Covid-19 Virus

Discussion in 'Taylor's Tittle-Tattle - General Banter' started by Hornet4ever, Jan 30, 2020.

  1. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    They do socially distance to a degree in the schools with older children, and in the primary schools the an infected child doesn't carry the virus load to be a big threat to adults. The ONS stats demonstrate that.
    Of course you are not interested, you just want to insult anyone that disagrees with you, rather than hear the truth.

    I have no animosity against teachers that want to teach the kids, I respect them immensely. Most teachers and Heads want to teach, are at school if allowed and teaching the kids. Others are making excuses with blanket letters written by their unions which make general claims without any consideration whatsoever for the circumstances at the particular schoool, and a small proportion of them are asking £30 to £40 an hour during school hours for private tuition, on top of being paid in full by the state.

    If there was evidence of a higher proportion of teachers dying from covid, then I cannot understand why the teachers, schools or unions can't tell us what the numbers are. TFL did that, the NHS does that. Why can't teachers? Even the the article you quoted about the poor teacher #6559, does not say the teacher caught it at school.
     
    Last edited: Jan 24, 2021
  2. Davy Crockett

    Davy Crockett Reservist

    Sorry ZZ its not rocket science . Get the teachers jabbed up . Get the kids back at skool .
    Surely this is a "no brainer" ?.
     
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  3. zztop

    zztop Eurovision Winner 2015

    Why can't we get the kids back to school without the teachers getting jabbed? Why should the teachers get jabbed, and not the teenagers. Or the bus drivers that take them to school, or the train drivers, or the sales assistants that provide the food? Or the police that are meant to keep law and order, and police the covid rules. And the plumbers and gas engineers?

    One the the biggest reasons against re-opening the schools was the risk of kids bringing the virus back home. How does jabbing kids stop that?

    Let's leave it to the well informed independent committee to decide, without every group and it's mother pleading that they are a special case.
     
  4. Davy Crockett

    Davy Crockett Reservist

    I agree .
    If you are in a "must work " profession, teachers , nurses , plod etc . Then you should be top of the list.
     
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  5. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Why do you say ‘why not the bus drivers’? It’s clear they are of the same priority and no one is saying otherwise.

    You are being asked to use your judgement. You can produce any stat you like, but the situation changed in schools in the autumn when infection became rife. Children can obviously spread Covid and secondary school children are not so far off adulthood. Having 30 of them in a classroom isn’t social distancing.

    It appals me that your department may have the same approach to objectivity you do. You want to select stats to prove your argument, not recognise what is obvious.

    Getting children back to school is a priority. Therefore getting teachers vaccinated is also one.

    But we know the approach you will take - shaming.
     
  6. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    How well would teachers getting vaccinated ahead of vulnerable people and over 50s go down?

    I presume not too well so they would have to go afterwards potentially?
     
  7. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    What makes you think this? Perhaps not ahead of the vulnerable, but I would think there might be broad public support for vaccinating teachers ahead of the 50s-60s.
     
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  8. wfc4ever

    wfc4ever Administrator Staff Member

    Fair point .

    Key worker should get some priority .
     
  9. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    I have to say, I think the government has ****ed up plenty of things in the past year but the vaccination delivery programme seems to be genuinely impressive so far. The key factor at the moment though is that supplies of vaccine doses are far outstripped by demand and that's probably not going to change until mid-summer. I support the idea that groups should be vaccinated according to risk. At the moment that clearly going to be oldest or those in direct proximity to Covid on a daily basis.

    Where the scheme targets after that is going to be a tough choice.

    It would be completely illogical and contrary to most of the things the government has said are important to date. So I absolutely agree it ticks all the boxes for public support!
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2021
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  10. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    How so? The government has clearly and frequently emphasised the importance of keeping schools open. It's entirely consistent with that goal.
     
    Last edited: Jan 25, 2021
  11. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    But first we have to consider why the government closed schools. It said it did it not because they're unsafe (for either children or teachers), but because of the wider public harm being caused through the virus spreading. To borrow Boris' line, schools are shut to save lives and save the NHS. I appreciate Moose's position is that schools are unsafe, and that teachers are in mortal peril, but the stats don't bear that out. The odd news story about a teacher dying doesn't change that.

    So, logically, schools cannot reopen until pressure on the NHS is relieved and inconsiderate folk stop dying. I disagreed with the decision in the first place, and my thoughts haven't changed, but once it's made the only way to reverse it is by vaccinating people. If we had an unlimited supply of the vaccine then yeah, we should look to simultaneously deal with all the teachers (and other key occupations) plus the age bands at once. I'm not sure that's feasible.

    Therefore, if we're putting one group above another it seems a bit silly to suggest now we should delay vaccinating 50-60 year olds so younger teachers can have their dose first. In my view, 'reassurance' is not a compelling reason to give a vaccine when supplies are limited. You're still going to have people dying and clogged up ICUs.

    It seems to me the biggest issue schools and the police and others have come up against isn't their staff being critically unwell or incapacitated because of Covid. Their workforces aren't super old. It's that they're forced to self-isolate for 10 days because someone they know has Covid. Surely the sensible approach would be to get everyone in the higher risk categories vaccinated and then greatly reduce the self-isolation time for everyone else (aside from those who have a positive test)?
     
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  12. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    I read over the weekend that over 70 per cent of the UK population 'would definitely get' a covid jab if it were available to them, while in Germany its 41 per cent and in France just 30 per cent. Disappointing that we have less conspiracy theory loons than the French and the Germans - or do they know something that we don't??
     
  13. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Which comic did you read it in?

    I wouldn’t read too much into it. All advanced industrial nations have woefully high levels of vaccine mistrust, (we have had measles outbreaks due to low MMR uptake. However, when it comes to it most ‘probablys’ turn into vaccinated, esp as countries like France and Italy put a lot of effort into education and are not shy of legislating for compulsory uptake if they need to. So it’s probably just about where those countries are in the roll out and survey methods.
     
  14. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Yes, I entirely see the logic of this.

    However, politically the government has made a bit of a rod for its own back by emphasising the importance of keeping schools open and that might prove significant. I certainly don't think public opinion would be too set against a rejigging of the list, not least because the public will have absorbed that message.
     
  15. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Captain Hurricane said it in this week's Valiant
     
  16. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    The NEU said 150 staff had died and that was at the start of this year. It’s clearly moved on since.

    I’m yet to hear a convincing argument of how schools with the limits on social distancing could be safe. How does the virus know these human conglomerates are schools?

    When it’s said they are ‘safe’ this means for children, based on their low susceptibility to serious illness. There is no reason why teachers and other staff should be safe in an environment of limited distancing for an airborne virus.

    If schools are a priority then the Government should act like it.
     
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  17. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It’s not the wrong rod either. Schools are of utmost importance and there’s nothing wrong with concentrating efforts on the earliest possible restart.

    But let’s be clear, some staff will die if they go back without a vaccination programme. That’s not as clear for example for a factory where there should by now be social distancing.

    A big problem is the lack of general data about the population for the Government to base its assumptions on. So for example, independent non working 60-80 year olds who get their shopping delivered and don’t live with extended families are at little risk right now, unlike those of the same age who live with extended families or have to go out for work or shopping. Hard to know who is who so they all need doing. But there are certain groups of workers, particularly at certain ages that assumptions can be made about and prioritised in the next few weeks.
     
  18. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Yes, this is true. Maybe because the NHS is running it and not Government mates?
     
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  19. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    I'm pretty convinced the public will do whatever Boris says right now. We're almost into the territory of "all you need to do is sacrifice your first born and all this goes away" getting a 60% approval rating on a YouGov survey.
     
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  20. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

  21. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    The French will survey differently, but come round to the idea.
     
  22. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    But is 150 higher than other occupations as a proportion? And where did they catch it? I imagine the NEU has a 'lack of general data' about which of the 150 had been living their life rigorously by the rules and which have been less than compliant, but it doesn't stop them implying in every case it was being in school wot dunnit.
     
  23. Lloyd

    Lloyd Squad Player

    Is that a reference to our world-beating track and trace system which has proved so useful and was such excellent value at only 22 BILLION pounds?
     
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  24. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Like I say, how can teachers avoid it? Try to answer that without the sophistry in your above answer.
     
  25. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Mmm, I think that is an overstatement.

    But we end up in the same place. If the government chose to prioritise teachers, I don't think this would generate serious public diaquiet.
     
  26. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    It’s not even easy to spend £22bn so bravo for the effort in moving it around I say.
     
  27. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Go and live in a life of peaceful solitude high in the Himalayas, I imagine.

    And while I understand you've no answers to the two questions I asked at the start of that post it doesn't means it's sophistry.

    The reality is teachers will be miles ahead of others on the vaccination list, so this is basically a squabble over whether they should be 5th in the list or 10th (or whatever). I've no real issue if there's a groundswell of opinion to push teachers to the head of the queue, even if it's based on non-science, so long as there's no whining when deaths in those who went down the list continue for a few more weeks. I've been arguing for a more pragmatic approach, which includes adult conversations around deaths being part of the equation allowing the rest of us to live, since last March. It got no traction on here until now so excuse me if I'm a little surprised to have it presented to me as the solution all of a sudden!
     
  28. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

  29. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Yes, that mostly relates to last autumn. As the rates in school have increased the risk has increased.

    Do you see any reason for them not to be at risk if schools return soon?
     
  30. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    I’m not sure I quite get this, but I accept that there isn’t a risk free option for those in all of the front lines. There isn’t enough vaccine yet.

    What I object to is a head in the sand attitude towards teaching and other schools staff. ‘We’ve got the stats we like, so prove us wrong’ appears to be the answer.

    If we simply think it through teachers, esp 40+, are going to be at a high risk and strong arming them is wrong. What you are asking for is honesty, so yes, let’s.
     
  31. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    It feels to me like you're pushing against an open door. Schools are shut. Attendance of critical worker children is up on Lockdown 1 for sure but still, the measures taken are a significant mitigation of the risk to teaching staff. The government has backed away from any imminent reopening of schools and, if anything, is briefing a very pessimistic view of when they will reopen - 'after Easter' being the aspiration at the moment it seems, having initially been mid-Feb.

    And while it's nice to think vaccinating every teacher/school staff member is a solid precondition for schools reopening, I'd be surprised if you're advocating a vaccine-less 59 year old contracting Covid and dying simply because a 24 year old teacher took 'their' dose to enable it to happen.
     
  32. Moose

    Moose First Team Captain

    Well schools are open now of course, but there already is the beginnings of a campaign to get them back much sooner. If that is required, then the current mitigation won't be as effective and a prioritisation at least of those teachers middle aged and above would seem prudent. I'm not advocating a hierarchy of workers with teachers at the top either - there is a greater piece of work to be done looking at how all public facing workers are treated, the Police for example having to break up mass-gatherings or anyone working in shops or public transport.

    If you are right and this term is a goner, then it's likely to greatly decrease as an issue. But keep an eye on the postings of Mr Top. He usually reflects the mood of the Government benches and its press in this respect.
     
  33. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

  34. HappyHornet24

    HappyHornet24 Crapster Staff Member

    I didn’t say that teachers were not at risk. What I am saying is that the report - the data for which goes through to December - suggests teachers are not at more risk than most other professions and are less at risk than many others, such as taxi drivers and factory workers. I personally don’t see why schools shouldn’t return after February half term on the same basis as they did last term - ie. with year group bubbles or blended learning, social distancing, masks and track and trace in place. I don’t expect schools to return, however, until after Easter.
    And I’m in no way “anti teachers” - my mum was a high school French teacher for most of her working life.
     
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  35. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    The bit I found interesting was the stark difference in death rates between people of different genders doing the same roles. In some cases they're really quite vast (e.g. male nurses are dying at a rate three times higher than female nurses, who themselves are more at risk than average). I wonder why? A misguided sense of chivalry, perhaps?
     

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