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.

Masks are not really bad for children. A link from 'lockdownsceptics' probably isn't terribly balanced. Or sane.

Falling due to lockdown and vaccinations.

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Masks are not really bad for children. A link from 'lockdownsceptics' probably isn't terribly balanced. Or sane.

Anyone using an ounce of sense could work out that masks are bad for children. And it's a proper scientific study. Not that it needed to be done. Forcing kids to wear masks is clearly just wrong.

Explain?

@ichundich

Falling due to lockdown and vaccinations.

Thanks. I have lost touch on what is happening elsewhere. The news this evening said the Delta variant was spreading in the EU countries but didn't name which ones. I'm glad the vaccine program is achieving its aim there too. Hopefully less and less of the lock downs soon

@AliceLivesHere

May I ask someone why German children have been off school for 30 weeks if the air filtration installed works? Someone said it wasn't relevant that they had been off 30 weeks but if they are not in how do you know they work.

Separate point but wasn't most of our problem with community spread.

Someone else said we need mitigation like mask wearing., well our school wears them and still shut, so didn't help. Back again now and only a few weeks left. Despite increase in numbers of cases and huge amount of testing, hospital cases not rising and neither is the death rate

Please may I ask you to provide evidence of your claim regarding ventilation in German schools?

This evidence from just a few days ago, suggests otherwise regarding school closures:

m.dw.com/en/covid-how-are-german-schools-preparing-for-fall/a-58050851

And when you say 30 weeks, when is this from? This article says from March 2020

School closures - which in Germany have amounted to around 30 weeks since March last year compared to just 11 in France

news.trust.org/item/20210519055156-h4q63

And because there are many different areas in Germany, only 2 of the districts out of 16 have been closed to schools up to 5th July recently, so some schools but not all schools were closed recently. Do we know if the ventilation program was extended in these areas?

www.did.de/pl/covid-19/

It’s quite funny to see people having a go at a teacher for knowing the actual meaning of words.

Those saying that we couldn’t possibly expect the government to spend any money on schools, let alone millions, are surely aware that they spent £3.7 million on an ad campaign claiming that schools were safe. They paid social media influencers to spout the party line on Instagram and for articles in the press.

They could have spent that money on making schools safer. They didn’t even pay for hand sanitiser.

@noblegiraffe

I don’t think anyone disagrees with that, but what exactly do you want us, the peasants on the street
to do about it? Ventilation would be good yes but we live underneath a Tory government. They’re clearly not going to implement any of that. In the meantime it does the kids no favours to keep isolating.

People keep voting for these numpties so we have to scramble around now for the scraps of education our kids can actually receive.

[quote Chillychangchoo]@noblegiraffe

I don’t think anyone disagrees with that, but what exactly do you want us, the peasants on the street
to do about it? Ventilation would be good yes but we live underneath a Tory government. They’re clearly not going to implement any of that. In the meantime it does the kids no favours to keep isolating.

People keep voting for these numpties so we have to scramble around now for the scraps of education our kids can actually receive.[/quote]
Write to your MP.

And noblegiraffe isn't the provider of solutions.

And noblegiraffe isn't the provider of solutions then why are we even arguing if we realise that actually we have all been powerless during this sorry situation?

@echt

Oh believe me I wasn’t truly looking for a solution off noble, because she hasn’t got one.

I’ve wrote to my MP before about different things and it’s never got me very far. Some might call that a defeatist attitude and fair enough.

I call it being realistic they don’t give a shit

@Bryonyshcmyony

And noblegiraffe isn't the provider of solutions then why are we even arguing if we realise that actually we have all been powerless during this sorry situation?

Just for an argument I think tbh. Annoyed with myself for being dragged in.

@cornflowersandpoppies me too

@noblegiraffe

Those saying that we couldn’t possibly expect the government to spend any money on schools, let alone millions, are surely aware that they spent £3.7 million on an ad campaign claiming that schools were safe. They paid social media influencers to spout the party line on Instagram and for articles in the press.

They could have spent that money on making schools safer. They didn’t even pay for hand sanitiser.

They could also have provided the textbooks/ teaching resources to support the unnecessary curriculum changes they imposed. But they didn't.

As you well know, schools have been squeezed and squeezed at the grass roots (yet not to the detriment of the executive salaries at the top of the big academy chains...)
It's just unrealistic to think that the government were going to spunk money on schools. Matt Hancock wasn't sitting there homeschooling while trying to do the day job and shagging the self-appointed aide they don't live it, and they don't give a shit. That's for thr wives and nannies to fret about while they're being big and important.

Unsympathetic MPs don't engage with correspondence. The right to protest was quashed. Most people are just doing what they can to get by with as little damage as possible.

It might be defeatist to accept that the government doesn't give a fuck, but that is the reality that we are living with and our ability to make them care is pretty limited.

We can agree that schools in general are chronically underfunded to the detriment of pupil learning, well-being and staff conditions.

However you do not help your arguments with being disparaging about people looking at the issues from a different angles or having different points of view and starting from the premise that people who change their minds in a changing situation are hypocrites.

@Bryonyshcmyony

And noblegiraffe isn't the provider of solutions then why are we even arguing if we realise that actually we have all been powerless during this sorry situation?

I'm definitely powerless. That's what 6.5 months of trying to cajole a child with multiple SENs into doing some kind of learning (plus the younger sibling who joins in too) will do for you.

Most of us are too busy with our heads down surviving to have the spare resource to look up and fight. Plus the whole MSM bias that's been very evident throughout and is now laughably predictable as the barometer.

starting from the premise that people who change their minds in a changing situation are hypocrites.

Nope, I'm starting from the premise that people using 'concern for kids' ONLY when it suits them to make an argument should be called out on it.

I don't know why you would be trying to defend it.

We're now at the stage of 'oh, there's no point in talking about it, there's nothing we can do' stage of trying to shut down discussion are we?

We've also had

1. personal abuse
2. abuse of those who post in agreement
3. suggestions I'm not who I say I am
4. posting shit and pretending I said it
5. bizarre accusations
6. mean girls
7. faux concern for my mental health
8. why are you posting this on MN, a discussion site?
9. patronising 'simply can't expect the govt to do anything we're just being realistic' pats on head
10. well if you haven't got all the answers, what's the point in posting?
11. it's your tone that's the problem (but not the tone of anyone else)
12. let's move on because bringing up the things people said and did before Xmas is, well, inconvenient.

We've not had 'why are you posting, shouldn't you be teaching?' yet. Maybe someone forgot that one.

It wasn't faux concern.

Wow that was a bit me me me! And me again.

If we want to chat shit on a covid forum then it’s our choice to do so.

Passes a few hours I find.

I’ve had abuse too (apparently I’m sneering 🤣). But it’s just all about the OP apparently.

We’ve explained quite clearly why now is different to November. That it’s an ever changing situation and to change your views is not hypocritical. Neither is focusing on your own situation and accepting the government are a bit shit.

Thankfully it’s nearly the summer holidays.

I will point out that most of the swearing and anger has come from the OP...

We’ve explained quite clearly why now is different to November.

And I’ve explained quite clearly how that’s irrelevant to the point I’m making.

I’m not sure what your point is anymore. What did you want us to do again? Not moan now because we didn’t take action in November? (What action??) Or we didn’t care in November? (We did).

I asked a question about mobile air filtration systems that cost around 3000E each and how effective there are. I had a look at a review piece looking at published data as at April 2021 and they found from the published research:

"There is an important absence of evidence regarding the effectiveness of a potentially cost-efficient intervention for indoor transmission of respiratory infections, including SARS-CoV-2. Two studies provide ‘proof of principle’ that air filters can capture airborne bacteria in an indoor setting. Randomised controlled trials are urgently needed to investigate effects of portable HEPA filters on incidence of respiratory infections."

I understand that there are trials taking place in Germany from the article posted by @ChloeDecker but not seen any published results yet. If anyone should come across any published data recording whether it helps with Covid-19 or not (definitely helps with bacterial infection spread but bacteria is a LOT bigger than virus particles so the filtration needs to be able to filter out to 0.1-0.5μm so a specialised filter needed.

Delatron people were 'faux concerned' about total school closure in November, insisting schools should stay open and accepting bubbles would burst as a consequence of that. Anyone expressing worry about children's welfare at that point was only doing so because they desperately wanted to keep schools open because they either:
Had had enough of home schooling
Needed to go to work themselves and either could not wfh or could not effectively wfh and care for children,
Or just wanted their kids to get some classroom time.
Or probably any other reason. But concern for children was just a cover for those other more selfish desires.

However now parents are outrageously concerned about children missing school because of bubbles bursting when that was the very thing they were so willing to accept as a risk before!!

Is that it?

However as you point out, the situation is very different then, and what was an acceptable risk then, is not now.

And I'm not sure how anyone can tell who was outraged or concerned about what at what point anymore. Its been a long old 16 months. We're all exhausted. Its been shit for all of us.

I don't understand what we as parents were supposed to do differently last autumn? I couldn't have supported the idea of keeping schools closed until a whole load of mitigations were installed because that would have meant all schools being closed for an entire year. There was never going to be a ton of cash. Furlough and vaccine development and the NHS got all the cash (and some tory mates, yes I grant you). Education comes last, kids, working everyday families, and teachers come last.

As it is, kids have at least been in school some of the time. Some quite a lot. Even that amount of contact time has benefited them. So given the options it was better for schools to open and do the best we could.

I'm glad they seem to be planning to do away with them in September. There's no justification for them anymore and the risk from missed school now outweighs the risk of COVID, or at least it should come September.