Matt Hancock finally starts telling the truth

[jomartin281271]

This is an extract from an interview Matt Hancock gave on Radio 1 this morning, when he was reacting to the sharp increase in reported cases.

The health secretary stressed how serious coronavirus can be for young people, even though they are less likely to die or get seriously ill.
"Long Covid is really serious. And people can be in a bad way for months and months and months," he says.
"The second really important message is that younger people spread the disease, even if they don't have symptoms.
"Don't kill your gran by catching coronavirus and then passing it on. And you can pass it on before you've had any symptoms at all."

And now that schools have opened the number of cases has rocketed and children are unwittingly bringing the virus back into their homes, possibly infecting older members of their family. Isn't it about time we had some joined up thinking from this government. It's only a week ago that Gavin Williamson and Boris Johnson were telling us that young people were almost immune.

[quote StatisticalSense]@herecomesthsun
We can't expect young people, many of whom already have (or are well on the way to achieving) unrelated degrees and the associated debt, to be forced into those 2 industries which realistically require skills and attributes that many neither have nor a desire to learn. While both education and health care are worthy careers for those who wish to do them they do require a certain type of personality which many young people don't have (while many others do including those who have already gone down that route) and it is completely unrealistic as well as damaging to expect those with other types of personality to go into totally unsuitable jobs.[/quote]
Well, I am suggesting that what we need at the moment are a) HCPs b) teachers (or TAs)

Someone suggested that young people in their 20s might feel that they don't have hope of a decent job etc.

This would erm, help several birds with one measure.

I am thinking of recent graduates who might be unemployed. I am thinking useful work experience, that might spark further interest and give meaning to life and be incredibly useful. If they hated it, stop doing it. If some of them love it, fab. And this age group, while not 100% resistant, is less affected, so very sensible for them to help. And they should be adequately rewarded if they do.

It is a pandemic, so we need spacing and distancing, but we don't have the workforce in schools. This might be a way of helping with that.

I am not at all thinking of forcing anyone into anything.

We have a system where graduates have huge loans to pay off and even student nurses had their bursaries stopped. This might be a way of helping the situation.

@Namara no, she is hideously wrong to single out that age group with such assumptions, when the age group who are actually vulnerable are failing to follow the guidelines themselves. it's an easy scapegoat but my age group are not responsible for everyone else - all the comments like "they best stay away from the vulnerable" or how about "the vulnerable" use common sense and stay away from anyone they know raving etc. themselves

@ChanceChanceChance

I'm so tired of going round the loop!

• full time school clear an infection risk
• no school clearly not great for many kids who struggle to work at home
• blended school with half classes clearly the best option but parents not happy due to work

Blended school is best compromise for kids and country imo. But worst for working parents definitely.

Anyway, we are where we are, rising cases, schools full-time, let's just hope for the best??

It’s a terrible compromise for the children of working parents too. Or do they not count? The fact is, full time school is best for healthy primary school children, since they have a tiny chance of serious illness.

[quote Cherrybalm]@user1497207191 please dont tar us all with the same brush. not all of us are out at raves or ignoring the guidelines. I've seen just as many over 50s not following the "rules" too.[/quote]
People have been strongly encouraged to go back to work and back to the office (a lot of younger people in working age population). Everyone back to school, encouraged to go to the pub, encouraged to 'eat out to help out'. Plus a lot of service sector jobs are manned by younger people (cashiers, shelf stackers, bar staff, waitresses etc etc).

In a lot of ways younger people can't win. If they stay at home then they're not helping the economy, if they go outside then they're killing granny.

I think they can do all that work etc but don’t meet up with granny too. Not about blame but good way to go.

We have the best chance if work can continue but the two groups stay apart.

Oh and re health and education, these would be incredibly useful directions in which to welcome (not force) people on furlough / coming off furlough/ made redundant. If of course they are interested/ want to/ this could work for them.

it is very hard for the grannies, plenty of whom like to Eat Out, travel on buses, go out to lunch

I haven't read all through the thread but in his constituency there is a school which has had 8 teaching staff testing positive & 90 students there in 14 day isolation
No comment

• I've said a lot I think MH has been the most honest.

He has trotted our party line at times but he never looked comfortable. *

So when he stood up and said that they had thrown a protective ring around care homes from the start of the crisis, he was just trotting out the party line?

If he was so uncomfortable saying that, he should have quit there and then and told the reason why.

@Tomatoesneedtoripen

it is very hard for the grannies, plenty of whom like to Eat Out, travel on buses, go out to lunch

Eating out is probably ok, obviously always a risk. Being outside and meeting ok too.

user1497207191

I don't think they said teens didn't get it or spread it - It's been common knowledge throughout that teens are similar to adults. It's primary school kids they've been talking about.

An interesting distinction.

The government has been avoiding talking about teenagers.

To say that its been common knowledge is bullshit and trying to re-write history. (At least on MN)

Just to be clear I disagree with “blended learning” from an educational
Perspective, my secondary school child is part time for September and therefore restricted to what is timetabled in the afternoons for her form this means no modern foreign language teaching and only one humanity lesson a fortnight (and only one maths lesson a week), she does have two pe lessons every week though..doesn’t really feel the right focus for limited teaching!

But that is the problem isn’t it? If 50 percent of the curriculum is taught by students themselves then some serious compromises need to be made, we would just have to hope our next Stephen Hawkins gets the part of the timetable with some science lessons in it under that approach - either way childcare aside it seriously reduces the education options for a generation.

@herecomesthsun
That in itself shows contempt for young people. Just because you managed to get into your chosen career before the drawbridge was pulled up doesn't mean your choices are any more valid than those of the current and future generations who you believe should be basically forced into roles that they would never choose to work in and instead work where you believe there to be a shortage. You are also overlooking the massive effects that such roles often have on the mental health of those that choose to do them (who on the whole would be expected to be better able to cope than those forced into the roles) and how this could impact people long into the future.

Matt Hancock has had the virus himself as a fairly young person so at least speaks from personal experience.

People of all ages would listen to and follow all the social distancing and face covering principles far more often, if the government didn't say one thing and do another. Robert Jenrick and Dominic Cummings should have both been dismissed.

Can’t find a BBC interview, so here is the LBC one which I suppose is maybe what the BBC have reported on?

He was talking more about teenagers/twenty-somethings going out on the piss/getting off with each other and forgetting all the rules, I think.

Most children are not 'young people.'

*They're not referred to that way.

it is pubs, gyms, car sharing, care homes causing the rise.

[quote StatisticalSense]@herecomesthsun
That in itself shows contempt for young people. Just because you managed to get into your chosen career before the drawbridge was pulled up doesn't mean your choices are any more valid than those of the current and future generations who you believe should be basically forced into roles that they would never choose to work in and instead work where you believe there to be a shortage. You are also overlooking the massive effects that such roles often have on the mental health of those that choose to do them (who on the whole would be expected to be better able to cope than those forced into the roles) and how this could impact people long into the future.[/quote]
Erm I have repeatedly said, not forced.

I became a [deletes personal info] myself after voluntary work in a leprosy hospital actually. Not contempt, I have the highest respect for doctors and teachers and nurses.

I think we should fund options that give people choices, like the choice to do a vocational degree on a bursary, I think we should do that anyway, but we could make a good case for it at the current time if they help the country in a crisis. An option going forward. Something to be proud of.

Lots of us had funding to study when we were younger, some of us to do vocational degrees and qualifications, I think we should consider rolling this out to young people and cutting debt and offering training where we desperately need it. I think that would be a good thing and potentially of great benefit and it might offer hope to people who feel they don't have other good options right now. When I was in my 20s I desperately wanted to make a difference and to find a career where my skills and intelligence would be rewarded, and this might be it for some people.

And maybe you could try reading what I actually wrote?

MH in late March (several months after the general public had been buying a little extra in preparation for a pandemic coming our way since the start of January): 'if you have a ventilator, we will buy it'. Not running a department with any willingness to plan or prepare. No extra PPE for health workers in March or April. No widespread testing available for patients or staff in March or April.
Some very serious mistakes made in his department. Now he wants young people to stop going out, but his government won't actually close pubs or bars, even in areas with local lockdown. Just like in the first lockdown, if you want people not to go to pubs and bars, you have to actually close them.
Wrong to focus on schools and pupils when other sectors of the economy are causing transmission of the virus and import of the virus from abroad, and those sectors have no restrictions on them.

Deregistering from school isn't easy.

Because someone could be in a waiting list for that space and then the only option you have when this is over is miles away.

I think there should be an option not to send them but you have to prove what you are teaching. But I don't think considering the pandemic and circumstances you should lose the school place.

@Sunshinegirl82

The SAGE guidance said that people would need to feel personally threatened to comply with restrictions. The reality is that young people almost certainly won't die of COVID. Death therefore isn't much of a personal threat to the young.

There may be long term consequences for some although by no means all or even most (I'm not suggesting that long COVID doesn't exist but we don't yet know how widespread it is nor how long it lasts) but that message might be more "personally threatening" to that group and encourage compliance. I would suggest that is the motivation behind any change in tone.

This.

They are worrying that people are starting to realise it's not the death sentence it's made out to be, and the dire consequences we were assured would happen as a result of packed beaches, demos, parties etc over the summer actually didn't come to pass. They are trying to make young people feel personally threatened again and if that doesn't work, the "don't kill granny" attempt. Yes some people suffer poat viral effects. Just the same as after glandular fever and flu and other illnesses.

Has anyone ever had actual flu? I was ill for MONTHS after flu. I’d say it was 6 months to feel completely well. And I still had a dodgy chest for up to a year. It’s quite normal for a respiratory illness. I’m not surprised Covid is the same. But it’s unlikely to be long long term. People will recover eventually. I don’t know why people are so surprised. Clearly been quite sheltered from ill some viruses can make you!

@Tomatoesneedtoripen

it is very hard for the grannies, plenty of whom like to Eat Out, travel on buses, go out to lunch

It’s not that hard. This granny hasn’t done any of those things since March. I can live without them for a bit longer.

In his position Matt Hancocks responsibility to the country, not for self preservation he should have been honest from the start.