How can they still say nothing?

[Purplegurple]

So numbers today over 183,000. How can BoJo and his cronies still be making no statement? No clear guidance, nothing. I'm not wanting lockdown or anything but can't believe they're so quiet over all this.

No one is saying over 40s didn't need vaccinated. Teachers should have been vaccinated in the same phase as they were.

Teachers were at higher risk of contracting it.

@JohnHuffam1812

But they were far less likely to that someone who was working with kids in schools. Which is why every other European country had teachers as part of the 2nd phase priority groups.

Teachers were at higher risk

Of catching it possibly but if those 40/50 year olds caught covid they were at much higher risk of problems. Many of the the 40s and 50 year olds you seem to think never saw anyone whilst wfh also have children.

You're entitled to your opinions @mellongoose but if you haven't thought then through, you can't complain when this is pointed out? Opinions can be challenged with data. You've come out with gems like "most teachers had covid before Christmas, or so we're told" and "all businesses need to plan for staff absence" so now it's time you heard what the problems are about those assertions, no? It's called debate.

The thinking behind vaccinating teachers early was to keep schools open better than they have been, rather than keeping teachers out of hospitals. Vaccinated people much less likely to catch and transmit.

I didn't say 40 and 50 year olds shouldn't have been vaccinated and neither did the NEU. They wanted teachers vaccinated in the same phase.

Not the zero sum game it's being painted as.

Because, you know, the government has a habit of landing all sorts of shit on schools at the very last minute and that is unacceptable

Agree completely. We’ve seen this repeatedly throughout the pandemic. Knee jerk, poorly thought out, last minute U-turns, disorganised. Leaving everyone confused and/or floundering. Including schools, parents, teachers and students.

Why do schools have to be spoon fed plans by Government? spoon fed

Because schools as publicly funded institutions have to follow and therefore wait for government guidance.

Many HE institutions are moving fully back to f2f teaching in two weeks because govt guidance says this is okay. Hundreds of students crowded into a single lecture hall. Most built without windows. Thousands of students flying back from all over the world.

On the one hand, it’s bit of a gamble that a PCR on entry and isolation for 48 hours is sufficient to not spread Covid further. On the other, if govt does suddenly bring in new restrictions like they did last year, then the travel plans of these poor students will be thrown into chaos.

Johnson hates to make any commitment decision. He knows that someone will be unhappy with him whatever decision he makes. So waits until the very last minute to make them. What a way to run a country during Brexit and a pandemic.

@DrBlackbird

Yes on last minute things.

Remember when the lap tops for vulnerable kids program was cancelled, before it had really got off the ground.

Email sent at 5 pm the Friday half term began.

How about schools having to record test results?

I think they are just waiting.

The exams will be cancelled again, and again it will be last minute with all the work on the teachers.

I have just seen this tweet saying that if 1 in 40 people have covid, the basic masks suggest we could be 15,000 teachers short:

twitter.com/VixL/status/1476322321321312257

The logistics are ridiculous.

@crazyjinglist

(Re: schools) But what we are now talking about is managing staff absences. All businesses and settings need to make such plans.

Hard for schools to manage staff absences when there aren't enough supply teachers to go around and they have little budget to pay them anyway.

This is the same situation for everyone not just schools. From the NHS and the emergency services right down to the stand alone small businesses. No buisness/company/organisation has an abundance of "spare staff" and a never-ending fund to pay for it. Sick of hearing on these threads how seemingly only schools are affected by staff shortages its the same everywhere. The real conundrum for staff shortages across the board is its the isolation part that's causing the issue not necessarily that people are too unwell to work, for many there's mild symptoms for a short period of time and for some no symptoms at all. Yet we can't remove isolating as those we spread too may not be lucky enough to only experience mild symptoms, its a very viscous circle

FFS - freudian slip or autocorrect I am not sure, but 'masks' should say maths

Sick of hearing on these threads how seemingly only schools are affected by staff shortages its the same everywhere.

With respect, I think that's rather the issue, except funnily enough, parents are interested in whether schools can open or not. Nobody disagrees with you, but that is whataboutery.

No one said it is 'only' schools, but we have been told over and over that schools are a priority. So what is being done to help them stay open? Nothing. The government is doing nothing.

Sick of hearing on these threads how seemingly only schools are affected by staff shortages its the same everywhere.

And yet you still have people falling over themselves to insist that case numbers don’t matter, only hospitalisations do.

If everywhere is affected by staff shortages (including schools, and that’s a big one on a parenting site) then clearly case numbers do matter.

Covering an absent teacher is very different to covering other absent staff members. Teachers cannot teach more students by teaching harder. They cannot teach more students by doing longer shifts. They cannot teach more students by foregoing breaks. People will not accept their children being unsupervised. There are only so many large spaces where you can combine classes. A school without safeguarding staff is not legally allowed to open. There are physical limits to how far staff can be stretched.

If you only have one person instead of five in a busy post office, the post office can open, but far fewer people will be served and queues will be longer, if you have one person instead of five in a nursing ward, it will be hell on Earth, and you would do your very best to relocate those patients, but that one nurse is still better than zero. One teacher out of five is not better than zero because at that point, you’d rather take your kids home rather than have them at school (you may want that one member of staff there for just the vulnerable children, but that can’t happen easily if schools are acting on an ad hoc basis).

All true, Nellodee

@rrhuth

I have just seen this tweet saying that if 1 in 40 people have covid, the basic masks suggest we could be 15,000 teachers short:

twitter.com/VixL/status/1476322321321312257

The logistics are ridiculous.

But this is just simplistic nonsense. It doesn’t help anything as it’s patently unlikely to happen. It doesn’t help your case.

What's unlikely to happen?

We had 12,580 teachers absent from state schools on 8th December for covid-related reasons.

The solution is to stop all this testing and isolation. If you are feeling sick, you stay home from work until you are feeling better, at which point you return to work, as per any other illness/ virus. Simple.

But the government have said that they don't intend to reduce isolation, so they really should be saying what they intend to do to stop the country falling over under the weight of cases.

Just wanted to pop on to say to @MaybeHeIsMyCat , you DO matter, and of course government policy should include you, not discount you because you are a 'tiny minority'

"Patently unlikely to happen"

Already has. Stop denying.

@crazyjinglist

They prefer to do nothing OP and let us argue it out amount ourselves.

Arguing about it isn't compulsory. Get vaccinated, take sensible precautions, take a test when appropriate.

It sounds as if most of the people hospitalised with covid are either unvaccinated or were in hospital for something entirely unrelated and tested positive while there (probably mostly with mild symptoms, as that's what most get).

70% being treated for Covid, not just with, on last report. This article also shows how those 'just with' covid also add to the issue - it's so much more nuanced than simply 'butwithnotof'.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/29/how-can-we-measure-the-true-scale-of-uk-covid-hospital-admissions?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

I think they should stop with the constant commentary. What really matters is the number of deaths from CV19 (not with), and they should do a comparison with this and deaths from other major causes. That would soon put the figures in perspective. Many people are taking what are over the top precautions in my view for no more than a common cold if you're triple vaccinated.