative impacts are going to be down to poor management within the health service rather than lockdown?

My GP surgery is still not offering face to face appointments unless deemed absolutely necessary following a telephone consultation - however, the telephone consultation can occur at anytime throughout the day and I was on hold for 45 minutes just to get through to request a call. If they ask you to attend then it could be at any time so this really precludes people who are at work and have a commute or who aren't contactable at all times during the day. There are then going to be the signs picked up by GP during face to face consultations that might not have been the reason for the appointment and will be missed over the phone.

Then we've got hospitals - I'm under the care of two London hospitals. The first one I have three monthly appointments at. I have not been seen in person since December. My first appointment this year was the week of lockdown and that was changed to telephone. The consultant said he wanted to see me and that my next appointment would be f2f - it wasn't. Told the next one would be f2f - I got lost to follow up so have chased it and they've made it now for November (should have been September) - it's another telephone consultation. So that will be 12 months not being seen f2f, no blood tests etc - yet hospitals are currently quiet so we're told, so why aren't they seeing outpatients.

2nd hospital - urgent respiratory referral made in February. Didn't happen because of pandemic. Just received the appointment for next week. It's a telephone consultation - for a new respiratory referral. How does that even begin to work? But again, why? That's not due to Covid infections is it?

@epythymy not many (if any) countries in Europe have been back for months. Sweden even shut its colleges. France opened for a week before holidays. Germany just before. Italy has made full provision for live streaming of classes by installing equipment in schools if necessary to switch. Spain has far smaller classes and is making use of public buildings to keep classes sensible.

Any further generalisations you’d care to make?

[quote Hereinthesticks]@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).[/quote]
Yet that's exactly what Uni students are expected to do for even more complex/complicated topics.

By college I mean 16-18 year olds in Sweden

@epythymy it is not very new, but absolutely not ideal. One of the reasons I read that Germany had fewer deaths was much higher number of ventilators per 100,000 people, so much earlier intervention was possible.

UK has cut things back dangerously far and our healthcare is no longer first class.

From NYT in March:

Compared with other European states, Germany is by far best equipped to deal with the outbreak. Not only does it have a good number of intensive care beds — around 28,000 — it also possesses 25,000 ventilators, with 10,000 more on the way. France has only around 5,000 ventilators available. Italian hospitals, confronting the world’s most severe coronavirus situation, are already triaging patients, forced by a lack of resources to make excruciating decisions about whom to treat and when. As of Monday, the country’s fatality rate was around 11 percent, with 2,470 dead. In Germany, 13 patients have died.

UK had only 5,000, now about 12,000 - so still way below Germany.

Our ICU capacity was insufficient due to political decisions taken by Cameron.

I think in March lockdown was probably the right thing to do but schools in this country should have been back by May half term.

No way could this have happened, this is crackers!

@mumwon

news - 8 teachers have tested positives in Haverhill

When did pupils go back? If those teachers have already tested positive (presumably tested on Friday), it's highly unlikely they caught it from pupils due to the incubation period. They either already had it when they went back or they caught it on the first day or two from other teachers before pupils returned.

[quote ChanceChanceChance]@epythymy it is not very new, but absolutely not ideal. One of the reasons I read that Germany had fewer deaths was much higher number of ventilators per 100,000 people, so much earlier intervention was possible.

UK has cut things back dangerously far and our healthcare is no longer first class.

From NYT in March:

Compared with other European states, Germany is by far best equipped to deal with the outbreak. Not only does it have a good number of intensive care beds — around 28,000 — it also possesses 25,000 ventilators, with 10,000 more on the way. France has only around 5,000 ventilators available. Italian hospitals, confronting the world’s most severe coronavirus situation, are already triaging patients, forced by a lack of resources to make excruciating decisions about whom to treat and when. As of Monday, the country’s fatality rate was around 11 percent, with 2,470 dead. In Germany, 13 patients have died.

UK had only 5,000, now about 12,000 - so still way below Germany.

Our ICU capacity was insufficient due to political decisions taken by Cameron.[/quote]
Goodness you're still talking about ventilators and you call me crackers?!