The Road Map: It’s Bollocks, Right?

[AllTheWayFromLondonDAMN]

So, I feel a bit like I’m going loopy. And I want to preface this by saying that I really hope I’m wrong. We are both secondary teachers with two small kids and this year has been an absolute bitch. Work for us has been hugely full in, whether it’s been in school or online teaching. Our infant school aged children have missed school terribly and their whole lives at this age are all about school, their little pals and their grandparents and cousins, all of whom have been off limits for months. So this has been far from fun for us and I have no desire for this to carry on (before anyone accuses me of that).

BUT this is all bollocks isn’t it? I know that numbers are going down and that we are doing really well with the vaccinations but this road map that Boris has announced.... it’s magical thinking isn’t it?!?! Less than eight weeks ago we were in dire straits, with tens of thousands of cases and more than 1500 people a day dying. This lockdown has choked those numbers down but now... throwing all the schools back in at once?! Telling us that we will be able to open up hospitality in only six weeks or so?! Saying we won’t even have to wear masks in just 16ish weeks?! REALLY? Because whilst I know that the warmer weather will make things better and of course the vaccine is making things better, it just feels a bit to me like Boris has decided that he’s bored of Covid so he’s just announcing that it’ll he done and dusted and we can just forget about it by midsummers day. Which seems.... bonkers. Bonkers when this has been going on a year now and very recently we were in huge trouble. Some areas of the country are still in huge trouble. Are other European countries talking like this? Like we can just say we have all had enough, so we are going to stop Covid?! Because if it was that easy wouldn’t we have done this a year ago?!?!

So am I the mad one who’s just being a pessimistic old boot, or is anyone else finding this whole change of tone just a bit.... weird?

And I also offer my heartfelt thanks for an educators who are enabling this to happen. I will continue to add my voice to those asking for prioritisation of vaccines for all public facing groups.

@likeamillpond

I get you OP. Theres an air of It doesn't matter if people get Covid now. As long as the NHS doesn't go under What happened to all the scare stodries about Long Covid? Were they just that- scare stories? Has long covid suddenly disappeared? So, if all the children get It, it doesn't matter? Even if it covid cause them problems when theyre old? Because let's face it, no one kows the really long term effects of covid.

It's a strange about turn.

Maybe we should stay locked down for another 20 years until we know for definitely what the really long term effects of covid are? Because otherwise we still won't know whether we open up in a month, 2 months or a year...

I'm concerned about the impact of schools going back, it will push up cases. However probably half of all children in some age groups will have had covid already, the most at risk teachers will be partially vaccinated, many of the grandparents providing childcare will have been vaccinated. There will be masks and more testing. It is not a year ago, there is substantial protection now from past infection as well as vaccination.

The first step is a gamble, but nothing like as bad a gamble as you are making out.

@ChloeCrocodile

Theres an air of It doesn't matter if people get Covid now. As long as the NHS doesn't go under

This was always the case. Hence the original slogan "stay home > protect the NHS > save lives".

It is also the only reason I (and many others) support the lockdowns. Ensuring emergency health care is available for all is a good enough reason for the economic, education and mental health problems caused by lockdown. But in all other circumstances, the harms done by lockdown vastly outweigh the benefits.

Exactly!!!

@MrsFrisbyMouse

Having read the minutes of the Sage meeting from the end of January - (where it is modelled that full opening of schools would increase rate to between 1 & 1.5), it seems the roadmap had taken that as the starting point.

Whilst schools go back: to allow that to happen, many others are being asked to stay in our current lockdown, with only minor changes (such as outdoor only meetings from 29 March and only outdoor eating/socialising/individual gym visits from the 12 April), to mitigate the effects of the return to school.

If I have to delay going back to indoor group exercise, eating indoors in a restaurant, going on holiday with another family etc etc for a few more months because I want my children back at school, then that is a trade off I'm willing to make - but in reality that is the trade off that the Government is asking a whole load of people who have no stake in my children's education to make.

And they are being asked to do it, because the long term effects of children being out of school is devastating, mentally, socially and academically, and this effect is most pronounced for those who are vunerable in someway.

So, everyone else is being asked to just hold tight, whist we give our kids a chance at regaining some sense of normality.

And we really, really, need everyone in schools in masks and tested if that is what it is liable to do to the infection rate.

Hi it’s OP again!

It’s been so interesting reading everyone’s responses, from the people like me who are a bit sceptical to those who are really optimistic. It’s been good to get a range of opinions.

Just to clarify a few things:

• A PP (sorry, can’t remember who) said that I was most sceptical about schools rather than the whole thing. I was probably a bit flippant in my OP, but yes, essentially I am most cynical about schools going back all in one go and the knock on that will have to the rest of the “road map”. Working in a secondary and with kids in a primary (in one of the worst hit London boroughs before Christmas) I really feel like we were fighting Covid with everything we had back in November and December but just couldn’t fire fight it properly with the tools we had available. Too many kids in classrooms, no masks, no PP, no distancing in corridors and then huge amounts of staff off sick which meant we couldn’t keep all years open.... most of these things will still be the case when we reopen (with even the masks in classes being optional and subject to review at Easter).

• a few PPs said that I was clearly one of these people who wants us “locked down forever” and has been enjoying the lockdown. I did state this in my original post and in a follow up, but for the record: I am categorically NOT one of those people. I suffer from quite bad anxiety which is medicated and well controlled in normal times, but this year has been massively bad for me in terms of anxiety. My friends and family have been hit by Covid in different ways (job losses, lack of treatment for medical conditions) which has only added to my anxiety. As well as this DH and I have both lost money due to our not being able to do our “side hustle” jobs as exam markers (and this has had a knock on effect on birthdays and Christmas, which we normally fund through that money).

So no, not enjoyed it, not hoping it goes on forever. But I am quite a realistic person and not given to getting swept up in baseless optimism, which is what this has all felt a bit like this week since Johnson gave, what felt to me like, a wannabe Churchillian speech to raise all our spirits. I also think that so many PPs making sweeping statements like that I (and anyone else raising doubts) are miserable and enjoying the lockdown only proves the strange Brexitification of everything in this country at the moment (“footballification” is maybe a better made up word). Meaning that you’re either for Britain (or probably more accurately, England) or you’re not and there’s no shades of grey in the middle. This has been lead by Johnson and Gove et al, who want no room for debate in anything and just want us to “get behind Britain” and other such nonsense. Of course I want the best for Britain, I’m British, I just wish we had a government that wasn’t so seemingly prone to whims and flights of fancy (although, before anyone says it, of course I’m very pleased with the great job they’ve done on vaccines so far).

So, in short, yes I am worried about the impact the “Big Bang” reopening of schools will have on numbers, I do hope it doesn’t set us back and would have preferred a staggered approach over a few weeks up until Easter. But I don’t hope we are locked down forever, I’m not “loving this” and I’m not some work-shy freeloader who loves hanging around in my garden instead of working.

As you were.

My response to posts like this is that education is very clearly failing children - and the country - badly. What hope is there to educate children to think critically and examine evidence when their teachers cannot think rationally and are driven by anxiety. And I prefer "cancel culture" for a description of refusal to listen to an alternative point of view.

Doris's speech was not "baseless optimism" and you need to reassess your view of yourself as "realistic". This might help

"Overall, the vaccine that Johnson & Johnson developed with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center was 72 percent effective at preventing moderate to severe disease in the United States and 66 percent of such cases globally, according to the latest data. Across all regions, it was 85 percent effective at preventing severe illness and 100 percent effective at preventing coronavirus-related hospitalization and death. "

@alreadytaken do you work in a school or have you ever worked in one? Because everyone I know in education is on the same page on this.

I wasn’t really talking about the vaccine in terms of “baseless optimism”, I meant the general tone change that the government have gone in for this week, which I do just think is a PR move.

If it makes you feel any better, I don’t teach every kid in the country so my mad, emotional, uncritical thinking isn’t failing everyone.... just about 1500 kids in North London.

@alreadytaken

I'm concerned about the impact of schools going back, it will push up cases. However probably half of all children in some age groups will have had covid already, the most at risk teachers will be partially vaccinated, many of the grandparents providing childcare will have been vaccinated. There will be masks and more testing. It is not a year ago, there is substantial protection now from past infection as well as vaccination.

The first step is a gamble, but nothing like as bad a gamble as you are making out.

I pretty much agree with you on this

My own london secondary of around 1600 students have teachers gagging to get back in the classrooms. A large number had have covid, some close to retirement had their first jab and we have 5 teachers shielding still that will teach over teams from their own homes (a TA will settle class then turn on whie board. They did this last term too).

My son's primary has big plans to have Christmas dinner and Christmas jumper day in March They want the kids to experience what they missed because the school closed a week before Christmas ❤

People certainly don't seem worried about this plan to allow high prevalence and let the virus try its luck against the vaccines from March onwards when the earliest we'll hit the herd immunity threshold is November.

And OP, the plan is both bullshit, and against SAGE advice.

Just like all the other ones we've just lived through. And 135,498 British people died because of.

Here we go again.

It’s bonkers.....

.....but what other option is there. Life has to get back to normal, or at least some kind of normal, so let’s just embrace it.

Life is less likely to get back to normality if we release the lockdown/start schools in this ‘bonkers’ fashion.

With a bit more care, schools could have opened slowly and more safely whilst vaccines had time to take effect and roll out more.

Then it would have been likelier to bring the much needed normality. This way we’ll be back in Lockdown 4 by the Autumn, at least.

I want normality too. I hate Lockdown.

@MrBullinaChinaShop

Are other European countries talking like this?

None of them, bar Ireland, are in anywhere near as strict a lockdown as us at the moment despite similar (in some cases higher) numbers of infections.
My family are in Spain. Their bars and restaurants have a curfew and they can only meet with 6 other people but that’s about it. Can still socialise indoors. Around 260 infections per 100k in their area. Their leaders talking about opening up to international tourism in the spring.
Where have they said no masks in a few weeks? At today’s press conference they were saying masks would probably need to be worn into next winter.
Bar schools, nothing really changes for a couple of months. It will still be illegal to have friends and family in your house until May.

Where I live in spain ALL bars and cafes and restaurants and gyms are shut.

Nobody can even travel to the next town.

Schools are open with third class sizes and masks absolutely 100% compulsory since September. Temperature Testing on entry and exit in schools.

Spanish DH says they are NOT letting tourists in and have no plans to ?

Already rates are not going down in some areas, warm weather means everybody ignoring lockdown and out meeting others. Nothing will change.

I don't think anyone would say they enjoy restrictions and lockdowns, but there needs to be plans that are realistic.

All that is happening is giving people false hope and the idea of a magical summer. It would be lovely for that to happen, but that's not realistic.

All this news of music festivals selling out and holidays being booked just makes me sad. What happens when rates go up again because of unsafe school returns and these events get cancelled? I fear for people's mental health especially with the way this government repeats mistakes and ignores advice.

@Blessex

Oh and by the way he is flummoxed at how everybody here moans and moans and moans and moans and moans. When we have one of the fastest vaccination programmes in the world. He laughs at all the moaning honestly.

Why would any of us give the tiniest of fucks what your DH thinks?

@RosieLemonade agree!!! 😂

My husband would like to know if the people who think this new plan is great also thought all the other failed plans were great.

(Not really. I'm not sure he even knows I've got the Mumsnet app,)

But god yeah.

How dare anyone "moan" that 135,498 British people are dead of a preventable disease. (So far.)

How dare anyone "moan" that we've spent almost a year under restrictions.

Or that our government are ignoring SAGE advice again, and jeopardising the vaccine rollout they're so proud of.

Everyone in Britain has just had their best ever year.

Absolutely nothing for us to "moan" about.

What's bonkers is my daughter suffering extreme agoraphobia and trying to end her life. We have to resume normal life now.

@AlecTrevelyan006

It doesn’t matter if rates go high - so long as hospitalisations and deaths are low

Yes this is what they will have to look at soon.

He has to draw the line somewhere and unfortunately part of his job as pm is weighing up the economic damage too..as much as people dont like to hear about it ,its an important part of running a country I should imagine.
What about long covid ? What about long cancer ? Cigarettes are still legal what about alcoholism? Pubs still exist .
As brutal as it sounds , the majority wont suffer for the minority

• lung cancer

@PrincessNutNuts so viruses exist as part of our world, as shit as it is. maybe the amount of deaths would of been preventable had certain measures been put in place but every avenue was going to equal death and misery for some.

I still think leaving the borders open was the biggest problem we had but it's done now. can only move forward. slowly coming out of lockdown is 100 percent the correct decision.

@PrincessNutNuts
No. I think that they acted way to late in March, they didn't think through the implications of what happens when you come to the end of the Summer and into the start of cold/flu season, compounded with return to school/University (and didn't ramp up the testing system to cope), they didn't act decisively when scientists were calling for a smaller harder lockdown at half term, and they didn't act quick enough again when it was obvious cases were increasing exponentially because of the new variant.

However, the timetable for this roadmap seems slow and steady. Allowances have been made to mitigate the effect of the return to school, and we have a vaccination programme that will support that timetable. So I am feeling much more positive.

The bit I think won't happen is the foreign travel. Because it needs comparable things to be happening abroad - vaccination certification, testing before going and return etc may add costs that people don't want to pay. I know of a family of 4 who need to go to Netherlands for a family funeral. Its costing them £1500 for pre-tests, tests on arrival and a testing kit for the return home.