UK schools could, and should, begin to reopen as soon as practicable after the initial wave of cases has passed through

[Otherrooms]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52180783

What do you make of this?

Schools could go back even whilst social distancing rules are still in place?

Have these people ever been in a school? School corridors/classrooms anyone?!

I’m glad the DfE have released that statement.

Some of the journalism in this country just stinks.

15 year olds at a loose end causing carnage with ill researched stories about schools opening and killer kitties.

A classroom would need to be between 80sqm and 120sqm for children to be able to socially distance themselves (at the smaller end, it assumes that children work pressed up against the wall rather than being surrounded by space).
Classrooms are usually around 70sqm, and are often smaller - especially in primary schools
There just isn't room to have whole classes back. Maybe they'll have to back part time and split the days between them?

No doubt the DFE will have some annoying evidence that schools can easily socially distance based on square metre of floor space : this is how they work out PAN and is why it is a really shit idea to build extensions with huge classrooms and wide atriums.

No doubt the DFE will have some annoying evidence that schools can easily socially distance based on square metre of floor space : this is how they work out PAN and is why it is a really shit idea to build extensions with huge classrooms and wide atriums

Can you imagine

Sorry, that should have been [grin

The gin was just as necessary!

I like a gin. Is it too early?

Never.

@Piggywaspushed "I am quite sure when the government suddenly shrunk its vulnerable list, it was with a view to getting as many people as possible back to work."

Er - the government never shrunk its list. As of Monday this week, it has actually been expanded, with a second tranche of diagnoses added and more people contacted.

It did shrink it's lust from the original suggestions which various bodies and employers worked from. It divided it into extremely vulnerable and highly vulnerable. The extremely vulnerable is s much smaller group than originally suggested. The 2nd wave of letters is not coming from the government. It's His and hospital consultants mopping up.

List!

That post has many typos ...

It was GPs who sent the second wave.

What’s the difference in advice? Which group are pregnant/asthmatic/diabetic people in?

It depends. Can't link from my phone but if you Google you should find it. Only pregnant women with congenital heart defects are extremely vulnerable. Other people with heart defects aren't even though heart problems account for the second highest underlying condition in ICU bizarrely.

It must be ever so reassuring to get you 12 week letter a full 3 weeks after you should have begun...

I tried googling and found the extremely vulnerable list but not a highly vulnerable one. I also couldn’t find the difference in advice between them. Do pregnant/asthmatic/diabetic people still need to be off for 12 weeks or is that only extremely vulnerable people?!

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults

Here's the list of vulnerable groups. The advice is still 'stringent social distancing, and employers should support this (including working from home). My school have been fantastically supportive of those of us in the vulnerable group, right from the day the list was published.

@Piggywaspushed "It did shrink it's lust from the original suggestions which various bodies and employers worked from. It divided it into extremely vulnerable and highly vulnerable"

Nope - this simply is not true.

There is a large vulnerable group (approx 16 million). These people need to be extra stringent in their social distancing measures.

There is a subset of these people who are extremely vulnerable (approx 1.5 million). These people need to be shielded for 12 weeks.

There is no clinically defined "highly vulnerable" group.

Please do not post untruths and misleading statements. All it does is confuse people.

I am not sure your interpretation trumps my DHs consultants.

There is a large vulnerable group (approx 16 million). These people need to be extra stringent in their social distancing measures.

So, should this group be working?

It is the shielded group who get the 12 weeks. Not all pregnant women etc are in that group despite being initially told ( wrongly)they were

The shielded group are also known as extremely vulnerable.

I think the evident illogicality of schools opening whilst other measures remain restrictive would make the whole thing farcical.
I think absolute earliest they would reopen is after May half term (in early June). More likely later.

The vulnerable group are (most of them) classified as 'high risk' and then there is extremely vulnerable' (shielded). The first lot I mention here will, I imagine, get less protection form employers.

However anyone might define this, there definitely was appoint at which everyone over 7p, let alone anyone with certain types of diabetes and pregnant women, thought they were in the 12 week group. At some point, it became apparent that that group was unworkably huge.

And anyone, say, with a heart condition , was left in essentially during lockdown, the same groups as everyone else's. What will be interesting is what happens to that group of people when lockdown eases.

fuckweasels link is the one that clearly shows the two groups. It is now impossible to find because of gov updates but the two separate lists of conditions were original published as one list, hence the confusion amongst people eg without a spleen.