The Thirty-Fifth Republic - Covid - the gift that keeps on giving even during the Christmas Break

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You are most welcome to this school staff support thread to get us through stressful times. It is meant for school staff only – a sort of room of requirement. Baiters, haters, goaders, and bashers can jog on somewhere else.

If you are NOT staff and just have a general education query please start your own thread.

You can play here if you are a member of one the following groups-

-ABBA - anti bashers and baiting association
-SWAB - school workers against bashers
-SWOT - school workers opposing teacherbashers
-STARS - schoolworkers together against ranting + slurs

Do not give the staffroom password just in case it attracts the wrong sort

Other requirements for staff room entry include the ability to find the staff room, the ability to find a clean mug in the staff room, knowledge of the photocopier codes, and the ability to sniff out where the booze is stashed - Thirsty Tuesdays, Fizz Fridays now in operation.

If you come with a stick to goad us then that is not allowed in the staffroom and you will receive a detention

@TheHoneyBadger don't worry I had a nap earlier and DH is snoring next to me atm. Enjoy your rest!😊

Thank you. I slept over 12 hours last night and now struggling to keep my eyes open again.

Way tmi but I've discovered chocolate makes me very windy. Good job I don't share my bed

No naps for me today!
but I didn't wake up until 1pm so that might be why

I haven't napped today. I went for a long walk during the gap between storms (which are not anywhere near as bad as the forecast made them sound). And I made the Christmas Day cheesecake 🤣. Dd2 insisted that we still needed to make it even though Christmas Day is definitely finished.

Honey chocolate makes me windy too. In fact, most carbs make me windy now. I've overindulged over the holidays, and I thoroughly regret it, but am still shoveling the chocolate into my mouth.

I had another 4 hour nap this afternoon. Getting thoroughly fed up as I have no idea how I'm going to manage going back to training and school next week. I'm just completely wiped out. When I do sleep it's about my deeply missed DB. Feeling awfully down tonight

@GleamingBaubles

Ah no it was relevant to vaccine escape. I thought that was what you were asking. The mutation selection pressure to increase transmission in children is purely theoretical. Basically natural selection. I'm sure there's an article on that by a respectable scientist, rather than an unqualified random!

I've found this regarding leaving schools open driving selection pressure on mutations.

It's a bit tenuous though...

www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4944

I often wish I could nap during the day. I'm one of those people who can't nap no matter what

So, for those of you who have had naps - enjoy!

@namechangedyetagain I may consider starting to get up earlier this coming week in preparation! Even my DS has been sleeping in until 8am ish. I normally get up at 5.45am

@namechangedyetagain

I had another 4 hour nap this afternoon. Getting thoroughly fed up as I have no idea how I'm going to manage going back to training and school next week. I'm just completely wiped out. When I do sleep it's about my deeply missed DB. Feeling awfully down tonight

I think I'm about a week ahead of you in terms of when you got it. I'm still pretty tired but think I'm getting better now, there is still a week of the holidays left so just focus on getting better. Also if you are still ill in a week you will just have to be off sick, don't worry about it!

I was born to nap! I love it. In marking season when I start at 5 before school and finish at 11, I get in from work and have a twenty minute nap before I start.

And also in that BMJ article, after explaining that PCR tests can detect the new variant as well as the old - it's not known if lateral flow tests will be as good at detecting it. This is being investigated.

Oh wow.....

Yeah I saw that.... Doesn't surprise me though.

@FiggyPuddingFiend I am still without taste or smell and just still so tired so I'm glad I might be over the worst by next week. More worried that I've not opened the laptop at all and now getting behind with my assignment. Just cannot face it at the minute.

name if you're not well enough to go back or to work on the assignment, you really mustn't. You'll only end up putting your recovery back.

[quote namechangedyetagain]@FiggyPuddingFiend I am still without taste or smell and just still so tired so I'm glad I might be over the worst by next week. More worried that I've not opened the laptop at all and now getting behind with my assignment. Just cannot face it at the minute.[/quote]
My smell is weird. I lost it completely for about 5 days, it's coming back but real smells seem distant and I keep smelling things that aren't there My taste didn't go completely, but it is dulled - I think due to my smell issues.

Here's some pretty data to look at. School age cases down when school not in session. But also parent age cases down. Especially in T4 areas.

Another one to play with:

coviddatashare.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/Bubble.html

On that link, click start in the animate box and watch them all move according to date. Its amazing. Above the line is cases reducing, so throughout second lock down, that sort of happens to each blob (local authority), but towards the end of lockdown, the purple blobs go crazy heading off to the right.

Thanks that is quite exciting (not really right word)! You can just ask it to label the districts in your county then you can track them.

That's quite terrifying!

Yeah it's cool. The speed at which the south east took off. Interesting to see that lots of areas in T2 are ahead of my T4 area.

It took me a few tries to understand what I was looking at because I couldn't really see the labels on my tiny phone screen. But those purple dots go mad at the end. I tracked my area and my schools area, and they are both ok at the moment but my area is a lot lower and further right than my school.

DT- Madness. Especially given the numbers have come down in school age since holidays have started.

Had a lot of fun with that. And the other pretty chart is v interesting.

Havering is one of those purple blobs in the lead clearly a disaster area. Again when clicking on the heat map, age 10-14 has the highest rolling rate (over 2000).

If I forget what it is it's quite beautiful to watch

I understand why those now in tier 4 who have quite low rates are annoyed but it's very clear to see that it can explode in just 2-3 weeks. Havering quadrupled (or more?) in a month. Tier 3 seems to be working well in my LA (despite everyone getting tests last week from what I could see) but I really don't think we have much of the new variant (yet) as it clearly didn't get out of control in schools in December.

It will be interesting to compare positivity rates around the country too.

Do we know if the new variant is more out of control in areas that had high case rates in March? Ie is it causing reinfections? The blobs sort of indicate a swapping over.

@KnowingMeKnowingYule

DT- Madness. Especially given the numbers have come down in school age since holidays have started.

They won't be able to open in some areas. They'll open a week or so and all the bubbles will close. Chaos.

Spotted on another thread: