Coronavirus Outbreak

[arista]

[arista]

[arista]

[arista]

[joeysteele]

Listening to Matt Hancock today and taking in the general news.
This does look bad.

The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, stressing it could be a long, long time in coming out of this lockdown.
( Stressing the word long twice at least).

Indicates significant new concerns re the virus.
He was very sombre indeed.

[arista]

[arista]

[bitontheslide]

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is self-isolating for the third time, after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.

He said he would be working from home until next Monday after being notified of the contact earlier.

Sir Keir confirmed on Twitter that he had no symptoms.

The Labour leader last self-isolated in December after a member of his staff tested positive for Covid-19, but he never showed any symptoms of the virus.

He also self-isolated in September after a member of his family showed symptoms - but they later tested negative, allowing Sir Keir to get back to Westminster.

[Scarlett.]

When schools opened back in September, cases immediately began to soar, opening them now would be nothing short of insane

[Dezzy]

Schools need to stay closed for as long as needs be, we'll only be repeating another lockdown in a few weeks time were the schools to open any time soon.

[arista]

Originally Posted by bitontheslide

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is self-isolating for the third time, after coming into contact with someone who tested positive for coronavirus.

He said he would be working from home until next Monday after being notified of the contact earlier.

Sir Keir confirmed on Twitter that he had no symptoms.

The Labour leader last self-isolated in December after a member of his staff tested positive for Covid-19, but he never showed any symptoms of the virus.

He also self-isolated in September after a member of his family showed symptoms - but they later tested negative, allowing Sir Keir to get back to Westminster.

Yes he is unlucky 3

[arista]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

Schools need to stay closed for as long as needs be, we'll only be repeating another lockdown in a few weeks time were the schools to open any time soon.

Its the PM's MP's pushing him.
He will not say - but also told a reporter off for
saying scholls will not upen mid feb.


Video clip
https://news.sky.com/video/boris-joh...tions-12198362

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Scarlett.

When schools opened back in September, cases immediately began to soar, opening them now would be nothing short of insane

Ours were open from September to Dec and the cases stayed low-ish. Ours only started to soar again after other restrictions were lifted during the Christmas period like the amount of people that can visit your house and pubs being open again. Still though I think the cases here are still way too high to allow schools open again anyway, they're as bad or worse than they were back in March

[arista]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Ours were open from September to Dec and the cases stayed low-ish. Ours only started to soar again after other restrictions were lifted during the Christmas period like the amount of people that can visit your house and pubs being open again. Still though I think the cases here are still way too high to allow schools open again anyway, they're as bad or worse than they were back in March

Less population

[Zizu]

Originally Posted by Scarlett.

When schools opened back in September, cases immediately began to soar, opening them now would be nothing short of insane

Schools will be still spreading the virus around even now ... staff are In full time ..we have 130 plus pupils in each day so including staff there must be 200 people all mixing together in classrooms ( classes of 25 pupils plus 3 staff) .. no masks being worn apart from in corridors.

Then everyone goes home to the families and many pupils are still mixing in the evenings .

Last year staff were working one week on three and we had around 20 pupils per day .

Now the virus is more virulent, contagious and dangerous we are cramming the pupils in and staff working full time with Ofsted looming in the shadows


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by arista

Less population

I mean stayed low compared to our previous figures not compared to any other countries

[arista]

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Scarlett.

When schools opened back in September, cases immediately began to soar, opening them now would be nothing short of insane

Again as I always say when this comes up - Scottish schools opened several weeks prior to English schools opening, and yet cases in Scotland and England started to increase at almost exactly the same time which serves as fairly convincing (albeit purely observational) evidence that schools were not the turning point, as whatever the major turning point was, it MUST be held in common by both countries.

I'm not even arguing for premature re-opening; it does make sense to take as many precautions as possible, but I also think there's a risk in OVER stating the effect of schools, as it stops people looking elsewhere for the real causes of cases shooting up.

[arista]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...se-prices.html

[Toy Soldier]

The long-term effect of prolonged school closures can't be underestimated though. I think it makes sense to keep them closed now that vaccination offers hope, and there's a potential "end game" in play where we can wait it out one last time and then deal with the damage.

However, in a scenario where the vaccinations for whatever reason don't fully bring an end to the lockdown situation by the end of the summer, schools need to reopen next August/September and they need to stay open. Whether than means altering breaks for fewer, longer breaks (to act as "circuit breakers") or whatever. Schools can't stay closed for years on end, it simply isn't feasible.

[arista]

[arista]

Johnson Prime minister is to go to Scotland some time this week,

He will not let folks like TS know,
when.

Ending:Politics Live BBC2HD

[arista]

Israel
has Closed it's borders
Except trade,


Does not want any more Variants entering their nations.


Good Move.

[Cherie]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

The long-term effect of prolonged school closures can't be underestimated though. I think it makes sense to keep them closed now that vaccination offers hope, and there's a potential "end game" in play where we can wait it out one last time and then deal with the damage.

However, in a scenario where the vaccinations for whatever reason don't fully bring an end to the lockdown situation by the end of the summer, schools need to reopen next August/September and they need to stay open. Whether than means altering breaks for fewer, longer breaks (to act as "circuit breakers") or whatever. Schools can't stay closed for years on end, it simply isn't feasible.

They should have made temporary alterations to term times last September, there is no need to be shut for 6 weeks in July and August when virus numbers are going to be low and open all winter, they should have taken 4 weeks of the summer holidays and added it to the Christmas and Feb half term breaks

[bitontheslide]

we have a constantly evolving scenario so it makes it difficult to pin exact causes on covid spread. The new variant started in my area and during the lockdown at the end of last year, our infection rate absolutely soared from being really low. Schools were clearly not helping as they were still open when most of everything else was shut down. My contrived conclusion from that is that the new variant in conjunction with school type mixing caused a massive spike, schools were open and infection rate was low all the way up to November. So, i don't think schools open in themselves is the issue, schools open with new variant seems to be nasty combination.