Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak

[Happy Blue]

2 minutes ago, Steve Bruce Almighty said:

It just looks like clear water to me. Think you might have a scale problem or something. Contact your local water supplier.

Enjoy all the added chemicals  

[Honey Honey]

7 minutes ago, Happy Blue said:

Enjoy all the added chemicals  

I do. You've got to mix it up as well. Occasionally tap, occasionally bottle. That way you get all the added sulphates and fake mineral imitations from bottled water. 

[Stan]

3 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

I really, really don't blame these people for what they're doing, but we know that this is how this new, more infectious strand of the virus makes it's way to every corner of the country.

It will probably be the catalyst but like you say, can't blame them when restrictions announced like they have been today come in to force so quickly. People want to get home to their families and this is the only way they can perhaps do it without possibly facing punishment tomorrow onwards.

[Danny]

3 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

I really, really don't blame these people for what they're doing, but we know that this is how this new, more infectious strand of the virus makes it's way to every corner of the country.

I don’t blame them necessarily because it’s just monumentally a shit position that govt has landed people in by promising things they can’t guarantee, plus there will be people who need to get home for one reason or another. But if there are people there that don’t need to get home....they shouldn’t travel back imo

[Burning Gold]

8 hours ago, Stan said:

What's the deal with this latest new strain though? Tougher restrictions but doesn't pose as much risk in terms of symptoms? Will it increase hospitalisations? 

Is UK the only one to have picked up on this new strain or has it occurred in other countries? 

Believed to have started in the UK because of its prevalence here, but it has been picked up in the Netherlands.

I haven't seen anything about it posing less of a risk. Where did you get that?

[Stan]

5 hours ago, Burning Gold said:

Believed to have started in the UK because of its prevalence here, but it has been picked up in the Netherlands.

I haven't seen anything about it posing less of a risk. Where did you get that?

There was a virologist on BBC or ITV news yesterday, can't remember which. Saying it's more transmissible and spreads through younger population quicker, but risk of mortality or hospital admission is not any more worse than 'normal' covid. 

[Bluebird Hewitt]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

There was a virologist on BBC or ITV news yesterday, can't remember which. Saying it's more transmissible and spreads through younger population quicker, but risk of mortality or hospital admission is not any more worse than 'normal' covid. 

I might be thinking too simplistically, but I'd have thought a strain more contagious would likely lead to more hospital admissions due to it spreading quicker. 

[RandoEFC+]

Everyone has said so far that there's no evidence that it's any more lethal in terms of symptoms or mortality. I haven't seen anything about it being less dangerous, just more transmissible.

So yeah, in the sense that if 20,000 people catch it instead of 10,000, you're going to have twice as many people hospitalised, it is a problem in that sense. The rate of hospitalisations at this point doesn't appear to be higher or lower.

[N U F C]

13 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

I really, really don't blame these people for what they're doing, but we know that this is how this new, more infectious strand of the virus makes it's way to every corner of the country.

I hate to say it but in their position I would be heavily considering doing the exact same thing. People are literally having their lives ruined by this whole thing, surely there's got to be a point when people just think enough's enough and crack on with their lives.

[DeadLinesman]

The whole ‘hospital at capacity’ stuff is genuinely bollocks though. Every single year before 2020, hospitals in the north west were put on what we called red alert when basically, A&E shuts and people are ferried to other local hospitals due to lack of beds. I haven’t seen this happen once in the North West yet, and strangely, it usually does happen during normal flu season. I think the major factor is that some wards are now simply ‘Covid wards’ and also, there are far less elective surgeries happening, so you’re not getting the same recovery and rehab rates of hospital stays. 

 

I genuinely can’t work this one out. And I work in and around this setting so yes, for once I know what I’m talking about 

[DeadLinesman]

6 minutes ago, N U F C said:

I hate to say it but in their position I would be heavily considering doing the exact same thing. People are literally having their lives ruined by this whole thing, surely there's got to be a point when people just think enough's enough and crack on with their lives.

The biggest issue is that right now, 67,000 people can’t crack on with their lives. Because they’re dead.

It’s a massive catch 22 situation. If you just cracked on and let it burn through society, I’d guarantee the UK would see at least a million deaths by this time next year with no shielding or protections in place. Thats not just direct from Covid, but the people with conditions/diseases that would most likely die from secondary illness after contracting it.

[N U F C]

Just now, DeadLinesman said:

The biggest issue is that right now, 67,000 people can’t crack on with their lives. Because they’re dead.

It’s a massive catch 22 situation. If you just cracked on and let it burn through society, I’d guarantee the UK would see at least a million deaths by this time next year with no shielding or protections in place. Thats not just direct from Covid, but the people with conditions/diseases that would most likely die from secondary illness after contracting it.

Yeah I get that, but when does it end? It'll be months and months before everyone who needs to vaccine has got it and now with this 'new strain' it could be even longer. Suicide rates are going through the roof, we aren't meant to live like this and the constant mixed messages from the Government are only making things worse. 

[RandoEFC+]

On 15/12/2020 at 09:51, RandoEFC said:

I didn't realise I'd walked into the Daily Mail comments section. Don't try and make this about money. Some areas of England have seen a 75% increase in infections in the 10-19 age group over the last week. There could/will be countless asymptomatic kids in families who will be seeing potentially vulnerable grandparents over Christmas. It just isn't worth sending them for 2-3 extra days so they can catch Covid to give to their family members as a Christmas present just so they can colour in a few Christmas trees.

I don't know how you get this response from "schools simply have to stay open". Nobody's getting a week off, the argument is to move the schools in question to online learning so please actually read and think things through before spouting comments like this. I won't apologise for overreacting to shite like this after the pasting teachers have taken from the right-wing press this year. Don't let them convince you that we had months off earlier this year either. We didn't, we just had to re-learn how to teach kids sitting miles away through a computer screen with no help and now get blamed for kids falling behind because it's apparently our fault they don't have WiFi or they live in households with 5 kids and 1 computer.

Furthermore, I don't even live in England so I'm speaking as somebody who isn't affected by it actually.

I already acknowledged on the previous page that it probably isn't practical because of childcare at this short notice, but I think it was Northern Ireland who decided ages ago that they'd shut for Christmas a week early because they realised that it was probably better to go without the week of colouring in and films and awards assemblies that can't happen this year anyway because of Covid, and that both students and teachers would benefit more from the extra week's rest. The rest of the year, everyone agrees that the sacrifices schools have had to make are worthwhile to keep the essential need that is education going, but the last week before Christmas is a different kettle of fish.

I'm really disappointed to be honest that there are intelligent people still going around thinking that people who choose to go into teaching and dedicate their careers to educating your kids while getting paid less than almost any other job requiring similar levels of qualifications, still go around accusing teachers of being selfish and suggesting that we're driven by money. I could be earning almost double of my current wage if I had gone into accountancy or trained as an actuary so even if you didn't mean it like that, I'm not going to apologise for comments like this triggering me. There are bad eggs in every profession, I've come across plenty of teachers who have lost their passion and that sense of being in it for the right reasons, but the overwhelming majority are driven by a genuine sense of serving their community and supporting young people.

So no, nobody is asking for an extra week off, they're just asking for 4 extra days of online learning to reduce face to face contact and reduce the risk of having Covid over Christmas. It's completely reasonable and the cost to education is minimal to none. It's too late now to do it across the country but it beggars belief that Gavin Williamson is trying to play the hard man over schools that are trying to shut TWO TO THREE DAYS earlier for health and safety reasons. There's absolutely no appreciation for the fact that headteachers have had to effectively redesign schools to be Covid-safe since the summer as well as carrying out their own test and trace operation while teachers have put themselves in front of kids every day with minimal or no PPE throughout the second wave. No, you can't do your job from home for a few days so that you can at least be sure you'll see your families on Christmas Day.

So going back to this, surprise surprise, everything that the teaching community said has now come true. Teachers that live and work in London but have families in the North or elsewhere have now been condemned to spending Christmas in lonely flats, because less than a week ago it was so safe to mix with several sets of kids from 30 different households a day for the essential business of colouring in and watching movies, that Gavin Williamson threatened legal action against a local council for advising their schools to close 4 days early. Today, the same part of the country along with many others are back in full lockdown because it's not safe for people to travel and see a household of 4 relatives instead of spending the festive season on their own.

Scrolling through Twitter this morning, I've seen colleagues paying tribute to a teaching assistant who has just died of Covid in hospital having (presumably) caught it in school while another one of their teaching assistants remains in intensive care with Covid. I've seen headteachers receiving news of positive tests over the weekend having to continue carrying out their own in-house test and trace having found out from the media, not by receiving the appropriate guidance from the Department for Education on Thursday that mass testing will take place in schools alongside a staggered return after the Christmas holidays. I've seen news that civil servants from the Department will receive a £1000 bonus for working on mass testing in schools over the next two weeks (when it's not holiday for them anyway) while school leaders are expected to contribute to putting the provision in place during their own time off, for which they aren't paid. I've seen teachers in Tier 4 areas (this isn't exclusive to our profession) admitting that they cried during last night's announcement because the only thing that's got them through the last 15 weeks has been the Christmas light at the end of the tunnel which has now been taken away from them, and I've seen a teacher from outside a Tier 4 area that still won't be able to meet anyone on Christmas Day because a student in his class tested positive during the last, pointless week of term, and he has to now self-isolate until after the 25th.

It's absolutely abhorrent. If this was a normal country, where people who dedicated their careers to educating other peoples' children weren't vilified as leftie unionist anarchists who "wouldn't survive 5 minutes in the real world", whatever the "real world" is, by the Murdochian press and ignorant, angry members of the public with an undefined chip on their shoulder towards everyone else, this would be the sort of thing that brings a government down. It speaks volumes that when @The Palace Fan joked about a week off on full pay earlier, I couldn't help but bite, because you encounter so many people every day with that weapons-grade level of genuine ignorance and lack of empathy towards our profession that it becomes totally believable that it's an opinion that could be held by a normal person. And some of you will be reading this thinking "it's not just your sector, everyone's having a bad year". You're right, and that makes it even worse. What I've described above is the tip of the iceberg of the mismanagement of this pandemic in the UK.

"But everyone's had it bad this year, there's nothing we can really do about it"

"Every other country has struggled just as much as we have"

"Boris is trying his best"

No. This is a government who threatened legal action to ensure that kids stay in school to spend an extra four days colouring in, knowing that it would increase infections, lead to more people locked down for Christmas, and even lead to further hospital admissions and deaths, and then DAYS LATER, told us that it was far too dangerous to mix with other households. And it isn't anywhere near the top of the news agenda.

Let's focus more closely on Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education and the ultimate boss of every teacher in the country at the end of the day.

• Under Theresa May's government, where he was the Secretary for Defence, he was found to have been responsible for leaking sensitive information from the cabinet and was sacked for breaking the ministerial code by Theresa May shortly before her time as Prime Minister ended. The Secretary for Defence, leaking government information to where it shouldn't be going. Months later, he was appointed to Boris Johnson's cabinet as Education Secretary because he supported Brexit.
• A few months into the pandemic, when infections started to fall, Johnson and Williamson tried to force through the return of primary school children of all ages before the summer holidays while restrictions remained in place meaning that class sizes were restricted to half of their normal size. The pair of them had a stand-off with teaching unions and primary school headteachers while the newspapers blamed the leftie unionist anarchists for being obstructive and refusing to be "heroes". After a few weeks, Johnson, Williamson and The Daily Mail eventually remembered how to count, and realised that it was impossible to return all children to primary schools while restrictions on class sizes remained in place, without magically doubling the number of teachers and classrooms available.
• Roll on the summer holidays and the exam results fiasco that Williamson presided over. First we had the algorithm, which skewed the greatest inequality in GCSE and A Level results in years and saw students from working-class backgrounds across the country docked several grades because of how kids in previous years had done at their schools, while Eton and other schools saw their grades boosted. On results day, Williamson defended and praised the algorithm as being rigorous and reliable, you can't just give everyone an A, he said. Two days later, in a small victory for the teaching profession, the government backed down after realising they'd completely shit the bed again. Williamson kept his job.
• Sorry, we're only up to September now. Universities are unfortunate enough to fall under Williamson's umbrella of responsibility as well. Learning from home was a pretty big challenge for primary and secondary school children and nobody argues that we should have kept them learning at home after the summer holidays. Universities, though? Not many university students go to study without their own laptop, and are old enough to be expected to be independent and not need face to face contact with a teacher in order to learn, so home learning was perfectly viable for university education. Some universities told their students to stay at home until at least Christmas and that lectures would be provided online. Others didn't. Less than two weeks into term-time, we had students imprisoned in apartment blocks, others forced to pay rent for accommodation that they might not see this year. Perhaps this doesn't all fall at Williamson's feet individually but did they really think it was going to be okay to just throw 200-300 students in a lecture theatre together like normal years when the pandemic was still very much alive? It seems like an easy win to keep a bunch of 18-21 year olds not all packed into university halls and lecture theatres like sardines rolling in Covid when in a normal year, half of them would have been catching up on lectures through online resources anyway having been too hungover or lazy to actually turn up.
• I won't type it all out again but threatening his own staff with legal action in order to force them to stay open instead of prioritising health and safety of children and school staff for an extra 4 days to make himself look like a big hard man is peak Williamson and in hindsight, I don't know why I've allowed it to piss me off enough to write out this massive essay because if I'd thought about it a month ago, I probably would have expected worse.

Without a doubt, one of the most stupid and incompetent men I've ever seen in my life. Not just in government but anywhere, ever. The lack of respect and empathy for teachers in the UK really has been exposed over the past few months as one scandal after another just washes over the public. Point any of this out to most people and the only response you get is "what about nurses?" like it's some sort of competition. I know it's a bit self-obsessed to expect the rest of you to care about all of this even 1% as much as I do, because everyone's got their own shite to deal with as a result of this pandemic and as a result of shite governance be it in England, Wales, America or elsewhere. But if ten people skim read this and it gets you to remember just what an avoidable mess teachers and students in England have had to put up with since March then I suppose I can tell myself I've made a small difference.

[RandoEFC+]

43 minutes ago, DeadLinesman said:

The whole ‘hospital at capacity’ stuff is genuinely bollocks though. Every single year before 2020, hospitals in the north west were put on what we called red alert when basically, A&E shuts and people are ferried to other local hospitals due to lack of beds. I haven’t seen this happen once in the North West yet, and strangely, it usually does happen during normal flu season. I think the major factor is that some wards are now simply ‘Covid wards’ and also, there are far less elective surgeries happening, so you’re not getting the same recovery and rehab rates of hospital stays. 

 

I genuinely can’t work this one out. And I work in and around this setting so yes, for once I know what I’m talking about 

One of my favourite arguments from those who call themselves Covid-sceptics or lockdown-sceptics or I'musingthewordscepticbecauseitsoundsmoreclevererthanconspiracytheorist-sceptics is that we should "get over" Covid and get on with life because people aren't being treated for cancer or other illnesses because the hospitals are so obsessed with this disease that only has a 0.5% mortality rate or whatever. Have they ever asked themselves what would happen to hospitals, and what would therefore happen to A&E, cancer screenings and other urgent treatments and surgeries, if we just let Covid run wild through the population? The bodies would be piling up and the hospital corridors would be full within weeks.

40 minutes ago, N U F C said:

Yeah I get that, but when does it end? It'll be months and months before everyone who needs to vaccine has got it and now with this 'new strain' it could be even longer. Suicide rates are going through the roof, we aren't meant to live like this and the constant mixed messages from the Government are only making things worse. 

You can ask "when does it end", but we all know the answer to that, as frustrating and depressing as it might be. This ends, as much as it's ever going to, with people getting vaccinated. The end is in sight now, there are multiple vaccines that have been approved. If there was no end in sight, then I'd have more sympathy for these arguments. What we need to know is how long it's going to take to get the vulnerable people in the population and the majority of front-line workers vaccinated, because then we can go back to normal life. If the government can make a prediction and tell us this is achievable by Easter or by June, then they can tell us what life is going to be like until then, and we can be prepared for it. The whack-a-mole changing of restrictions every week or two since the start of the second wave has been an absolute disaster and is why people are struggling to keep complying.

Boris Johnson is a huge problem. He's the worst person you can have in charge at a time like this. He said we'd send the virus packing in weeks at the start, so what do people do? Mentally prepare themselves for weeks in isolation, then get told halfway through, oh yeah it's going to be months now. He's done it again and again and it's brutal for peoples' mental health. Some of them have responded by breaking the rules because they can't hack it anymore, a small number have ended up taking their own lives because they can't handle it. He's done it again with Christmas. Months ago, he said, life will be normal again at Christmas, when there was no evidence to suggest it would. This whole thing started because one or two people came into the country infected and it spread to thousands. This was always the elephant in the room during the first lockdown. Yes, we can drive infection rates down but if one person still has it when we all go outside again, then it's just back to square one. In November, he said we needed the lockdown to have a normal Christmas. Then a bit of reality arrived at the table and he said we can have a normal Christmas for 5 days. Now, we've got too close to the day itself that reality is right in our faces and it's only one day we can have a normal Christmas, some people not even that. And for those people, it's so much worse now than if he had said in November that I'm sorry I don't have better news, but there's no guarantee we'll be able to have a normal Christmas even after this lockdown. But he can't help himself from trying to be Mr. Good News. If he was a PE teacher, he would tell you, come on, this is the last lap, you'd push yourself to the end of the lap, fuelled by the knowledge that rest is on its way, then when you cross the line, he says, alright, keep going, 5 more laps to go, when you've actually still got 20 to do.

[DeadLinesman]

50 minutes ago, N U F C said:

Yeah I get that, but when does it end? It'll be months and months before everyone who needs to vaccine has got it and now with this 'new strain' it could be even longer. Suicide rates are going through the roof, we aren't meant to live like this and the constant mixed messages from the Government are only making things worse. 

Agree with all of that. Like I said though, it’s a massive catch 22. Sacrifice a million for 65 million. However, people think a bit differently if it’s their family effected (from both sides).

[DeadLinesman]

2 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

One of my favourite arguments from those who call themselves Covid-sceptics or lockdown-sceptics or I'musingthewordscepticbecauseitsoundsmoreclevererthanconspiracytheorist-sceptics is that we should "get over" Covid and get on with life because people aren't being treated for cancer or other illnesses because the hospitals are so obsessed with this disease that only has a 0.5% mortality rate or whatever. Have they ever asked themselves what would happen to hospitals, and what would therefore happen to A&E, cancer screenings and other urgent treatments and surgeries, if we just let Covid run wild through the population? The bodies would be piling up and the hospital corridors would be full within weeks.

Agreed, it would essentially be a massacre. The government are making a mockery of a fine balancing act. You can’t continually dangle the carrot and then take it away. You’d have more respect if they have just said fuck it, we haven’t got a Scoobie and a decision will be made in the week leading up. 

[Bluewolf]

This sums Johnson up in a nutshell.... 

PM claims Starmer wants to 'cancel Christmas' in COVID clash - YouTube

[Stan]

18 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

This sums Johnson up in a nutshell.... 

PM claims Starmer wants to 'cancel Christmas' in COVID clash - YouTube

Saw a tweet yesterday evening saying Keir Starmer should be named 'Captain Foresight' not Captain Hindsight as I think Johnson called him once in Parliament. 

It's funny because Johnson regularly criticises Starmer for not working with the government yet when Starmer suggests something decent, he's laughed out of the Commons, when it would be a great opportunity for Johnson to swallow some pride and take on board something the opposition suggests. But then this Tory party are all about status and saving face, not willing to humbly accept they can and do make errors and just generally have too much ego to accept anything but their own thoughts. 

[Bluewolf]

12 minutes ago, Stan said:

Saw a tweet yesterday evening saying Keir Starmer should be named 'Captain Foresight' not Captain Hindsight as I think Johnson called him once in Parliament. 

It's funny because Johnson regularly criticises Starmer for not working with the government yet when Starmer suggests something decent, he's laughed out of the Commons, when it would be a great opportunity for Johnson to swallow some pride and take on board something the opposition suggests. But then this Tory party are all about status and saving face, not willing to humbly accept they can and do make errors and just generally have too much ego to accept anything but their own thoughts. 

Boris Johnson is facing increasing pressure from MPs in his own party angry at how the government dramatically cancelled the Christmas plans of millions of people.  

One senior Conservative MP even accused ministers of avoiding parliamentary scrutiny by delaying the announcement until the Commons has closed for the festive period.  

Others called for parliament to be recalled to debate the new measures, which could see many living under new tougher Tier 4 restrictions for months.  Ministers insist they acted swiftly after they were informed of how contagious a new strain of the disease was on Friday.  

By Saturday afternoon the prime minister had issued stay at home orders to millions and cancelled plans to allow others to spend up to five days together in a Christmas ‘bubble’.  

But Sir Charles Walker, the vice chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee, said he believed ministers knew before Friday that they planned to bring in the new restrictions.  He also called on whoever was responsible to resign.  

"The government, in my view, knew on Thursday, possibly even Wednesday, that they were going to pull the plug on Christmas but they waited till Parliament had gone," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.

"That, on top of everything else, is a resigning matter. I am not asking for the Government to collapse. I am asking for a secretary of state to take some responsibility."

Sir Charles suggested ministers wanted to avoid allowing MPs to examine the new controls.  

[Bluewolf]

[Honey Honey]

Two people I know had positive tests in the last 48 hours. One was going to office in Central everyday so not surprising. The other has no idea where he got it from, hasn't been anywhere but the shops.

[carefreeluke]

What the hell is going on over there?

[Stan]

 

[RandoEFC+]

France closing the border to all of our freight from Dover to Calais. Is it because of the new strain of the virus, or do they just look at England and want to close the border to get ahead of all the English migrants in the back of those lorries seeking asylum from our government?

[The Artful Dodger]

A new virus strain was inevitable at some point, just need to up the vaccination process. It's very slow at the moment, despite millions being promised before Chirstmas.