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Lockdowns

Wonder if gobsh1te piers enjoyed his holiday in the sun after lecturing anyone who dared to leave their front doors?
 
Schools: Johnson himself yesterday said minutes apart in the same soft-touch Marr interview that schools were safe and there was a need to find a way to prevent schools from being such a strong source of virus transmission. Yet he didn't see the incompatibility of the 2 statements. As with all else, dither and delay has consequences. My daughter and large numbers of other parents in grandson's primary decided over the weekend not to send their children in due to current circumstances (and as my daughter is in the 'vulnerable' category I don't blame her). The Head found out this was happening and last night emailed all parents to say the school would be closed. That puts unnecessary extra pressure on families to find childcare at short notice and could all have been avoided with timely and decisive govt action to move teaching online for the majority as in March. Closing schools (though its the premises not the activities which close) now at the height of the surge and adjacent to the school holidays would allow us a chance to get a grip on infection rates, get proper school testing regimes sorted and get into the vaccine roll-out. Postponing the (almost) inevitable on schools does nothing to ease the current situation. Children themselves (esp primary) may well not be seriously affected by covid themselves, but children don't teach themselves in school, don't supervise themselves in breaks, don't feed themselves at dinner time, don't run the school admin. And children don't cease to be carriers when the bell goes at the end of the school day, They go home to parents and grandparents, they interact in the community.
 
You’ve missed the point. So close, yet so far
You’ve been missing the point all year. Greater contact between people = greater spread of the virus. It really is that simple and I’m just amazed that you can’t grasp this simple concept.
 
Just seen GMB Piers Morgan present a guy called Dave Carr as a an ICU nurse and give him a free hand to slag off the government over handling of the pandemic, without any mention of the fact that he the chairman of the local Unison branch. He has a rightful point of view, but to present him as a nurse without any agenda is completely disingenuous. Typical Piers Morgan back on the telly sh1t stirring to the maximum as usual. When are they going to deliver balanced programming ??????


And then you need ask why there is distrust between public service workers and the government??

Totally outrageous
Much in the same way as the Tufton Street mafia and others (Vine, Young etc) are given air time without their background being made clear to viewers / listeners
 
You’ve been missing the point all year. Greater contact between people = greater spread of the virus. It really is that simple and I’m just amazed that you can’t grasp this simple concept.

Christ James, stop being so patronising. I’m sure you’re intentionally “misunderstanding” what I’m saying because you’re clearly not stupid.

I couldn’t be more clear what I’ve been saying. The collateral damage of lockdowns far outweighs any benefit seen from that.

Maajid Nawaz, often a voice of reason on a number of subjects (someone you probably agree with on Brexit much more than), hits the nail on the head. Much better than I can articulate.

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The only impact assessment that seems to have been done states that lockdown will claim 560k lives, it will only save a small proportion of that.

On a global scale, the impacts of lockdown in poorer counties will hit even harder than it will in the UK.
 
Much in the same way as the Tufton Street mafia and others (Vine, Young etc) are given air time without their background being made clear to viewers / listeners
Yes I absolutely hate it it !! This morning's GMB was a 2 hour story board leading up to matt Hancock being interviewed - it was a disgrace !!!
 
Schools: Johnson himself yesterday said minutes apart in the same soft-touch Marr interview that schools were safe and there was a need to find a way to prevent schools from being such a strong source of virus transmission. Yet he didn't see the incompatibility of the 2 statements. As with all else, dither and delay has consequences. My daughter and large numbers of other parents in grandson's primary decided over the weekend not to send their children in due to current circumstances (and as my daughter is in the 'vulnerable' category I don't blame her). The Head found out this was happening and last night emailed all parents to say the school would be closed. That puts unnecessary extra pressure on families to find childcare at short notice and could all have been avoided with timely and decisive govt action to move teaching online for the majority as in March. Closing schools (though its the premises not the activities which close) now at the height of the surge and adjacent to the school holidays would allow us a chance to get a grip on infection rates, get proper school testing regimes sorted and get into the vaccine roll-out. Postponing the (almost) inevitable on schools does nothing to ease the current situation. Children themselves (esp primary) may well not be seriously affected by covid themselves, but children don't teach themselves in school, don't supervise themselves in breaks, don't feed themselves at dinner time, don't run the school admin. And children don't cease to be carriers when the bell goes at the end of the school day, They go home to parents and grandparents, they interact in the community.
Yep I think we all agree with that - so why not cancel summer holidays and re-organise the school year?
 
I agree with that in theory - reorganising the school year is something which should have been considered back in the summer when things on other fronts were a bit quieter and when there were plenty of medics/scientists etc predicting a tough winter. There was an opportunity to totally revamp things and have a southern-hemisphere style school year as a one-off, including putting the exams into an August/September schedule (yes, that would have annoyed university admissions folk, but they could also push their start date for 21-22 back a month to compensate). But there is an innate unwillingness on all sides to think outside the box on such things, and as I see it there is now no way that this year's exams (even in their amended form as proposed) can go ahead as planned.

Mind you, back in the summer we were being assured by Johnson that all would be back to normal by Christmas. Maybe we'd be in a better position as well if some planning had gone into post-Christmas schooling and how testing was going to help keep them open, rather than just announcing it after some schools had already broken up for Christmas and expecting it to happen by magic.
 
Testing won't solve anything - just says how many folks have the virus and track and trace is completely out of the window as the numbers are too vast now

So given this school year is about to be written off, the least they can do is get as much in as they can and take summer holidays now
 
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Testing won't solve anything - just says how many folks have the virus and track and trace is completely out of the window as the numbers are too vast now

So given this school year is about to be written off, the least they can do is get as much in as they can and take summer holidays now
So schools were entirely safe today but won’t be on Wednesday.? Did the virus decide to have the day off today?
 
So schools were entirely safe today but won’t be on Wednesday.? Did the virus decide to have the day off today?
I remember Boris Johnson telling parents to send their children to school regardless of covid fears like it was yesterday
 
I remember Boris Johnson telling parents to send their children to school regardless of covid fears like it was yesterday
I think the impact of Covid on children is minimal, so from that perspective schools are safe. The problem is that many children are taken to school by grandparents to allow parents to go to work - and schools aren't safe for oldies - or pass the virus on to grandparents because families are not following rules. I know its not always that straightforward, but social distancing is IS the only way that people can prevent others from catching the virus. Consequence we are all in lockdown again. Despite all the impacts of lockdowns, the government gets bounced into further restrictions. Easy to get into lockdown, lets see how easy it is to get out - and the frustrations that will boil over if we are still in this situation come March
 
I think the impact of Covid on children is minimal, so from that perspective schools are safe. The problem is that many children are taken to school by grandparents to allow parents to go to work - and schools aren't safe for oldies - or pass the virus on to grandparents because families are not following rules. I know its not always that straightforward, but social distancing is IS the only way that people can prevent others from catching the virus. Consequence we are all in lockdown again. Despite all the impacts of lockdowns, the government gets bounced into further restrictions. Easy to get into lockdown, lets see how easy it is to get out - and the frustrations that will boil over if we are still in this situation come March
If we have consistently agreed on one point Knutsfordian it is that it is us humans who spread the virus through contact with others. Some seem to fail to grasp this simple concept and the fact that reducing contact reduces its prevalence.
 
I remember Boris Johnson telling parents to send their children to school regardless of covid fears like it was yesterday
Decison-making, Boris Johnson style: 14 Dec: We'll sue any council closing schools. 22 Dec: Don't reopen schools, Sage. 30 Dec: Schools are safe, PM. 1
Don't reopen schools, Teacher unions. 3 Jan: Schools are safe, PM. 4 Jan: Schools to close immediately

Decisive, clear and strong leadership. Unfortunately the above is the antithesis of this....
 
If we have consistently agreed on one point Knutsfordian it is that it is us humans who spread the virus through contact with others. Some seem to fail to grasp this simple concept and the fact that reducing contact reduces its prevalence.
Yes - absolutely James. I only have to look out of the window to see the folks across the road ferrying their grandchildren back and too to school.

What frustrates me about schools is the total inability of the educational establishment to come up with a better solution for schools. Asking for laptops for children isn't the answer. If you haven't already got a laptop, then you probably haven't got high speed broadband either. Then there's the capability of parents to work with their children at home.

I still think that the vaccination programme needs to be re-ordered to vaccinate children. If schools are the means by which the virus is spreading, then targetting schools makes sense. You could vaccinate whole schools in the time it takes to vaccinate a few oldies at home
 
Some seem to fail to grasp this simple concept and the fact that reducing contact reduces its prevalence.

Why don’t you counter the point that people actually make which is the consequences in the long run far outweigh the benefit of these restrictions?

Instead of just pretending that the people raising those concerns are “simple”?
 
Why don’t you counter the point that people actually make which is the consequences in the long run far outweigh the benefit of these restrictions?

Instead of just pretending that the people raising those concerns are “simple”?
I think the trouble is Andy that the government has tried to delay these lockdowns as long as possible but then gets accused of dithering, and accused of costing lives etc. So the weight of opinion and abuse, along with medical advice and medics appearing on programmes like GMB becomes so overwhelming the government cannot do anything else but move into lockdowns. The bottom line is though, that people will not willingly self distance, so its a self fulfilling prophecy really.
 
I think the trouble is Andy that the government has tried to delay these lockdowns as long as possible but then gets accused of dithering, and accused of costing lives etc. So the weight of opinion and abuse, along with medical advice and medics appearing on programmes like GMB becomes so overwhelming the government cannot do anything else but move into lockdowns. The bottom line is though, that people will not willingly self distance, so its a self fulfilling prophecy really.

I agree with a lot of what you say. The disproportionate hysteria whipped up by the media has created a hostile environment. The government have been forced to make decisions only taking the next 6 months in to account.

The question is, why are the media seemingly unconcerned about possible 500k plus lives that will be lost over the next few years as a result of these excessive restrictions? Or are they just lining themselves up for another media storm?

500k lives will be lost, and a generation of millions of children will be extremely disadvantaged for life. Is it a price worth paying?
 
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