I find this such an interesting thread to follow - thank you all.
I agree re primary schools (I’ve no knowledge for secondary but imagine quite different issues at play there). I think some children will need “caught up” but as seems to be experienced here it’s more the social, emotional, resilience, etc etc etc side that had dipped. My own 7yr old is much more clingy to me and queries where I’m going if I have to leave the house without him. They need to just be in school (when save of course) In order to work on all those skills again. I know there was a big push regarding all this when they returned in August (over academics) which I fully agreed with. I’d imagine it will be similar this time around. I actually think this time has taken more of a toil on my child than the spring lockdown. My youngest seems to have faired better vit is in her pre-school year and just needs to work in socialisation skills etc prior to starting school. She’s missed so much or nursery (due to birth date she’d only started in January so hardly anytime before lockdown). It makes me so sad when I think of how much time my eldest has at nursery to grown and develop whereas my youngest has missed out (I know all her peers are in sake boat of course). Govt wise what I’d like to see is them fund more teacher assistants. I don’t think they’ll ever fund more than 1 teacher per class (generally) but they cut the number of teacher assistances down hugely the last few years. If the SG finance anything I’d like it to be this so that the teacher can work in smaller groups and the ta can do small groups and 1-2-1. It feels from what I can gather than ta are only available for identified children right now (which is right and I support this of course and believe they only get funding for the ta due to identified needs of individual children) but the rest of the class have no one extra to assist when the teacher is busy. I’d like an additional adult in each class for at least some of the week. I think that would help with all the emotional side also.
Drinking - I’ll raise my hand to being a statistic here. I was tee total for 8 years (pregnancy breastfeeding and no social life!) however I started sharing the odd bottle off wine with DH during first lockdown and it’s continued and increased to a few a week. So I’m drinking more than before although not got a problem as such it’s become a habit and I do need to tackle that. So I do agree lockdowns have increases people’s use of alcohol. However, I’d like to think the increases supermarket alcohol purchase have been considers alongside fact that restaurants and bars are closed as surely a high proportion of the increase is down to this! I do think Scotland in general terms has a very poor alcohol outlook and we need a cultural change really. I’m not convince more minimum pricing and limiting purchases is the way to achieve this. As pp have said people will go to multiple shops or on booze runs to England is close enough etc etc. I think something needs done but more at a underlying level rather than hitting the pockets. An increase in mental health care availability would be a good start.
For the vaccinations in the under 50s I agree I think uptake will reduce but think it will still be quite high given the fear factor and the fact that this age group is likely to have been impacted directly (thinking more furlough, children out of school, job losses, pensions destroyed...not implying any worse than any other age group but certainly enough that they’ll consider getting vaccination). I actually am getting quite annoyed at all govt that no plan is in place regarding other priority groups after the over 50s. I don’t think it should then go to a blanket “free for all call and see who gets appointment first” situation. I think there are those at higher risk who should be prioritised still over the general population I’m specifically thinking of the police as have friends in the force and they are in close contact with numerous people and well they aren’t always the nicest of people so they’re not always wearing masks themselves and it’s not unheard of to be spat at etc etc. Then obviously shop workers, factory workers, etc etc etc... basically anyone who cannot keep away from other people when they are doing their job. I feel they are all more in need of the vaccine than day someone like my DH who is wfh or indeed myself who only goes to supermarket and on school run (or will!). Of course it’s a hard one to actually manage as everyone has different perspectives on how “risky” something so it would be difficult to
do in a fair way. I do think it needs to be looked at a bit more though. I’d like to see vaccinators going into big factories, shops, police, fire, numerous other places I haven’t though of and just getting them jagged en masse rather than having people need to go via their own gp (then obviously sweep up clinics for those missed and vac clinics for the rest of population too).