UsForThem - “opaque lobbyists” with links to the far right?

[LacyEdge]

Prof Alice Roberts started an interesting Twitter thread discussing this, linking to Nafeez Ahmed’s article about U4T in Byline Times. Replies suggest UsForThem aren’t a concerned parents’ group at all and are linked with a far right funded group.

Well I never.

twitter.com/theAliceRoberts/status/1352993581414424576

boring old mainstream WHO and SAGE

Had enough of experts.

Can the people arguing against the mask give any evidence that similar coverings such as the niqab contribute to speech and language development problems?

However, you do seem quite certain that infections are spreading easily through crowded classrooms. I agree.

Yes I do agree that infections can spread quite easily in classrooms.
Social distancing where just one infected, symptomatic pupil or staff member is breathing in and out in an enclosed, poorly ventilated space for long time periods, is pretty useless.

What measures should be taken to ensure that doesn't happen again when schools reopen?

For the billionth time, not social distancing - it's pointless in the circumstances (see above) and so therefore not worth the damaging social aspects to kids.
Also, not masks. They do very little, and therefore the little that they do is not worth the harms.

What you're relying on is the fact that most kids are asymptomatic, so few will spread it home, and the fact that most parents with kids of school age will not be seriously ill if they do.

If you're vulnerable, thinking that your kid will be safe because there's masks and social distancing is just fantasy. What you're relying on is a risk assessment of how likely your kid is to be asymptomatic vs your likelihood of dying if they and and they give it to you.
Masks and social distancing when they're in school will not be enough of a factor to change those odds.
It's either kid-at-home or kid-at-school decision time for those people.

As I've said - I think that people should be able to keep their kids at home without losing their school place until infection levels come down/the adult is vaccinated if this is the case.
All the other kids should be back at school asap, because for them, the risks to them and their parents from the virus lesser than the harms that occur to kids by not being in school.
Anyone under 50 with no serious co-morbidities or caring responsibilities for someone who has, who thinks that it's better for the children to be off school, is making a big mistake in their risk assessment, for which their children will suffer.

boring old mainstream WHO and SAGE

If you don't know about the mountains of errors that both the WHO and SAGE have made, then you've not been paying attention.

@noblegiraffe

boring old mainstream WHO and SAGE

Had enough of experts.

Donald Trump had enough of experts too.

You don't understand the graph that was presented.

I don't know why you think this. What I've said is backed up by the graph.

You also seem to be ignoring the evidence from SAGE that children are then spreading those infections to their household.
I'm not ignoring it. It happens. But it remains true that children are more likely to be asymptomatic, and that asymptomatic spread is far less likely than symptomatic.
The classroom environment high risk (lots of people, possibly poor ventilation) but the demographics inside it reduce the risks. That's why teachers are no more likely to die than other professions, despite being in a higher risk setting environmentally.

@Temptashun

So your answer is... nothing.

So we go back to a massively high infection rate and death rate. Then what?

The classroom environment high risk (lots of people, possibly poor ventilation) but the demographics inside it reduce the risks. That's why teachers are no more likely to die than other professions, despite being in a higher risk setting environmentally.

This is a word salad.

Donald Trump had enough of experts too.

Have you seen the number of flip flops that Fauci has made?
It's laughable. He's part responsible for the initial panic, because he confused CFR with IFR. That's kind of a big deal for someone who should really know what they're talking about...

I can't stand Trump, but I'm not surprised he kicked Fauci to the curb.

Follow evidence, not people.

Masks do do something. They slow down the aerosol flying out of the mouth, it's very easy to visualise if you think of teeny glitters bits flying into another child's /teachers face when talking, coughing, laughing...

Why do you think, happy birthday has been banned? Because the force of singing has been shown to propel aerosols out more easily causes infections.

Two masked people talking will transmit far from fewer aerosols, you know being ill with covid is also much to with viral load?
Personally I think we should have go with masks and visors.

@BelleSausage

The classroom environment high risk (lots of people, possibly poor ventilation) but the demographics inside it reduce the risks. That's why teachers are no more likely to die than other professions, despite being in a higher risk setting environmentally.

This is a word salad.

I missed out an is, sorry. The classroom environment IS high risk.

But, you not understanding it does not automatically mean it's a 'word salad'.

Sometimes we just have to take risks for the greater good including for the good of children. Life is always a balance of risk and reward.

Masks do do something. They slow down the aerosol flying out of the mouth, it's very easy to visualise if you think of teeny glitters bits flying into another child's /teachers face when talking, coughing, laughing...

They're not needed on someone who is either virus free or asymptomatic. They would have a small effect on a symptomatic person, but it's much better that the symptomatic person stays home instead.
Because masks are so harmful to children, it is therefore not a good cost to benefit measure to mask them because of the extremely small chance that they might pass it on asymptomatically, if the families that they go home to have no serious vulnerabilities.

There is absolutely shed loads of evidence to support mask wearing.
Where is your evidence to support your claim that it is harmful?

OK, I'm going to say it. @Temptashun, you're just talking complete and utter nonsense.

But that's OK with me, as you're doing your cause much more harm than good.

1. You don’t abandon safety measures because not everyone will need them. You have safety measures in case anyone needs them.
2. There is no evidence that masks are harmful to the vast majority of children.

Most experts agree that truly asymptomatic transmission is less than symptomatic. However they also agree that presymptomatic transmission is huge. Also most people have "some" symptoms b- even if it is just a headache or tiredness. But as these are not the 3 testable symptoms they get included under asymptomatic.

I've posted it upthread - speech and language problems and other stunted social development. Children need to see faces and expressions as they're growing up so that they can learn what those expressions mean. Just look at the struggles autistic people can face trying to navigate a world where lots is said non verbally but they find it difficult to understand.

There are other factors as well, such as bacterial infections of the teeth (mask mouth) and skin irritations, but they're both pretty rare and not long lasting. If masks worked well, maybe it would be worth those thing? But they don't so it isn't.

What a load of cobblers.

It's like conversing with a flat earther.

You don’t abandon safety measures because not everyone will need them. You have safety measures in case anyone needs them.

Safety measures which don't work should be abandoned, especially if they cause harm.

Masks and social distancing in schools will not protect people. If they did, and it was worth the negatives - have at it.
But, they dont.

I did not say we should let the fat die it is their own fault, taken entirely wrongly.

I am clearly saying children shouldn’t suffer for those who don’t value their own well being. And I ALSO said that those who are vulnerable should be given full support to stay protected. That can and could include those with a high BMI to be given full furlough as said and those in contact with them more testing and so on.

And it is actually evidenced that the larger you are, the increase in fat cells that you carry increase your viral load and chance of passing the disease on. Feel free to fact check.

However. The main point of my now deleted post was to say that wanting children to be put first and back in school is very much not a typical right wing move, it is the opposite of that. Free education is a social leveller. Let alone all the abuse and neglect cases increasing.

A lot of the parents running and in us for them can afford private tutors and sport coaches to catch their children up if they need to in the future and have great home lives. People aren’t just concerned for their own children it’s about what is proportionate and what is the right thing to do for young people who only get one childhood. That this would be thought of a morally reprehensible is very sad.

@Xenia

Sometimes we just have to take risks for the greater good including for the good of children. Life is always a balance of risk and reward.

Are you working in a school?

@FrippEnos

HalfPastThree

So do you want to talk about the mental health of children?
We could link that to the reduction in the funding of CAMHS,
or the redefining of SEND so that the government could further reduce funding?
The dismantling of support units in schools?
The reduction of TAs and support staff?
The overworked, underpaid and under funded social workers?

Or we could talk about the digital divide?
Poverty and how it affects young children?
Young carers?
Support for the vulnerable, both entire families and children?

Or we could talk about how schools should go back with no preventative measures because a shady organisation wants it to happen?

Exactly this! But hey, come the next election the same people will be spouting on about how ‘there isn’t a magic money tree you know’ justifying why we can’t spend more on education and the NHS.

Yes, they’re right. There isn’t a magic money tree, but apparently there’s a magic money shrub, and Boris has given it to Dido Harding and all his other cronies.

@Xenia

Sometimes we just have to take risks for the greater good including for the good of children. Life is always a balance of risk and reward.

Do you work in a school or do you work from home?

Kindly offering to risk fully reopening schools ‘for the greater good’ when you don’t actually have to work in one, is not helpful.

@Xenia

Sometimes we just have to take risks for the greater good including for the good of children. Life is always a balance of risk and reward.

Generally, we should follow the science.

For the greater good of children.

(and also everybody else)

see earlier post about WHO advice.

In terms of a whole childhood this is a tiny blip and there's not much action in January, peoples are poor after Xmas, worn out and the weather is bad.

There are so me dc at a more critical or time when they should be able to socialise eg 16 year olds who are on that cusp of young adulthood.... Making new social contacts etc.

Even toddlers can socialise in play parks that are open but teens can't do that. But hopefully, if we can endure those for slightly longer, maybe in the summer, we will be in a very different situation?

It's a few months all in and putting it into the perspective over an entire childhood a little blip and, whilst they are going through it with varying degrees... It's not like one child who spends years in hospital, they are all going through this together...