Let's face it, they're letting it rip.

[ZednotZee]

Aren't they?

The vaccines aren't seemingly preventing transmission.

We are opening up on the 19th.

This is being done presumably as the public appetite for further lockdowns will be nil come October/November so best to get it over with now and have heard immunity come the autumn.

They won't say it but its becoming very clear that the immunocompromised need to continue to shield til the rest of us have contracted and got over the infection.

That’s not my view on the unions behaviour at all. It genuinely disgusted me as I felt they were actively working against the government to prevent schools reopening after may 2020 half term. Arguably the best time we had for kids to go back for a few weeks until summer with the least risk. As I was getting up every day to travel to a London hospital on the tube at 6am.
Anyway it’s last years argument and I don’t want to rehash it. I think we’ve all learnt a lot since then.

Where i am is i didn't send DS back last June when i could and instead home schooled him til September.

Then i was extremely nervous about him going back in September as i thought another wave was incoming.

I was then grateful our school had staff shortages and couldn't open that first day in January. I would have kept schools closed until Easter and thought they went back a few weeks early.

But at this point i would reopen as now planned on 19th July as its the best shot we have.

Ive not been in line with government timings on much. But thats where i find myself despite everything.

So I'm definitely not in the open up everything camp and lean towards caution typically. I just think we have reached road's end.

(and yes feel free to check my posting history on this)

Yes, well one thing we've all hopefully learned is how badly UK state schools are funded in comparison to most other European countries (and around the world), how large class sizes are, and the ideologically entrenched position that they simply would not give enough funding for smaller class sizes meant that options were limited in a pandemic.

Whilst simultaneously largely wasting 37bn on consultants for a piss-poor not fit for purpose test and trace system.

Whilst we may argue about degree, and even with long covid, covid turns out to be a pandemic that doesn't terribly affect kids.

The next one might be more like polio - what's going to happen then? The lack of funding in state schools is still going to exist. Would they just let kids die? I've got to say on the evidence so far I'd worry the answer would be yes.

Agree 100% with @RedToothBrush that the systemic failures have been at least a decade in the making. I also am not terribly convinced that Labour would have done better with the slight caveat that I suspect they would have put more funding into schools. They do seem to struggle with biological reality, whereas the Tories are happy to look hard facts in the fact and then just make decisions that only benefit the 1%. Rock and a hard place.

I want to live somewhere else.

@sashagabadon, "That’s not my view on the unions behaviour at all. It genuinely disgusted me as I felt they were actively working against the government to prevent schools reopening after may 2020 half term."

It's not about a "view." I'm afraid you're wrong. That's not what happened, so you were disgusted at the wrong organisation.

It's also worth saying that a LOT of schools designed a rota system for all children to be able to attend school part time in the summer term of 2020, while keeping within the Government rules for size of groups, distancing etc.

Then the government changed its own guidance to explicitly forbid a rota system.

Again, this was not the unions preventing all children returning - the Government directly changed its guidance to prevent a pragmatic response to the difficulty of too many pupils and not enough space.

I'm still surprised how many people in an apparently educated country believed COVID loves a crowd and spreads rapidly without SD and masks everywhere but schools. Or believed that children didn't spread it or catch it.

Come now, even Jenny harries said covid didn't Corona virus didn't spread in schools, spread was down to parents crowding together at school gates when in all other settings being outdoors was safe!

On the subject of masks
My son works in the operating theatres and was very surprised to learn that they only wear the flimsy blue masks and not the n95s

My doctor friend was saying that whatever the government say, we should keep up all the precautions we can because we really don’t know what kind of spike we could have if everyone just stops taking precautions. Honestly I think the government have gone a bit mad to be continuing with this relaxation. It’s also particularly shit for older and medically vulnerable people who seem more concerned than ever about going out, once they can’t any longer expect that other people will be in general masked and all the rest of it.

@shewalkslikerihanna

On the subject of masks My son works in the operating theatres and was very surprised to learn that they only wear the flimsy blue masks and not the n95s

Yep, all in an open box that everyone sticks their hands into.

@TheKeatingFive

I'd still rather not die of something avoidable like covid.

But Covid isn’t avoidable, any more than other illnesses are. Not now. And not anywhere unless the likes of NZ keeps itself cut off forever.

We took enormous and unprecedented measures to suppress it. They were incredibly costly. They only partly worked.

We could do the same for lots of other illnesses. We could ban cars from the road to reduce RTA deaths. We could stop selling alcohol, processed meat, reduce cars and heavy industry (pollution) and that would reduce cancer deaths.

But we don’t, because quality of life matters too and we have become comfortable with a certain number of deaths from these causes.

Covid is exactly the same. Unfortunately there’s another thing we can die from out there. These incredible measures. to suppress it aren’t sustainable, thankfully vaccines will make it more manageable, but it isn’t going anywhere.

Of course it’s avoidable like SARS and bird flu which were prevalent but didn’t take hold too much (the flu jab now protects against three latter).

That’s why countries who took it seriously are doing better than us

@Wildewoodz

Of course it’s avoidable like SARS and bird flu which were prevalent but didn’t take hold too much (the flu jab now protects against three latter).

SARS and bird flu were far less transmissible.... It is far, far too late to try and contain Covid like those illnesses.... The window of opportunity shut in January 2020.

There are many US states where they didn't have more than one lockdown (the ones with universal mask mandates) and have suppressed the virus to very low levels.

It absolutely is avoidable if you combine vaccines and public health measures.

Doing just one (vaccines) is never going to work and is downright dangerous given how fast the virus mutates. We are actively providing an environment where a vaccine resistant variant has a HUGE selection advantage. It really didn't have to be like this.

It is true that it's pretty impossible to live your life to any degree of normality in the UK and avoid catching covid now. But there are many countries where it is absolutely possible to avoid catching covid and live normally.