London being prioritised for schools reopening as usual...widening the education divide

[CaughtInTheCovid]

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/19/english-schools-may-reopen-regionally-medical-chief-suggests-covid?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Why is it more important to open schools in London than anywhere else? We are in the NW and have had the most severe lockdowns for the longest. I will be raging if our schools are kept closed when our numbers are half that of London.

@flipflo

Things in London are still dire, but new infections are falling. The North is estimated to be two weeks behind London, so that means cases will continue to rise there for a while longer. If that's right, it seems reasonable to me to reopen London schools first!

Well no, because our children had to stop going to school because cases in London were high and our were low so on the other side, it’s only fair for London to wait for our cases to come down before going back. Otherwise, the educational inequities will increase even further, which will eventually increase the income gap between north and south.

Hospital admissions in London due to covid have fallen for seven consecutive days. That's why it's being considered for reopening sooner. It also went into tier 4 before eg my area did.

@WrongKindOfFace, I agree, places where cases are falling should all be considered for school re-opening. I did think the general trend though, was for London to be hit first by any new wave. It will be interesting to see how it all evolves. Cautious cheering for cases falling everywhere (obv!).

LadyCatStark No, schools nationwide were shut because the new variation that was ripping through London, Kent and the south-east was starting to spread elsewhere and nothing short of a national lockdown was going to stop it, especially after Christmas mixing (which was banned in London).

Cases in my part of the Midlands seem to be reaching their peak with either growth rates tailing off or tipping into declining. Probably the lag on peak hospitalisations/ deaths approaching shortly.
By Feb half term, we should be well within rates where schooling has continued through the autumn term, and haven't greatly exceeded our October peak which was just befiore November restrictions could show an impact.

These threads moaning about London are beyond tedious

I mean do people genuinely think that everyone in London is the proud owner of a lovely three bedroom victorian terrace worth £900k, swanning around drinking flatpack espresso and eating organic artisan avocado on sourdough toast made of gold, riding their £8,000 unicycle round the city, working from home on a macbook air?

London is home to some of the most relentlessly deprived areas in the country. I should know, I grew up in one of them.

I don't get this the cast majority of the North East is dropping, is lower than November, has better hospital capacity than pretty much everywhere, and has a region has vaccinated the most people...what else would have to happen for schools to reopen first.

@LadyCatStark Let me tell you about the income gap...where I live in the South (40 miles from London) I get paid the same as I would do if I did the same job in a Northern city. However, the house prices are twice as much here. You need to look at the disposable income gap instead and that will make you feel much better.

@clareykb

I don't get this the cast majority of the North East is dropping, is lower than November, has better hospital capacity than pretty much everywhere, and has a region has vaccinated the most people...what else would have to happen for schools to reopen first.

Absolutely this!! The North East could not be looking any better. My LA is 123rd out of 149 in the country for case rates.

I thought the thinking was in areas with higher antibody levels schools would open first? So in London if antibody levels are 17% but the southwest was only something like 5% then London schools would open first.

London has been through hell the last couple of months. Is that part of our special treatment too?

It's been horrific and it still is but thankfully cases are starting to fall in London and other areas too.

I understand school reopening will be based on case numbers. That's how it has to be.

It's 250 somethings place here @MaryShelley1818 with a rolling rate of 312 and they are moving London patients hundreds of miles to our hospitals ..... Zero sense of they don't open and they do elsewhere

As long as they compensate those exam year DC who have lost most face to face teaching time (as recorded by schools and colleges), when allocating grades, then it's fine by me.
Use a national sliding scale if necessary and award extra marks accordingly. Very easily done.

Opening up schools....any schools...is a bloody stupid idea. Yes, it's very poor that our country is so London-centric but that is less of a point than opening up schools anywhere.

Why are numbers dropping this time much more quickly than in the November mini-lockdown? Because schools are closed of course. If we didn't have KW children in, the numbers would drop even more rapidly...but there has to be some provision, obviously.

It's silly to keep talking about how safe children are, especially smaller children....yes, they're safe but they take the virus out to families and then it spreads round the community. I know it's terrible for families and everyone is worried about home schooling/the children are missing out but honestly, the children will bounce back. You won't bounce back if you're dead. And children will suffer far more if they see their family decimated by COVID and their parent/grandparent dead.

If we open up schools too soon we will have another surge in cases. Our deaths are still high and hospitals are still over full. For heaven's sake, let's see this lockdown through to the end, properly. And concentrate on vaccinations throughout the coming months and leave schools until after Easter at least. (And I say this knowing that the current lockdown is likely to lose me my job completely this time round).

I appreciate London and the SE have been hit hardest by the virus itself in the last 6 weeks. But bear in mind the NW and NE have bore the brunt of the restrictions for literally months before this. We were left in tier 3 with restaurants closed, unable to meet up with people or even have family in the garden basically since last March. Our local economy is trashed. Our mental health is destroyed. I’d rather have had months of being able to socialise albeit outside than a few bad weeks of lockdown which we have had throughout.

They haven't even said "we are opening schools in London but keeping everywhere else closed"

Maybe wait til you actually know what's happening before you start polishing the massive chip on your shoulder.

And I won't be sending my son back to school regardless FWIW.

It would be great to see schools open again everywhere. I hope that will be the case from Feb half term

I live in London and thought just the same OP. It is odd. We still have very high rates here and they will shoot up as soon as schools open again.

I want schools back, don’t get me wrong. But it does feel that there is an amount of bias here.

Thank you @Elephant4. I’m not blaming Londoners individually obviously I used to live there myself but it’s disheartening and disappointing when decisions seem to be made to maximise the positive effects in London. Hopefully we will ALL be back to school soon.

You think London's just had "a few bad weeks of lockdown", CaughtInTheCovid? You make it sound like it's been a walk in the park for us and it's a completely ignorant sentiment. We were in lockdown from March with the rest of the country and at the time, which everyone forgets, we were being hammered hardest for deaths and infections as Covid hit these shores. We have suffered 11k deaths alone, the highest total in England. That's a huge loss of life for just one area. We have businesses folding every day, thousands of kids being forced further into poverty. Where I live in north London, unemployment has risen by 190%. Our mental health is trashed too.

Please don't tell us we've had it easy.

@Elephant4

I live in London and thought just the same OP. It is odd. We still have very high rates here and they will shoot up as soon as schools open again.

I want schools back, don’t get me wrong. But it does feel that there is an amount of bias here.

But that's because you're believing OP's false assertion that London schools are being prioritised. They're not. The article quite clearly states it makes sense for areas with least infections/deaths to open first. That actually won't be London.

The article says London - I read it earlier today. It does say London.

That’s not what was said. 🙄
London doesn’t have it easy (you do remember we were locked down with 4 hours notice?)
Why are so many people on here anti London?