Anti-lockdowners pretending to care about kids again

[noblegiraffe]

So it's all over the news about how nearly 400,000 kids are having to isolate because of covid cases in schools. Complaints about how disruptive to education it is and to the mental health of the children involved. This disruptive isolation must end as soon as possible.

Contrast to last November when nearly a million kids were self-isolating in a week. Do you remember the headlines, discussions and outrage about that?

No, of course you don't. Because back then, the solution to so many kids isolating was to put more mitigation measures in schools and attempt to stop so many kids catching it.

Now they can argue that it doesn't matter if all kids catch it, they're all over the 'terrible' isolation figures which are less than half of those last year.

I'm SO done with people only caring about kids and education when they think that they can use them for their own benefit.

If these loud voices could be used to talk about things like the cuts to pupil premium, the pitiful covid catch-up funding, the critical shortage of teachers, the unsafe state of schools, the massive waiting lists for CAMHS and SEN services, then maybe I'd believe them when they claim to care about children.

@borntobequiet

Raises hand. I’m a support worker for people with severe learning disabilities. During the winter peak we regularly ran out of PPE. I work in the private sector and we regularly had to rely on hand outs, however there was many a shift when we simply did not have PPE. The service users (even with active covid infections) could also not wear PPE due to their severe LD. We still had to provide personal care. I mean I’m not sure about you but when you’re wiping someone’s arse I would say it was pretty difficult to maintain a two metre distance. This was also before me and other colleagues had the chance to get the vaccine.

So that was just one example where someone has been required to work in an “unsafe” environment. I’m sure there are countless others.

wiping someone’s arse nice respectful phrasing there

And I do agree with the rest of the post by the way

That’s not quite true though born

The government said in their guidance of Nov 2020 that Face coverings should be worn by students and staff in secondary schools and further education colleges in communal spaces, outside of classrooms, where social distancing cannot be maintained

Note not in classrooms where social distancing can only rarely be achieved by very small groups of students, which are most unusual apart from depictions in the media which made it look as though no classroom contained more than six students, carefully seated 2m apart.
Currently there is no mandate for face coverings in schools, nor has there been any attempt to provide proper ventilation.

@cornflowersandpoppies

I work in social care. We are a pretty down to earth bunch, unlike some 🤨. The use of expletives has no correlation with a person’s ability to provide care effectively, but if you want to just grasp on to that part of the post, feel free to do so.

There’s a difference between not being able to access PPE - which is disgraceful - and being told you should not wear it even if it is available.

There isn’t though born

Same risk.

Well I’m not saying that is right because it clearly isn’t, I was just merely giving you an example of other people who have been required to work in unsafe conditions. Even throughout the winter peak my children’s teachers wore masks or visors. It must have been different depending on the school.

@Flaxmeadow

Contrast to last November

OP It has been repeatedly pointed out to you, by numerous posters, that the difference between now and last November is that we now have a highly vaccinated population. Thats a massive and very important difference but you have refused to acknowledge it all through this thread.

I acknowledged it at the start of the thread and I've subsequently ignored posters going on about it because it's missing the point.

This thread is about anti-lockdowners who claim to care about kids, but who only use them to make arguments about removing covid restrictions.

E.g. very vocal about the disruption to kids' education caused by isolation now, but before Christmas suppression of any discussion of it in case it resulted in increased mitigation measures.

@cornflowersandpoppies

I would go as far to say a more heightened risk delivering personal care to service users with an active infection (and no PPE on both sides). From what I can remember though from past debates it’s irrelevant if people in health or social care have been in unsafe environments as apparently it’s more “in the nature of our roles” 🤨.

Now in the grand scheme of things it’s really not a competition, however there are some teachers who truly do believe they’ve had it far worse than everybody else and it’s short sighted.

re the masks that everyone is going on about and how they would have made a difference....

The actual label says "does not protect against smaller airborne particles" which happens to be exactly how Covid presents.

One of the reasons that Noble was infuriating (and still is) is the unfettered wittering on about masks and all these other 'safety measures' which are presented as absolute and unconditional solutions to Covid (i.e. do this and all would have been fine). They were not. Never would have been. Yet still some of us maintained that you had a responsibility as a teacher to maintain education for children despite this, much as @Chillychangchoo continued with caring for her clients.

giraffe I think what is missing from your post is that while people might care about children in one sense their primary focus and concern is for their own children.

I can’t think of anybody I know, either personally or in the public eye, who hasn’t bent their principles for their own child. That’s how it is and how it always has been. I grew up with a picture of Tony Benn in the downstairs toilet: my dad still forked out for private healthcare for my brother when he needed it.

People may have said ‘I care about children.’ What they mean is ‘my child is miserable, suffering and as a result so am I.’

Some people may see that as hypocritical. I’m not sure I do. I think the whole structure of society is to a large extent based around this assumption.

People do like posting shit and pretending that I said it.

I think what is missing from your post is that while people might care about children in one sense their primary focus and concern is for their own children.

And what's missing from yours is an acknowledgement that there are anti-lockdowners happy to use kids as an argument when they think it will benefit them who are entirely absent on any other concerns involving kids.

This thread is about anti-lockdowners who claim to care about kids, but who only use them to make arguments about removing covid restrictions.

It is a bullshit argument though? The restrictions are impacting children disproportionately. What exactly are your justifications for keeping restrictions?

There are many other reasons why restrictions should be lifted, but any decent human would cite children first. And most likely mean it.

It's such a cynical attitude, full of misdirected bitterness.

It is perfectly possible for reasonable people to think that this has gone on too long for children and there is absolutely no reason to continue restrictions. That along with the impact on industries, jobs and mental health.

Of course there are. And there are teachers who would rather like schools to close again and exaggerate the danger. There are people in every category.

That’s not really news, is it? In every 100 or so people most will be decent. Some won’t be, a small minority will be saints and some will be really thoroughly nasty bastards.

And there are teachers who would rather like schools to close again

Bet there aren't. Schools being closed was an absolute shitter.

some will be really thoroughly nasty bastards.

Yep, this thread is dedicated to them.

@noblegiraffe

And, by the way, these people are fighting for human rights and freedom of all.

They are fighting for themselves and their own interests and using kids to do it.

Lol that would be your lot.

Luckily my kids are too young to be screwed over by teacher’s unions and other interest groups.

COVID is demonstrably safer for kids than even the flu, yet no one cares. We have lived with such (small) risks forever, and must be prepared to do so with COVID.

It was, wasn’t it? But we can’t speak for every teacher across the land.

Tbh giraffe by ‘thoroughly nasty bastards’ I was thinking it say the lost prophets singer or similar

*of say

No. I said required to work in unsafe conditions. Who else has been told not to wear face coverings in the workplace, or to mix with many others not wearing face coverings and not able to socially distance?

Plenty of people - do you think people working in factories have been able to socially distance? The DfE never banned face masks, although many teachers on here have said they did. They discouraged the use of them, which isn’t great, but it has not been banned. As a PP said, I’m sure it is interpreted differently at different school. Staff at my school have chosen to wear face coverings throughout. I didn’t because fuck teaching in a face mask, but I would have been allowed to if I had asked.

I’m sorry but this “teachers are the only ones who have been asked to work in unsafe conditions” is just really blinkered, especially when teaching is a predominantly middle class job which a decent salary and a great pension. I don’t believe for a second that we are the most persecuted profession in the country.

And stats easily show that fatalities from the vaccine are far still lower for younger age groups than fatalities from Covid

No, the risk to healthy children is negligible. Has any non-vulnerable child even died of COVID in the UK?

The fact that they haven’t authorised the vaccine yet for under-18s means that the data from America is concerning. The CDC already admitted a causal link between the vaccine and myocarditis in young boys—that is, after denying it was anything more than the background rate.

How can these people be believed?

Ahem - pre-Covid when nobody (apart from maybe Noble cared) it just used to be SEN kids who were out of school, whose mental health was negatively effected, whose parents were forced to home school, whose employment potential was destroyed. And nobody gave a shiny shit.

Didn't you see the writing on the wall?

To paraphrase Primo Levi - and then they came for me.

Because these were political decisions. Even given the pandemic, it didn't have to be this way.

Still happening now. Thread in AIBU about it and the OP got a really hard time. We could claim that since no one from this thread is on that one no one really cares.