Up North

[stressedsloth]

Where I live we've either been in lockdown or tier 3. Our numbers have remained low and still are in comparison to the south who were left open in tier 1 and 2 for far too long.

Everybody is blaming the schools but our schools have been fine where we live.

I'm just wondering if most of the posts with great concerns are down south?

Schools wise generally a few cases but not whole schools shut. A couple of schools sent a year group home before Christmas.

North East here. Back in November the hospital I work in was really struggling with high number of Covid patients, staff shortages due to people being off sick with it or self isolating. We had a good two weeks of crisis and I was getting called on my days off and being begged to go in and help. It's more settled now.
Many local schools have had cases but my kids school have only had a couple of cases, everyone self isolated and it didn't spread.
It was the universities comjng back in September which causes the massive rise in numbers here.

Live in south Yorkshire and rates are going down. The mp said on fb other day. Also I attended a and e for the gp appointment and max wait was 1 hour. So seems ok over here.

@Fieldofyellowflowers that’s really bad and selfish wherever they are from. I am a bit aggrieved we have moved up a tier despite low infection rates but I suspect it is to stop tourists coming here too.

When thing are bad up north (like in autumn), it's reported as regional problem. When there bad in the south it's treated as national disaster.

This is so true. I'm in East Midlands. The impression I'm getting is that although ITU is busy. The vast majority are not Covid patients. The hospitals are not as busy as usual. A&E only had 42 patients yesterday. Something I've never ever seen. Pre Covid it was always 120+

We’re also in Lancashire, near to @sandgrown. We’ve been in tier 3 or equivalent for months with low cases. Our hospitals run at 98% capacity on a normal winter so we can blame lack of capacity on lack of Government investment and why is that? Oh yes because we’re so far up north that we’re not worth bothering with. No idea why we’ve gone into tier 4 now though, probably to keep what little capacity we do have free for Londoners. Still, it actually worked out better for us in the end as our cases have been consistently 150/100000 or below for months now. DS’s school hasn’t had to close and he’s had no isolations.

I'm up north and have been in tier 3 throughout.

Schools have definitely been a problem here though. Talking to friends and family, school bubbles have been bursting continuously and social media shows a similar trend.

@LadyCatStark I think I'm in the same town as you and both of my children's classes have had to isolate. I believe there is only one year group that didn't.

My friends kids have also had to isolate and at one point we had several schools here closed. Seems a long time ago now but it happened.

Tier 3 oop north here too.

We had a message on our class WhatsApp from a mum wondering if it’s safe to send kids back to primary school with “everything that’s going on” - another mum pointed out to her that we are 180 per 100k and why wasn’t she asking the same question when we were 500 per 100k in October

I’ll be annoyed if schools close on masse instead of by tier - no one should have been tier 2

South East here. We were in Tier 2 after Nov lockdown, until 19th when we went into Tier 3, then straight into Tier 4 a day later. During autumn term there had been a handful of cases at dses large comp (ds didn’t have to isolate at all) but in the final 10 days of term there was a sudden surge in cases and most years were sent home for a week of home learning due to lack of staff (some sick, some isolating). This seemed to reflect the level of cases in the area which had been fairly low and then suddenly surged. So it really did feel as if something changed (presumably the new variant reaching us). I do feel we should have been put into Tier 4 on 19th or even earlier though- the uptick in cases was obvious by then.

With hindsight it looks like extra restrictions in the SE came too late but the hope was to keep the businesses open if at all possible, generating much- needed income for the Treasury. The government reacts too slowly to the fast-changing situation IMO but I suppose they have a lot of data to consider.

Comparing number of isolating students is a fairly imprecise measure since schools to some extent chose how they managed isolations. I teach at an all girls school in NW and after a positive case (which we had a few of, nothing to suggest it was picked up in school but also no way of knowing) we just sent home students who had been sat within 2 m of the student. However, the boys school sent the whole class home. Presumably the boys spent a lot more time isolating but didn’t necessarily have any more cases.
Ours is an area that went from local to national to tier 3 lockdown but we didn’t see much obvious transmission of cases in school. We did have an “outbreak” in year 12 but the 6 students involved all played for the same hockey club where someone turned out to have tested positive.

I’m in S Yorks too. Our rates are going down.

I’ve not heard about pressure on hospitals, l live very near one of them. I went for an outpatient appointment yesterday. No problems with it.

Dd14 hasn’t had to isolate from school. Lots did though, but the general feeling round me is that rates are quite low.

BUT, Meadowhall was packed to bursting. That will be spreading cases, and Yorkshire is in Tier 3 surrounded by Tier 4. So even though it’s essential travel only, people will be coming to our shops.

I’m mystified as to why are rates are low. Sheffield and S.Yorks was really high at one point.

@starrynight19

I’m in the North West , tier three just gone into tier four, it was ripping through our schools here in Sept / Oct / Nov.

Agree with this , I'm in greater Manchester was worse before the last lockdown. It was like in March and nobody heard of anyone with Covid but here we are . People keep spouting nonsense that if we lockdown now it will all be over or it's because people not following the rules etc . It'll be over when the majority have been vaccinated and it's a virus they spread regardless of the rules .

Is it possible that in areas like South Yorkshire the new variant was already rife in October and November and has now slowed down? It was identified as being in UK since September, but again only a problem when its down South. We not such a priority up here (not bitter 😒)

Or is it possible that more people there have antibodies?

Norfolk in T4 & don't know of anyone in local schools who had to self-isolate. I mean, some pupils must have, but DC have completely not noticed, no one on my local facebook mentioned it. Or large groups sent home.

We hear about kids getting dripped on by rain in the 'outdoor' classrooms.

Norfolk is supposed to be a hot spot for the new variant.

@Mintypylonsfryingsurplus

Is it possible that in areas like South Yorkshire the new variant was already rife in October and November and has now slowed down? It was identified as being in UK since September, but again only a problem when its down South. We not such a priority up here (not bitter 😒)

Proportions don't bear this out. Unfortunately the only source I have is the sun, but they do have graphs at least! www.google.com/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/news/13604168/new-mutant-covid-strain-driving-cases-uk-london-worst/amp/

I do find it so odd the different course of the pandemic in different parts of the country and the fact that we don't seem to have any explanation for this.

When thing are bad up north (like in autumn), it's reported as regional problem. When there bad in the south it's treated as national disaster. Though unfortunately many of them decided to spread their mutated germs across the country for Christmas, so it will be everyone's problem soon enough.

This 100%

We had just two weeks out of lockdown so have essentially been under some kind of restrictions since March.
Cases in my area have remained below national average throughout the whole pandemic and we've had 3 cases in school since September- one of which was a member of staff who has no contact with children. In my immediate area our rate is 46 per 100,000 and the wider area is still well below the national average and lower than areas that were in tier 2 - yet we've consistently been under the highest restrictions.

Our local economy has been decimated - it's a disgrace.

Well another possibility is outbreaks in universities in October in large Northern cities? If new strain identified in September many students from all over UK would spread it all over very quickly. Do they have evidence it wasnt the new strain then? But I guess it suited the government then to go for herd immunity under 21's as vaccine still seemed a way off in preperation for a winter wave they knew was inevitible?

My theory, which is based on no scientific background I should add, is that the virus didn’t really reach us by the first lockdown so we weren’t as affected, then we had a lovely summer whilst spreading the virus around at low levels. Then in September, the weather turned colder starting with Scotland and moving gradually south. This will have had the twofold effect of providing optimum conditions for a respiratory virus and driving people indoors where it spreads easier. There was a definite correlation with students coming to Unis too. Our nearest tiny city has 2 huge Unis and cases went up a lot in September and have now settled.

Yes most of "up north" had a slow release wave long after the initial lockdown which was in response to the "south east".

We have no idea what the rates really were before summer because testing wasn't occurring.

When sheffield university and hallam re open soon our rates will spiral as tier 4 students come here!!! Keep schools open and keep uni students at home away from sheffield

Yeah👍🏻I live near Ranmoor halls of residence. That was a hotbed!

@MistletoeandGin

We’ve been in constant tier 3 (now 4 as of yesterday). The highest rate our small town got to was 200 per 100k. Now at 65 per 100k. I agree with the London thing. When the north was suffering with really high case numbers, the south were happy to go about their business while saying it was a regional problem and the tier system was appropriate. As soon as numbers rose in the SE the calls for national lockdown started.

Same here, except we only just moved up to tier 3. Similar numbers too.

I don’t blame Londoners at all. It’s the government that should be doing better, this North South division is an obvious issue.

Up north, restrictions since July. Tier 3 when it came now tier 4. There have been 2 children (siblings) test positive in my children’s primary school and 3 members of staff which meant 5 class closures due to staff positives.