Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

[Carnivore Chris]

15 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

The fact that I cant be bothered reading all these long posts says all you need about how tired I'm getting of the arguments. The one thing I will say is that the problem with leaving too much of it down to interpretation and common sense is that in a country of millions of people it only takes a small minority who dont have any common sense to cause a significant problem for the vast majority that are perfectly capable of making their own minds up sensibly. We've seen plenty of the former over the last few weeks.

It's also nice to see the primary school teachers getting victimised by the media and various gammons for not returning to work without asking questions given very little guidance by the government and mixed evidence on whether children can carry and pass on the virus with or without showing symptoms. 

Getting kids back to school is important but the same people crying that teachers are just enjoying a long holiday when we've actually had to completely relearn our jobs and continued to provide as many students as possible with as much of an education as possible are the same ones who in reality are just annoyed that they've had to actually look after their kids when they think it isn't their job. The vast majority that have gone through the very real struggle of having to home school their kids while working their own jobs from home are the most understanding of the need for return to school being carefully managed when they're the ones that are having the hardest time for it. This simultaneously makes no sense on the face of it yet doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

The best argument I heard this morning was "maybe nurses should refuse to treat teachers' families if teachers refuse to go back to work" because the education of 5 year olds is apparently comparable to life and death hospital treatment.

Really pissed me off some of the coverage this morning, but at least it's nice to see things returning to normal in one sense.

We should send you all back if you ask me and give you double the size classes of the past and make you do weekends aswell. Maybe cut your wages 20% 

On a serious note, nobody has been arguing really, just having a rant about however their situations are being affected.

I think it's fair to say most are becoming mentally drained now though.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Carnivore Chris

[RandoEFC+]

1 minute ago, Carnivore Chris said:

We should send you all back if you ask me and give you double the size classes of the past and make you do weekends aswell 

On a serious note, nobody has been arguing really, just having a rant about however their situations are being affected.

I think it's fair to say most are becoming mentally destroyed now though.

Yeah when I read back through I thought about changing arguments to debates because I didn't actually mean to imply people were arguing in anger or anything.

[Carnivore Chris]

10 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Yeah when I read back through I thought about changing arguments to debates because I didn't actually mean to imply people were arguing in anger or anything.

I'm probably the only angry one to be honest 

But I agree, teachers going back makes no sense. I would say after the holidays atleast now.

 

[Bluewolf]

46 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

The fact that I cant be bothered reading all these long posts says all you need about how tired I'm getting of the arguments. The one thing I will say is that the problem with leaving too much of it down to interpretation and common sense is that in a country of millions of people it only takes a small minority who dont have any common sense to cause a significant problem for the vast majority that are perfectly capable of making their own minds up sensibly. We've seen plenty of the former over the last few weeks.

It's also nice to see the primary school teachers getting victimised by the media and various gammons for not returning to work without asking questions given very little guidance by the government and mixed evidence on whether children can carry and pass on the virus with or without showing symptoms. 

Getting kids back to school is important but the same people crying that teachers are just enjoying a long holiday when we've actually had to completely relearn our jobs and continued to provide as many students as possible with as much of an education as possible are the same ones who in reality are just annoyed that they've had to actually look after their kids when they think it isn't their job. The vast majority that have gone through the very real struggle of having to home school their kids while working their own jobs from home are the most understanding of the need for return to school being carefully managed when they're the ones that are having the hardest time for it. This simultaneously makes no sense on the face of it yet doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

The best argument I heard this morning was "maybe nurses should refuse to treat teachers' families if teachers refuse to go back to work" because the education of 5 year olds is apparently comparable to life and death hospital treatment.

Really pissed me off some of the coverage this morning, but at least it's nice to see things returning to normal in one sense.

As a teacher I am curious about what conditions you might consider as being acceptable before returning??? I mean if the Government are now trying to encourage people to return to work a big majority of them might not be able to do so unless their children are back to school. I personally think it's too early but the Government have pushed on with their 'return to work' theme without having most of the pieces of the puzzle in place yet?? 

[RandoEFC+]

I think schools slowly need reopening because people can't get back to work or even work from home effectively if they're looking after their kids, but the government seems to have just asked it to be done without offering the right guidance. Some of the gaping holes are:

• Are we absolutely convinced that children can't spread the disease? Because my biggest issue with it isn't my own health, I'm a healthy 27 year old guy, but if I'm not convinced that I can't catch the virus off kids then I won't be visiting my family as long as I have to go into school because my Nana is in the vulnerable group and my parents have to see her all the time because she's almost blind and lives on her own. An even wider issue is just how much community spread will go through schools if they send too many kids back without taking proper precautions. The research slowly seems to be showing that the risk of that happening is low but it is far from conclusive and even the research that is out there already, you have to go looking for it. If the government is making this decision based on that research, they should be sharing it with us in a clear and confident manner.
• At first they want to send about half the kids back. For a normal primary school that's fine, but if your class sizes have to be 10-15 instead of 20-30, then you need to have twice as many classes from each of the year groups that are in school, and you need to have twice as many teachers to put in front of them. This is quite easily solved by pulling in the teachers that would usually have Years 3-4 and the others who aren't in yet to take half of the Year 1 and Year 6 students into the spare classrooms and teach them, but then are these teachers supposed to continue setting work online for those year groups that are still at home, while being responsible for their new students for the whole school day? You can't even get that far if you work in a junior school which covers reception, Year 1 and Year 2 because according to this guidance they're getting more than half of their students back which gives them a choice of either putting too many kids back together in each classroom or sticking to the 10-15 per class rule and not having enough teachers and classrooms to put with each class.
• There's a longer term issue here which people don't seem to have grasped yet which is fair enough because they aren't teachers and don't have the knowledge of the workings of a school. The government intend to get all primary students back to school before the summer. Until we go back to having full sized classes it's literally impossible to have all the kids in school at once. At all times, you'll have to have half the kids in school and half the kids at home, unless your school for some reason happens to have an entire extra school's worth of spare teachers and classrooms.

The only way to get schools open again in any sort of normal way is to say you can have 30 in a class again. Most teachers are dying to get back to a classroom, myself included, but it really isn't that simple and people who are posting online or calling into radio stations thinking it's as simple as chucking all the kids from the village back in the building and getting them taught by a workforce that's already going to be at least slightly depleted by those who still need to shield themselves from contact with others have less than no idea. The worst part is, if they came across this post highlighting the actual reasons why it isn't that simple, instead of reading what I've put they'll just go "nah, there was a headline that a union told their members not to engage with the government and that's all I need to believe that ALL TEACHERS don't want to go back to work because they're enjoying the holiday too much". Silly twats.

Trying to ignore them though, this thing is going to run for a long time and won't be fully resolved until it's safe to have full-sized classes again. If any of you have kids who have been learning from home, I'd expect to potentially have them continuing to do so for half of the time until there is a vaccine or treatment for this virus.

[Stan]

1 hour ago, Danny said:

News organisations blaming commuters for taking public transport “even though” Boris said to avoid it...really chips away at that hope for accountability tbh.

How do they get to work if they can't go on public transport

 

It was bound to happen. Both the crowding of transport and also the news hounding on them. 

[RandoEFC+]

13 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

As a teacher I am curious about what conditions you might consider as being acceptable before returning??? I mean if the Government are now trying to encourage people to return to work a big majority of them might not be able to do so unless their children are back to school. I personally think it's too early but the Government have pushed on with their 'return to work' theme without having most of the pieces of the puzzle in place yet?? 

See my post above, hopefully I've answered what you're asking.

I think it's time to start having the conversation but they need to stop pretending it's about the kids. Getting the kids who are nowhere near exams into school for half a term, and the least productive half-term of the school year at that, isn't really that important. It's clearly more of an attempt to free up people who can't return to work because of having to have their kids at home.  And that's fine by me, honestly. I totally agree that the country needs to start functioning again.

The government maintains that the steps they are taking is supported by scientific evidence. I want them to lay it out. The problem is I don't trust the UK government to do that. Thankfully my fate lies with the Manx government in this regard but I can still contribute to the debate regardless. When I'm convinced that returning to school in whatever capacity won't endanger (within reason) the students, my colleagues or risk a significant increase in the community spread again, then I'll be fully supportive of going back. I'd love to get back to a classroom instead of teaching through a bloody screen and emails for 6 hours a day. I trust that when the Manx government make that decision then I won't have to read into it much because they have no agenda other than governing properly because in a democracy without party politics you can actually do that. If Boris Johnson (a man who has been sacked twice for lying, including once from government itself) and the Education Minister Gavin Williamson (a man who was sacked less than a year ago from Theresa May's cabinet for leaks or something, I don't care enough to look it up) and say "the science supports this" without actually sharing that science with teaching unions, then I'm afraid I'm going to ask a lot more questions about it and continue to question it until actual trustworthy sources have verified it.

[Bluewolf]

5 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

I think schools slowly need reopening because people can't get back to work or even work from home effectively if they're looking after their kids, but the government seems to have just asked it to be done without offering the right guidance. Some of the gaping holes are:

• Are we absolutely convinced that children can't spread the disease? Because my biggest issue with it isn't my own health, I'm a healthy 27 year old guy, but if I'm not convinced that I can't catch the virus off kids then I won't be visiting my family as long as I have to go into school because my Nana is in the vulnerable group and my parents have to see her all the time because she's almost blind and lives on her own. An even wider issue is just how much community spread will go through schools if they send too many kids back without taking proper precautions. The research slowly seems to be showing that the risk of that happening is low but it is far from conclusive and even the research that is out there already, you have to go looking for it. If the government is making this decision based on that research, they should be sharing it with us in a clear and confident manner.
• At first they want to send about half the kids back. For a normal primary school that's fine, but if your class sizes have to be 10-15 instead of 20-30, then you need to have twice as many classes from each of the year groups that are in school, and you need to have twice as many teachers to put in front of them. This is quite easily solved by pulling in the teachers that would usually have Years 3-4 and the others who aren't in yet to take half of the Year 1 and Year 6 students into the spare classrooms and teach them, but then are these teachers supposed to continue setting work online for those year groups that are still at home, while being responsible for their new students for the whole school day? You can't even get that far if you work in a junior school which covers reception, Year 1 and Year 2 because according to this guidance they're getting more than half of their students back which gives them a choice of either putting too many kids back together in each classroom or sticking to the 10-15 per class rule and not having enough teachers and classrooms to put with each class.
• There's a longer term issue here which people don't seem to have grasped yet which is fair enough because they aren't teachers and don't have the knowledge of the workings of a school. The government intend to get all primary students back to school before the summer. Until we go back to having full sized classes it's literally impossible to have all the kids in school at once. At all times, you'll have to have half the kids in school and half the kids at home, unless your school for some reason happens to have an entire extra school's worth of spare teachers and classrooms.

The only way to get schools open again in any sort of normal way is to say you can have 30 in a class again. Most teachers are dying to get back to a classroom, myself included, but it really isn't that simple and people who are posting online or calling into radio stations thinking it's as simple as chucking all the kids from the village back in the building and getting them taught by a workforce that's already going to be at least slightly depleted by those who still need to shield themselves from contact with others have less than no idea. The worst part is, if they came across this post highlighting the actual reasons why it isn't that simple, instead of reading what I've put they'll just go "nah, there was a headline that a union told their members not to engage with the government and that's all I need to believe that ALL TEACHERS don't want to go back to work because they're enjoying the holiday too much". Silly twats.

Trying to ignore them though, this thing is going to run for a long time and won't be fully resolved until it's safe to have full-sized classes again. If any of you have kids who have been learning from home, I'd expect to potentially have them continuing to do so for half of the time until there is a vaccine or treatment for this virus.

Quality post mate... 

You have raised a lot of good points there and I am not convinced by any stretch that a plan has been put together that will ease or accommodate all the possible avenues.. The Teachers Union are trying to hold the Government at bay for a return and I don't see how it could be made to work?? 

They are saying that the younger children are not as likely to get the virus but what happens when you start putting them all back into schools and then the parents return to work among lot's of other people and then coming back home to their kids each day?? How could you be sure it would not start up again and then we have a second wave of it?? I think it's all too soon to be putting people under the pressure of returning to work when we were so much slower out of the gates of control than anyone else... Just makes no sense to me

[Danny]

Very happy to see somebody properly holding the current government to account:

 

 

 

[RandoEFC+]

7 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

The Teachers Union are trying to hold the Government at bay for a return and I don't see how it could be made to work?? 

Yeah it's a tricky one this. I've had some dealings with union reps, in fact theres an ongoing dispute going on over here about teachers pay.

I dont want to criticise because they're doing their job in fighting the corner of their members, that's what they're there for. I do think the "refuse to engage" line was misguided and has caused a bigger fuss. What they want is not to engage with the government's plan unless it is changed significantly which is actually fair enough for the reasons I stated above but the wording is overly aggressive. 

[Harry]

 

 

[Stan]

36 minutes ago, Danny said:

Very happy to see somebody properly holding the current government to account:

 

 

 

Agreed.

After Corbyn's 'leadership' it is refreshing to see someone act professionally and have such an approach and attitude to taking the government to task.

Some might see it as an easy win/easy option given how the current government are performing, but at least we now have someone credible and someone ready to do that role.

What I like the most is that Keir won't go in all guns blazing. He'll pick at certain things when the time is right and play the long game, almost. 

Clearly calling out the government for their lies and confusion and mixed messages is a good start. 

[Danny]

Johnson responded stating that Starmer was misleading the public now as he did not include that the advice at the time was based on the assumption that the spread of coronavirus was not happening within the community. A poor response imo seeing as 11 days after the 12th March the entire country went into lockdown. I don't think Starmer has misled anyone, as of the 12th March and before the government should have been aware of the potential this pandemic had to kill people seeing as it was already making it's way around the world.

You would assume it would be very negligent of an official stance that care homes would be unlikely to be hit, with the effects of the virus on show in China and Italy...to then 11 days later introduce an unprecedented national lockdown, followed by further unprecedented measures such as a national furlough scheme due to the spread of the virus. Not to mention that further issues such as lack of PPE gear and lack of testing, which has been encouraged by the WHO from the start, would have added to the deaths in care homes.

[Carnivore Chris]

 

People queing up all down the motorway in Tenerife for McDonald's 

[Tommy]

1 minute ago, Carnivore Chris said:

 

People queing up all down the motorway in Tenerife for McDonald's 

Trying to avoid something unhealthy but going for something unhealthy. 

[Honey Honey]

8 hours ago, Danny said:

I think it’s more people who just like to see shows of strength, a new slogan for a new lockdown, Boris getting animated in his speeches. Donald Trump lite. There’s a large generation of people in the country who have that Empire mindset, Britain shall never be slaves, stiff upper lip, stick up a flag, start shouting and have their bellies tickled by being told how great they are. Great Britain...the Great British public....it’s an entire generation who’s worth is built on a perception that they are part of the best country in earth vs a generation of people growing up who are globalised, grew up talking to friends all around the world on the internet, less barriers in the way, identity not built as much on flags and barriers but connection to people. Maybe the split there is naturally Labour/Conservatives but it was definitely seen in the Remain/Leave camps imo

It is highly unlikely to be any of this. Largely due to the scale in reality, but also as a lot of that is just bad anthropology. 

 

9 hours ago, Stan said:

There's culpability everywhere. You have MPs and ministers themselves giving different messages and putting their own interpretations on the rules. All saying something different. Can't be that clear a message then? 

Much of the problem does seem to be in the delivery. 

[Honey Honey]

Both France and Spain have released models suggesting only 5% of their populations have had COVID.  11% in Madrid. Note that UK estimates from different models are higher, 20% London, 12% England.

Suppression or vaccine the only option in that circumstance. 

 

[nudge]

7 minutes ago, Harvsky said:

Both France and Spain have released models suggesting only 5% of their populations have had COVID.  11% in Madrid.

Suppression or vaccine the only option in that circumstance. 

Hungary is currently carrying out nationwide representative testing, they have only confirmed 2 positive cases in 8276 tests so far.

Lithuania has similarly tested 5391 random people, only 1 turned out positive.

[Honey Honey]

7 minutes ago, nudge said:

Hungary is currently carrying out nationwide representative testing, they have only confirmed 2 positive cases in 8276 tests so far.

Lithuania has similarly tested 5391 random people, only 1 turned out positive.

Suppose key will be antibody test? If you are testing for who has it right now that will give different reading. 

There have been random community tests in England which have led them to believe current R in London is a lower than elsewhere in the country.

[MUFC]

I would rather prolong lockdown then let some of the idots out. Otherwise we'll be back to square one with an ever bigger outbreak.

[nudge]

1 hour ago, Harvsky said:

Suppose key will be antibody test? If you are testing for who has it right now that will give different reading. 

There have been random community tests in England which have led them to believe current R in London is a lower than elsewhere in the country.

Yes, should have probably mentioned that the purpose of the testing is to determine the scale of asymptomatic spread in society rather than the levels of acquired immunity. In all honesty, I think mass antibody tests are pretty pointless as it's quite obvious already that only a small fraction of the population in any country has been affected, nevermind other limitations of the tests.

[MUFC]

A mate of a family friend told me that one guy died of a heart attack, they told him it would take 4 weeks to release the body, but 1 day if he was willing to have covid 19 on the death certificate. I also heard from another, they put covid-19 even though his test was negative. Anyone else hearing anything like this?

If people are being marked as covid-19 deaths when they're not, that's pretty fucking disgusting. We're all already fed up with this shit, I hope figures are not being skewed like this?

Certain things not making sense. Sweden with no lock down at all are hardly seeing any deaths compared to us. Even over here, I remember thousands flying in from disease ridden China in February. We were wondering what the hell the PM was doing. What is going on here?

[Dr. Gonzo]

30 minutes ago, MUFC said:

A mate of a family friend told me that one guy died of a heart attack, they told him it would take 4 weeks to release the body, but 1 day if he was willing to have covid 19 on the death certificate. I also heard from another, they put covid-19 even though his test was negative. Anyone else hearing anything like this?

If people are being marked as covid-19 deaths when they're not, that's pretty fucking disgusting. We're all already fed up with this shit, I hope figures are not being skewed like this?

Certain things not making sense. Sweden with no lock down at all are hardly seeing any deaths compared to us. Even over here, I remember thousands flying in from disease ridden China in February. We were wondering what the hell the PM was doing. What is going on here?

Sweden‘a got way less population density than the UK, it’s going to spread slower in a less densely populated country. The UK has significantly higher population density.

[Harry]

 

11 hours ago, MUFC said:

A mate of a family friend told me that one guy died of a heart attack, they told him it would take 4 weeks to release the body, but 1 day if he was willing to have covid 19 on the death certificate. I also heard from another, they put covid-19 even though his test was negative. Anyone else hearing anything like this?

If people are being marked as covid-19 deaths when they're not, that's pretty fucking disgusting. We're all already fed up with this shit, I hope figures are not being skewed like this?

Certain things not making sense. Sweden with no lock down at all are hardly seeing any deaths compared to us. Even over here, I remember thousands flying in from disease ridden China in February. We were wondering what the hell the PM was doing. What is going on here?

Its not gonna be a conspiracy where healthcare workers are conspiring to gerrymander the cause of deaths to Covid18. That is not reality. Healthcare workers are just normal people with hard jobs.

Nobody can refute your friend of a friend's account without more info, but there's a few things possible...

1. COVID is a severe respiratory infection, which hospitalizes many and is particularly lethal for people with preexisting conditions. High blood pressure, diabetes, asthma etc. If you have high blood pressure, get a severe case of COVID, are hospitalised, on a ventilator and ultimately your heart gives out first, is that complete fabrication and bullshit if that death is recorded as a COVID death? I'd suggest not. Because ultimately what the health services are trying to get a handle on and build an accurate data set is how many people are dying because of COVID, that wouldn't otherwise have died. Recording that data accurately will give accurate data to then be able to gauge the potential impact if the virus ripped through the community en masse.

2. Possibly there is a two tier system for moving bodies out through the hospital system due to the temporary arrangements in place to manage the Covid situation. It may actually be that a COVID body gets out faster. If someone said the only way to get the body out quicker is if they died of COVID that could be a true statement said with grim humour, or an outrageously dumb serious suggestion. Or its evidence of a global conspiracy which a fuck ton of good honest healthcare workers would need to be in on.

Your Sweden issue. It's about an eighth the size of the UK. It's biggest city a tenth the size of London. It's one of the least densely populated countries in Europe (see first image). Those things determine the rate of spread along with the usual factors like level of lockdown etc.

Bottom line the best basis for comparison to Sweden is with other Scandinavian countries which have adopted lockdown arrangements more aligned with the rest of Europe. See image 2 for that.

[Honey Honey]

Sweden's epidemiologists took the view early on that they needed to flatten the curve until a vaccine came along and in case a vaccine did not come along. That take was common in the west, including the UK. Lockdown's occurred for fear of health care services not fear of life. The result of lockdown in some countries is that they now believe they can suppress the virus until it no longer exists, without needing to achieve herd immunity. Swedish scientists insist this isn't possible in a globalised world. 

We are all at a cross roads now. Do you suppress the virus to kick it out of your country (South Korea, New Zealand) or do you slowly allow the population to get infected until herd immunity is achieved (Sweden).

This is where the latest estimates that only 5% of France and Spain, 11% of Madrid having had the virus means allowing further infection could take the death toll for those countries into the hundreds of thousands without a vaccine.