Covid-19 Virus

Quite. I’d also argue supermarkets are more of a germ sharing hotbed than schools at the moment.

 

What teachers want is for themselves, their families, their students, and their students families to be safe. The other side...don't want to look after their kids? Remember schools won't technically be closed. Teacher will still be working as much, if not more, than if schools stayed fully open. This isn't a case of teachers wanting to doss about.

 

The average classroom is a germ factory at the best of times and many teachers are worried about the effects of the new faster-spreading strain spreading in a room where you have up to 30 non-socially distanced snot bags and no-one is allowed to wear a mask let alone any other form of PPE for an hour. Multiply that by five lessons with year-group bubbles also compromised by crowded corridors between lessons and you can see why many teachers are concerned, not just for themselves but also about asymptomatically passing on the virus to their relatives at home.

Of the others you list, I suppose nurses are closest to teachers in terms of being inside and close to large numbers of people for extended periods of time, although they do have full PPE to counter the greater direct risk of covid transmission, and I think supermarket transmission is not far behind. If others wish to make claims their place of work is dangerous that's up to them - there are many teachers who think they'll be OK in the classroom. There is an alternative of course, online delivery - not open to the police, hospitals of course! Schools can teach from home and are better prepared for online teaching than for lockdown 1, with more systems and training in place and a better knowledge of which kids struggled first time around so they can target those for extra support. It's not ideal of course but it's better than nothing.

As for Johnson shooting every fifth teacher, let the kids decide who it is. That'll send a rocket up the backsides of the lazy few (as found in every profession) who used lockdown 1 to post any old worksheet online with the instruction an instruction to fill it in and called it 'online teaching'. However most teachers found online teaching & supporting their students to take longer than teaching in a classroom and much harder, but they still do it. Since Sept for example they've prepared two versions of every lesson, an in-class version and an online version for those who had to self-isolate.

 

I never for a moment thought it was. It’s an impossible situation for everyone, teachers included.

 

To be fair you can't do any of those other jobs over zoom

 

Mainland Scotland to go into full lockdown from tonight until the end of January.

Boris to hold a press conference tonight at 8pm, England to follow no doubt.

 

And what happens if for whatever reason the vaccine doesn't ride to the rescue? What then?

When are we going to start spending money to build NHS capacity and staffing to treat people with this disease and enable those at highest risk to isolate, while the rest get on with things?

I might have disagreed with a lot of what was done at the start of this but at least the government had good reason to be grasping in the dark. We knew the NHS would be on its knees now - it is every year - but it appears nothing has been done to prepare for that.

 

There isn’t really any reason to suppose the vaccines won’t. Otherwise we could just presume we can’t beat influenza or measles or anything in the future. Vaccines are proven technology and we have lots coming to a needle nearby very soon.

So it’s just time at this stage. Horrible for the economy, for kids, parents and worse still for people needing routine treatment. The latter should be continued wherever possible, but we do appear to be near the edge of the abyss today. In four weeks we really may not be.

I’m surprised that you still say we can protect the most vulnerable yet go about our business. We’ve had ten months of restrictions, quite severe ones for the last month and vulnerable people are filling the wards. There simply isn’t a mechanism to shield people who are not already fully independent.

 

Everyone over 50 is potentially vulnerable according to the vaccine priority list. If you mean is everyone over 50 staying indoors all the time - of course not. Nor does the government envisage that they should.

 

I'm over 50 with an underlying condition and according to online calculations I'll be sorted about September.

 

The main reason to doubt it'll do what they say is the fact the people relying on it and hyping it up have largely been wrong on everything so far. I'm not here to pedal myths about it not being worth having or dangerous or anything. I'll be having it as soon as I'm offered it - although I understand that may never happen as I'm under 40. However, if say all it does is take the edge off the death curve but thousands of people still need to be hospitalised each year over and above pre-Covid numbers, which I believe is one of the possibilities, are we set to deal with that? Or rather, is the answer to that going to be yet more lockdowns and panic just because we need to 'save the NHS'?

And I'm afraid while even I can see some reasons to be optimistic about the vaccine, there's no reason to think things will be rosier in 4 weeks' time. Everything they're saying about this new variant suggests the defences and strategies built up over the last 9 months in this country have essentially been rendered useless overnight. We're not looking into the abyss, we've already fallen into it.

Surely the long term strategy has to be (1) vaccinate as many as possible as quickly as possible, (2) shield the highest risk people and (3) boost hospital capacity to treat the rest? The fact we've done bog all to deal with (3) even though everyone saw it coming should be a national scandal. Apparently not.

 

If you lived in Scotland you would have your first jab by early April, according to NS.

 

I was once woken from a very nice sleep at 2 am to have blood taken. I've not liked needles since so won't be going near the border anytime soon .

 

Exactly. And that's the issue. Ask people objectively what they think everyone else or society as a whole should do to deal with this and the polls show overwhelming support for every stricter lockdowns, restrictions, closures etc. But then look at how people are behaving and it's immediately apparent when people answer these polls or whatever they mean everyone else. Not them, oh no, definitely not.

Frankly, I'm beyond annoyed at being told we (ie. the younger half of the equation) have to do this to protect a large chunk of the population that itself shows varying to apathetic levels of compliance or commitment to not catching it. Completely anecdotal I know but Mrs UEA went into town this morning after dropping the kids at school and, lo and behold, there's 4 older folk huddled together under the closed M&S branch moaning loudly about the Tier 4 restrictions and how young people keep flouting the rules and making it go on longer. I go to the supermarket on Saturday - essential shopping and all that - and it seems half the local sunflower lanyard wearers are there, mooching around the middle aisle browsing spanners and tea trays and other crap, not a morsel of food in their baskets. Now it seems to me if enough people don't want these lockdowns, or aren't interested in sticking to the spirit as well as the letter of the restrictions, they're pointless. They may as well be abandoned altogether. It defeats the object of plenty of people, especially in the older generation, who are genuinely sacrificing things if too many of the risk group ignore the rules. The NHS isn't overwhelmed because of school kids or under 40s, who even when they do get ill rarely need primary medical care...it's knackered because despite everything, the over 60s keep contriving to catch Covid and require treatment.

 

Maybe it would be better to replace ‘save the NHS’ with something that resonates more such as ‘make sure there is still healthcare for me’.

I agree that it’s bizarre and incompetent that it’s come to this, but surely it is also a consequence of taking a more liberal approach in the late summer early autumn?

And I still don’t know how you protect the vulnerable. Anyone who lives with anyone who goes out to work, has children in the house, receives care or lives in a care home or even goes to the shops themselves is not shielded.

 

I once had a pleasant young Scottish doctor stick her finger ** ** **** after an accident in the mountains, so to be frank there’s good and there’s bad.

 

Well surely by this stage there must be plenty of data about the risk factors most likely to result in very lengthy and in most cases hopeless treatment when people go in with Covid? So plug that into a computer, work out who the highest risk people are and then create the circumstances (legal, financial, benefits etc) to enable them and their immediate households to isolate. That unfortunately means a sub-group of people won't be able to go out to work, or their kids go to school etc. We could call it 'lockdown'...

Then the next risk group - basically the over 60s but some younger too - runs to millions so they need the facilities providing so they can be treated. So upscale the NHS and community care facilities accordingly, like we would for any other highly prevalent condition that needs treating. No need to lockdown everyone in that group, but clearly people may look at their own personal risk profile and decide there are time when the risk is highest (traffic light system?) where they need to look out for themselves. We might be able to facilitate that too.

Surely that's better than dragging everyone into months of lockdown?

 

Well, maybe the government's messages need to be very much clearer then.

I'm 55, I go to the supermarket. I don't only shop for food. Am I breaching the rules? I don't consider that I am. The supermarket will still be open under lockdown - are you suggesting that I can only buy 'essentials' from it?

I wouldn't go (and haven't gone) shopping for shoes, or computer equipment, or wallpaper, though.

 

Sounds about right. I went to Ashridge with the wife and kids a few days ago for a walk in the woods and while we were there, went to get food and drink from the takeaway cafe. The queue lasted about 30 minutes and while I was there waiting (on my own) the staff came out about 3 times and asked that there be only 1 person per household in the queue, which was also written on signs everywhere. About 1 in 4 people wasn't alone and it was interesting to see the various reactions each time they were asked, which were broadly:

• Shrug and look at each other as though this incredibly simple instruction was too confusing and they couldn't possibly be expected to make head or tail of it, so stay put
• Stare at phones and pretend they hadn't heard
• Stand in silence looking guilty, but don't actually do anything about it
• Loudly proclaim to each other and anyone listening that it didn't apply to them because [insert mental gymnastics]

4 different techniques for being a selfish c*nt.

On the way back to the car we passed two couples who were both over 70 hugging and kissing and saying "so nice to see you". I couldn't work out if they were thick, selfish or so arrogant they thought that the virus doesn't attack nice people in walking gear.

 

Have they?

I think if we look back at the past year with hindsight - it looks like the people who advocated for earlier and stricter lockdowns were right. People said a vaccine was the only way out. That's still the case.

Why would we now "shield the vulnerable", isn't that what we've tried and failed at?

How do you propose we add NHS capacity? Even if it was possible we can't just increase capacity loosen restrictions until we reach some sort of euqilibrium.

Most of the country is in tier four and cases are still growing. Loosening any restrictions won't work unless we also have the ability to exponentially increase NHS capacity. Which we don't, we have have a finite ability to increase that.

What will it take for people to accept that lockdowns and restrictions have been the only way countries have been successful at preventing deaths and protecting the economy for anything longer than 2 months before it falls to pieces?

 

Schools closing then. After allowing them to mix all day in primary schools today. The landscape must have changed massively since 8am this morning.

Even when they do the right thing, they make a pigs ear of it.

 

It clearly only affects irresponsible youngsters enjoying loud parties and old people.

If you're a "responsible adult" just hug people politely and make sure you're "sensible". Don't have too much fun and agree with your other sensible friends that you're all being sensible, because you're middle class, shop at Waitrose and haven't been to bed after 11pm since 2004.

 

How do you know so much about me?

 

I've just seen on the news that a middle aged man with tatty shoes has been arrested at a house with old-fashioned wallpaper for posting anti-lockdown tweets via his Sinclair Spectrum. Was that you?

 

Not me, Sid. Commodore 64 for me!

 

You don't get that kind of service on the NHS. Bloody hypocrite

 

Well you tell me whether that would stand the test of an EIA, y’know confining certain populations based on their extended living circumstances i.e. poverty, or their caring responsibilities.

While everyone else merrily spreads disease.

As for reconfiguring services to meet such elastic demand, what are our chances given track and trace etc etc etc?

 

She had a good rummage around actually. I wondered momentarily if she might have lost something.

 

Whatever happened to the covid app we spent trillions on? Wasn't that supposed to save us?