Looks like the plans are now leaked.

[pinkhappy]

The Times seems to have leaked the plans now. I for one will be very happy if children's outdoor sport starts on March 8.

March 8:
Schools
Kids outdoor sport
Golf + Tennis

Early April:
🛍Non-essential retail
Outdoor pubs + restaurants

Mid April:
Gyms

May:
Cinemas + Theatre
Indoor pubs + restaurants

August:
Foreign holidays
Clubs

"It's basic science 101 FFS"

You should probably take that course again....

@Multicover

‘To have all adults offered a vaccination by July. 3 weeks to be effective means AUGUST. Not March/April.

5 months is a LING time fir the virus to do its thing & cause mayhem in the hospitals & morgues.’

Young healthy people without underlying health conditions are not going to cause mayhem in hospitals and morgues. STOP with the bloody hysterics

Stop with the denial. The average age in ICU is a lot lower than you seem to think. You seem to think 30-50 years olds are getting it and being hospitalised?!

@BettyBoomerang

If the news is true and it's a careful unlocking so that we see how things go, I'm very curious as to what happens if schools tip us to the edge of coping.

Or over the edge even.

They've said that each step must be permanent so clearly can't close schools again. But would they have schools open and all of society closed indefinitely? Would business owners be happy to lose their livelihoods 'for the kids'? What's the Plan B?

As much as I desperately want schools open. My logical head know we would be better opening businesses like last time. The general public wouldn't except because Boris promised schools first this time. So anyway looking at the numbers we should just about get away with it. I think.

[quote nevernotstruggling]@WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants that's interesting. I'm a governor and it's just under 50% across the whole academy group....[/quote]
Sorry I can't quote the source, but it was an official one, not a newspaper report type thing.

Someone else has posted too, something like 5% in secondary, 24 in primary & 36 in SEN.

@Multicover

@pinkhappy
Meanwhile schools have been operating this whole lockdown with lots at around 50% capacity.
Meanwhile Government figures published on 16th Feb show that state secondary schools are operating at 5% capacity and state primary schools at 24% rising to 34% in special schools. As they have done consistently through lockdown.

@nevernotstruggling

I think it will vary enormously depending on what area you live in. Due to the ability of parents to WFH etc.

In my area they haven't finished vaccinating the Group 5's so any group 6's are way way down the list and waiting.

The majority of my staff are either over 50 or have underlying conditions so I feel highly concerned about a school return as only two of them so far have been vaccinated. Yet we're potentially putting them into classrooms with unmasked children and a governmental decree that masks/PPE is 'detrimental to learning' (just love that DFE quote).

Let's pop these graphs in again just to show people further down this thread just exactly how much infections rose in children/young adults when schools opened.

Oh. And please keep in mind that the data was suppressed by the Government at first to allow the perpetuation of the 'schools are COVID-secure' myth/outright lie that they were peddling to the public.

It's a shambles and a disgrace.

I got bored reading all the doomsayers on page 6. Just open the country up for crying out loud. April for non-essential retail and May (or whenever) for pubs is ludicrous. We have vaccines, the elderly and vulnerable will all have had them soon. They will be far less likely to need hospitalising, which was the whole point of locking down, not to eradicate Covid. Just bloody open up before nobody has a sodding job!

@Octane

If there's high community transmission the virus will mutate and if it mutates to a vaccine escape version, we're fucked

It's all out there in pretty plain English. It's not too complicated if you bother to apply yourself

You're not capable of having a conversation about it without being snide because you're scared. You're scared and like most idiots on the internet, you'll never change your mind once you've made it up, no matter how many people tell you you're wrong and no matter the evidence.

But that's ok. The media has stirred up a panic in people. I don't blame you for feeling the way you do, even though it's irrational.

You're snide You're patronising & you're wrong on many counts

But you crack on, because what you slone think isn't going to change a single thing 🤷🏻‍♀️

@Whatafool123

I got bored reading all the doomsayers on page 6. Just open the country up for crying out loud. April for non-essential retail and May (or whenever) for pubs is ludicrous. We have vaccines, the elderly and vulnerable will all have had them soon. They will be far less likely to need hospitalising, which was the whole point of locking down, not to eradicate Covid. Just bloody open up before nobody has a sodding job!

I expect you get bored of reading the science too...

🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️

@Whatafool123

I got bored reading all the doomsayers on page 6. Just open the country up for crying out loud. April for non-essential retail and May (or whenever) for pubs is ludicrous. We have vaccines, the elderly and vulnerable will all have had them soon. They will be far less likely to need hospitalising, which was the whole point of locking down, not to eradicate Covid. Just bloody open up before nobody has a sodding job!

Totally! And you've missed the thread from a Mexican person needing to go back to Mexico. So GO! You are allowed to leave the country to repatriate, it's not a prison. Whatever they do there is their sodding business! Whatever Mexican people do in Mexico is their sodding business!

@WitchesBritchesPumpkinPants

I think it will vary enormously depending on what area you live in. Due to the ability of parents to WFH etc.

Of course. Undoubtedly. However I suspect those stats are a nationwide average. It's interesting though as the vulnerable child places have a low uptake in my area and this time around the keyworker place uptake is very high. So parents likely doing frontline roles with a high level of social contact and unavoidable mixing on top on the school mixing yet downturn in figures.

@BettyBoomerang

If the news is true and it's a careful unlocking so that we see how things go, I'm very curious as to what happens if schools tip us to the edge of coping.

Or over the edge even.

They've said that each step must be permanent so clearly can't close schools again. But would they have schools open and all of society closed indefinitely? Would business owners be happy to lose their livelihoods 'for the kids'? What's the Plan B?

This lot U-turn like no-one's business, they'll just find a way of doing that if they have to. And they'll say that no-one could have imagined that there could be such a problem, like Dido.

Dido Harding

Do other people alter the name everytime they hear it

Seriously you would change your name

Theatres and cinemas with restrictions surely?
distancing and masks probably (still good though).

The Pfizer vaccine is licensed for 16-18 year olds so hopefully next year’s GCSE and A level cohort could be offered it once all adults have been offered the vaccine in July. Also bodes well for universities next year. The US are hoping to have a full paediatric vaccine by the end of 2021.
We obviously cannot keep children off school until then.

*I expect you get bored of reading the science too...

🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️*

Well as an avid scientist and no doubt economist and psychologist too, answer me this, did we or did we not go into lock down to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed? And do we or do we not now have vaccines that will protect those most likely to become seriously ill from doing so? It isn't all about the science. Economics and people's mental (and non-covid related) physical health have to be considered too.

Yes it would be good to get sixth form, college and university done. Sixth form was a real issue in most secondary schools around here from November

@Whatafool123

*I expect you get bored of reading the science too...

🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️*

Well as an avid scientist and no doubt economist and psychologist too, answer me this, did we or did we not go into lock down to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed? And do we or do we not now have vaccines that will protect those most likely to become seriously ill from doing so? It isn't all about the science. Economics and people's mental (and non-covid related) physical health have to be considered too.

Groups 1-9 haven't had the vaccine yet.

Group 1-4 mostly had just the 1 dose.

Israel are opening up a lot more- but they have offered vaccine to every adult.

Very few parents of schoolchildren or teachers will have had even one dose.

And we have new, more infectious, more virulent variants that could spread through crowded schools.

What could possibly go wrong?

@MercyBooth

Those who think there will be another lockdown by July. Do you really think the Government will say no to the Royal Family. They have an event planned on the 1st July to commemorate what would have been Princess Dianas 60th birthday

that is to say, groups 1-9 haven't ALL had the vaccine yet.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

Dido Harding

Do other people alter the name everytime they hear it

Seriously you would change your name

Dildo Hard-on?

@alwaysraining123 same here, I've had to honeschool and do my job too.
I'm a teacher too. I wasn't aware that parenting your own child was a paid job.
I don't 'need' to be anything other than an educator. Thank you for your input though

Meanwhile those who are CEV have had shielding extended....

@acrossthebrooklynbridge

Meanwhile those who are CEV have had shielding extended....

That's unfortunate but the whole county cannot continue to lockdown to protect Just a few. We ve done it three times now. This situation is not sustainable.

Just ridiculous how students have been abandoned, were lied to and returned to university only for it it to be entirely online and to have no contact with anyone, then allowed to visit family at Christmas only to be told to return back for normal studies, then a week later were plunged into a lockdown with no travel living entirely alone having not really interacted with others yet and not having the opportunity too, especially for mature students like myself.