Good News part 11 - Picnics galore as we head into spring

[OrangeBananaFish]

Hope no-one minds me starting this. Apologies if another has started too. Please can someone add the pretty pictures.

Useful links:

coronavirus.data.gov.uk

www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

www.covidmessenger.com Thanks to LittleOwl for all her hard work!

ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

www.omnicalculator.com/health/vaccine-queue-uk

NB Please don’t take this too seriously- it depends what vaccine delivery speed and uptake you estimate so it’s not written in stone.

Please note, this is a thread to share good news and for wobblers to be reassured. Doomploppers will be met with scorn and derision!

My children are neither germy nor non-compliant, they are quite happy to wear masks and be tested.

Children’s lives have been turned upside down so maybe think of that view too?

Yes, my lovely and compliant secondary school children who have been following all the rules to benefit everyone but themselves will have unpleasant twice weekly nasal swabs and wear a mask all day long to benefit everyone but themselves.

Same here

Lots of positive talk on radio about return this morning

My kids (age 7 and 11) are also compliant and non germy. Both follow the rules, including the rules that don't make sense (DS can go for a walk with me, or with his auntie, but not both of us - why, mummy?) or make them miserable (I walked on my own mum, because DFriend was already walking with someone else and I couldn't make three) and when they are uncomfortable and hot and stressed and worried. Because they're good kids.

It seems nobody likes kids.

And I am cheering the return to school because it means that now I will be able to do my own work in office hours and devote a bit of time to my kids at weekends and evenings, instead of working 16 hour days.

Fine. You're all perfect and it's totally unreasonable for me to worry about my daughter.

My teen daughter is about to spend her 2nd birthday in lockdown. She has not seen a SINGLE friend since before Christmas and has been complying with all the rules (as have all her friends). Her mental health is destroyed. So yes I WILL cheer for her going back.

My husband has also worked full time throughout the pandemic with virtually no breaks in a customer facing role.

We have collected our lateral flow tests already and will happily put up with the discomfort to continue to keep our daughter and her friends / teachers safe (as well as my husband's colleagues and customers).

PS no vaccine in sight here either.

Nobody has said you’ve unreasonable to be worried about your child, we’ve been equally as worried about our children being stuck at home and the emotional, academic and social effects of that - hence why we are pleased they are going back.

It’s not fair to call our children non-compliant and germy to make your point though.

Fuzzy I understand you worrying about your daughter. There seems to be great variation in how effectively schools are managing the situation and some teachers are being expected to teach in barely ventilated classrooms with no effective separation of bubbles in corridors while others (like our secondary) have handled it so well that none of the isolated cases have resulted in onward transmission at school.
However none of this is the kids’ fault.

@FuzzyPuffling

Fine. You're all perfect and it's totally unreasonable for me to worry about my daughter.

Its perfectly reasonable to worry about your daughter.

You really don't understand why people objected to what you actually said though?

Fuzzy I am sorry because my post was sharp and came across in a selfish manner.
It wasn't meant to appear as if we are perfect. Nobody is. We are all stressed and worried in our own ways, and it's hard to express that empathy in text like this to people we do t know.

I genuinely hope your daughter is ok next week.

I'm not doing this anymore. Goodbye.

What happened?!

Oh no, don’t let’s turn this into a schools thread!! I don’t think Fuzzy’s comments are quite in the spirit of things. I thought we were all being positive about the roadmap and starting to return to normal. Of course there are going to be concerns along the way but we should all support each other on here!

I think it’s understandable to express worry if you are connected to someone in a school for example.

But we do need one thread where we can talk positively about school return.

Its no small thing

And to not have our children spoken of as though they are diseased grotbags too, please.

I don't no my teenager is very compliant but the average teenage boy. So fairly germy. Luckily he has already had the virus. So shouldn't by of harm to anyone and always has worn a mask by choice since September. Plus having tests twice a week.

I told him to let his friends know that if their parents didn't consent to the nasal swabs. The school does anal swabs because the government says they don't need consent to do those

*know

*be

Proof reading not my strong point

This may be a little reassurance to some people. It is an extract from our school email. London school that previously had very high cases before Christmas

We as a school have been ahead of the curve with our Year 11 students needing to wear their facemasks for their PPE exams just before Christmas and for the students who have attended the Key Worker and Vulnerable Student Provision to wear their face coverings in class with a great deal of success. As of yet, we have not had any confirmed cases since these measures were taken in regards to these examples and from our experience, facemasks work.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

I don't no my teenager is very compliant but the average teenage boy. So fairly germy. Luckily he has already had the virus. So shouldn't by of harm to anyone and always has worn a mask by choice since September. Plus having tests twice a week.

I told him to let his friends know that if their parents didn't consent to the nasal swabs. The school does anal swabs because the government says they don't need consent to do those

looooooooooool

And just to reassure you fuzzy, if you are still reading, that if your daughter hasn't been vaccinated and is unlikely to be for a while yet then her risk is really small. And I say that as a teacher who caught covid last February from either someone elses grotbag kids or my own grotbag.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

I don't no my teenager is very compliant but the average teenage boy. So fairly germy. Luckily he has already had the virus. So shouldn't by of harm to anyone and always has worn a mask by choice since September. Plus having tests twice a week.

I told him to let his friends know that if their parents didn't consent to the nasal swabs. The school does anal swabs because the government says they don't need consent to do those

Lordy, if I told my Dd that she'd barricade herself in her room and refuse to go to school!

To be fair, everyone is germy and teenagers too, though they do seem to hit a three showers and five sets of clean clothes a day phase at about 12/13.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/03/04/number-covid-hospital-patients-drops-10000-first-time-since/

Hospital patients drop to under 10k from 34k at its peak.

With coronavirus