With no vaccination imminent, how long are we going to keep doing this?

[RubyandBen]

Disrupted education that will impact on some DC forever, sending perfectly healthy DC home from school for 2 weeks again and again, lockdown of university students who will only have mild symptoms (I know there's always one or two who suffer more but the vast majority won't), destroying whole industries hospitality, travel, retail, hundreds of thousands unemployed, huge recession. Not even going to mention the long term impact on all the OTHER non covid illnesses that have been shelved.
If there's no vaccination imminent what's the plan? Are we going to carry on in this horrible limbo that's going to destroy too much or admit defeat and realise people will die?
Before I'm accused of being a mass murderer, I've followed all the rules but don't know how much more I can take of this.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince you clearly have no idea as to what is involved in construction projects or do you think these extra temporary classrooms are going to be in marquees?

To those comparing this to the 1918 pandemic & doubting our ability to bounce back from Covid, you have to remember we had just lost 700,000 young working age men in World War 1, huge war debt, coupled with another estimated 250,000 deaths from Spanish Flu (which killed more of our young than Covid does) in a much smaller population.

If the government were really radical
and organised they could completely redesign the school year. Start this year again in January thus giving a bit of extra time for children in school and then have the school year from Jan to Dec from now on. Get rid of the 6 weeks holiday and arrange more equal terms with more regular holidays and a 4 weeker in the summer. Do exams in September.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

I include the midlands in the north bit!!!

I’m really pissed off with ‘well there’s no cases near me’ on here. Really pissed off with it. The north AND the midlands are suffering, and all the government do is create a tier system where Boris decides who goes where. One of the papers described him as ‘the sorting test’ in this context.

Those pubs in tier 2 are having no custom as households can’t mix. They want to be in Tier 3 as at least there is some financial support in that tier.

Meanwhile in the low rate areas in the Tory uplands, schools aren’t closing, pubs and hospitality are open. The last lockdown was opened up when numbers were still high in the north. So again the south was more important.

Everyone is pissed off with this virus, but the north AND midlands especially. There is no equality. And not would you expect a pandemic to treat areas equally! But the north and midlands are being shafted by the government. I hope the red wall realise this.

I feel for you but didn't London and the south suffer more in March /April ?

@ChasingRainbows19

People have got no idea how much training, staffing levels, professionals, equipment and resources go into looking after even the less sickest of patients... it’s quite shocking

But yep stick the unemployed or retired in the nightingales or hospitals or force NHS staff to move. Then when their quieter hospitals spike send them back Fucking hell.

@ChasingRainbows19 no most people have absolutely no idea what is involved in caring and planning safe discharge for patients who so frequently are classed as ‘bed blockers’. Doesn’t stop them from giving their two pence worth on how it should be done though.

Yeah they did suffer more. But they also opened up early before the virus numbers were down in the North.

No I’m an educator not a person involved in construction. Why would l know about that? Why would you expect me to know? I’ve seen temporary classrooms go up in 4 weeks at my dd’s school. My concern is the inequality of education being delivered at the moment. I know nothing at all about construction.

Personally i would like to see the bubble sizes of kids in schools much smaller (15 ish) bubbling kids of frontline healthcare staff, kids of shielding family members, kids of essential workers and then ability groupings. Obviously this would pressurise staffing so I would expect to see children being supervised 50% of the time by non teaching staff, parent volunteers, dinner ladies ect. Staff to be wearing face shields and other ppe. School halls, lunch halls, church halls and other public spaces to be fully utilised to facilitate it. And before people jump on me that it's not possible. It is if people work together and actively engage. If we want our kids education to be prioritised then we need to work together.
On a medical level. The nhs needs to get back to work.
ITU covid patients for be treated in nightingale hospitals - staffed by nhs medics and army medics. ITU in hospitals to be kept covid free. Triage isolation wards to be set up to admit patients to hospital and to remain there until they have had covid testing. Then can be moved to more appropriate care once proved negative or positive. Where possible departments splitting to create a covid ward and a non covid ward.
Using some of the capacity of the nightingales moving covid positive care home residents for treatment or palliative care. No positive patients to remain in care or nursing homes. That way reducing risk of spread to other resident. Again staffed by a combination of medics, army, hospice staff, nursing home staff and volunteers.

tootiredtobeinspired -what absolute drivel!!

I have just been speaking to Italy (relative in eye of storm) and things are not good. Kids constantly off school self-isolating and a shortage of tests. Many people are saying their kids are off school with eg headache and not a cold to avoid needing to go and get a test and then waiting for results.

Kids are congregating in masses outside schools and in the evenings, negating the social distancing rules in schools.

The lockdown in Italy was far, far harsher than it was in the UK, but cases are now zooming up there so people think it was all a waste of time and are not likely to be compliant if there are further lockdowns.

IrmaFayLear clearly your anecdata (sample size of 1) is obviously better than the WHO guidance. They have said Lockdown should not be used as a means of control, it is a blunt instrument to buy time to implement other measures.
Italy may not be perfect but then we are in the midst of a pandemic so 100% normality may be difficult. I would take proper track, trace and isolate over the decimation of education for an entire generation not to mention the havoc these half arsed lockdowns do to the economy and peoples mental health! Unless of course you have a better suggestion that the experts haven't thought of?

It's a new virus - it cares nothing for social inequality

Bollocks. It's affecting the poorest and most vulnerable the worst. The same as every pandemic in history.

@Worriedmum999

We pretty much carry on like this until treatments get better, there is a vaccine or both. There is no alternative. Society would cease to function if hospitals were overwhelmed. That would crash the economy anyway as well as a huge amount of death. Schools would close through illness or petrified parents watching the news showing people dying on trolleys. Not locking down won’t help people access treatment for cancer as it won’t be safe if hospitals are full of Covid. As crap as it is, frequent, short, sharp lockdowns are what we have to do at the moment.

This exactly.

I don’t understand why people don’t get it tbh.

It’s like they think if we just ignore it then the economy, mental health, cancer patients, education and the NHS will be all fine!

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince temporary classrooms in just1 schools takes months of work before they get on site. Not only that but they would be needed at every school. Thousands of them It is not just 4 weeks work for even 1 classroom at 1 school. Really you don't need to know anything about construction to work out it's a non starter if you apply any logical thought at all.

Well they did 3 in 4 weeks at my daughters school.

Yeah, l hadn’t thought about the scale, I’m just pissed off about the inequality of education at the moment.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince if you really don't understand that the onsite part of the work is actually a small fraction of the total work I pity your pupils.

I don’t understand why people don’t get it tbh.

Because in the main peoples lives revolve around themselves, and they only see the future they want to see. It's why MN - and indeed all other public forums - were full of posts from people explaining why their circumstances made them totally unique in the world.

Country girl😂😂😂😂

I get fantastic results!!! So I don’t really care what you think!

And l wasn’t suggesting they do it immediately, But China built hospitals in 10 days....,

And one fell down...

@frozendaisy
We don't have GCSE, A level or university children right now. If we did and ours missed big chunks they would resit a year

I do have a year 11 who has missed a load of school because of this, as have all his peers. They'll probably miss a load more due to isolating. Why would you expect your DC be able to repeat the year if they were in that situation? It just doesn't work like that.

And what about a whole years worth of extra teaching staff and resources. Presumably you have a plan for that too. Presumably you are prepared to live under a Chinese style government with Chinese style working conditions. Or is that something else you hadn't thought through?

Well what amazing solution do you have to the mess that is education now?

Some kids have missed 6 months or more. How would you suggest with your expert education head how this is resolved? No one else is trying to find a solution.

I don’t actually have a Gantt chart with all the different bits of production planned out.

It was just a thought because of the concern about what’s happening. Do we just go on as we are? With unequal and undelivered education?

...the fact we are facing [lockdowns] again is a direct result of our inept and corrupt government.

So... that means the govts of Melbourne (Aus), Auckland (NZ), Spain, Belgium, Netherlands all have inept & corrupt govt too? Since they had recent Lockdowns.

Seems to be a lot of I&C about.
Except Maine & Arkansas. They must have great govt.

@IrmaFayLear

tootiredtobeinspired -what absolute drivel!!

I have just been speaking to Italy (relative in eye of storm) and things are not good. Kids constantly off school self-isolating and a shortage of tests. Many people are saying their kids are off school with eg headache and not a cold to avoid needing to go and get a test and then waiting for results.

Kids are congregating in masses outside schools and in the evenings, negating the social distancing rules in schools.

The lockdown in Italy was far, far harsher than it was in the UK, but cases are now zooming up there so people think it was all a waste of time and are not likely to be compliant if there are further lockdowns.

The new restrictions in Italy come in tonight at midnight so nobody will be congregating anywhere without getting a fine.

And the Italians I know don't think lockdown was a waste of time. Lockdown worked. Most regions had zero cases in June. Then they opened up the borders and the regions in a sop to the tourist trade and now it's heading back to square one. Everyone is angry about that- that because everything was opened up it's as if the sacrifices were for nothing.