But this is my whole entire point about school support staff in terms of the immunisation group it's a minefield. The clamour in the media and even from the likes of Labour has been to vaccinate teachers. My point being, that if you end up vaccinating teachers then people are also forgetting about all the support and contractor staff that come with it. While I support school staff being vaccinated where does it then stop? You'll soon have all the big Unions saying that other public services and key workers in factories and supermarkets should be vaccinated. So while I do sympathise, in terms of the science and methodology it makes sense in terms of risk.

 

Schools is a tough one, I'd be in favour of them going back after Easter but it's not my call, it does all seem a bit pointless though with Easter on the horizon.

 

Most people mean all school staff when they say teachers though, lots don’t know the difference. Kids in my school literally all call any staff teachers. So basically it would have stopped at ‘anyone who works in a school’. It’s really not that hard.

But this is my whole entire point about school support staff in terms of the immunisation group it's a minefield. The clamour in the media and even from the likes of Labour has been to vaccinate teachers. My point being, that if you end up vaccinating teachers then people are also forgetting about all the support and contractor staff that come with it. While I support school staff being vaccinated where does it then stop? You'll soon have all the big Unions saying that other public services and key workers in factories and supermarkets should be vaccinated. So while I do sympathise, in terms of the science and methodology it makes sense in terms of risk.

 

Schools is a tough one, I'd be in favour of them going back after Easter but it's not my call, it does all seem a bit pointless though with Easter on the horizon.

I almost said more about other key workers in my original post (but thought it might be too off topic) but why not? NHS workers have already had it I believe (understandably), it's not much of a stretch to include a few more groups based on profession- I did imply it when I said frontline workers.

 

Hell yes we should be prioritising supermarket workers etc. It will majorly cut the spread of the virus with everything else locked down because these are the people who have to be out there all the time. Older age groups should be prioritised because the virus is more likely to hit them harder sure, but when you start getting to 40-49, 30-39 come on. People should either be working from/ staying at home and mitigating their own risk that way or if they're unable to work from home, the vaccine should be prioritised for those groups, not only for the individuals but to cut the risk of them spreading it to others and keeping down the r rate. That way if they're in the 40-49 age group or whatever, they still get it if they're working somewhere where they're going to be at risk.

 

And yes absolutely it was a rash decision to reopen at this point in the term- ineffective from an educational perspective and very damaging with timing in regard to the r number, seeing as we've only JUST got it below 1 a couple of weeks ago and we're in a much worse position than September as far as cases go. These coming 3 weeks will undoubtedly lead to more deaths in the long run and has the potential to majorly set us back from getting back to any kind of normality for a couple of months if not more.

Most people mean all school staff when they say teachers though, lots don’t know the difference. Kids in my school literally all call any staff teachers. So basically it would have stopped at ‘anyone who works in a school’. It’s really not that hard.

Exactly, I've pretty much accepted that when people say "teachers" from an external viewpoint I somewhat group myself into that. Not that I think of myself as a teacher at all, just for the sake of convenience when talking about particularly COVID related issues.

Yeah agreed there, cases are gonna absolutely skyrocket this month and all those dates mentioned last week will probably be delayed or in the case of step 4 scrapped altogether.

Basically anyone who can’t work from home and comes into contact with a lot of people because of their job should be prioritised. But that wouldn’t be as easy.

Basically anyone who can’t work from home and comes into contact with a lot of people because of their job should be prioritised. But that wouldn’t be as easy.

 

It becomes way over complicated even though I agree with the logic. What would you also find as well, is a lot of people being vaccinated that don't need to be vaccinated too through abuse of the system. Plus I am not sure how a GP could coordinate via occupations, they would have to contact employers directly surely. Don't get me wrong, I see the logic, but it's impossible to administer, most certainly be abused by certain employers and would lead to a much slower rollout too. The bulk of people in hospitals longer term was between 40-60, I think once that is out of the way you could argue to go via occupation but surely at that point you just plow through with age.

The vast majority of school staff are employed by the council no? So get a list of the council and invite them all. Where Tory councils have outsourced it to the lowest bidder, then the council can ask Serco etc for the lists and collate. Given that disclosure checks need to be done and stuff it shouldn’t be too challenging to identify all the folks who have child facing roles

It’s not ‘impossible’ it’s just more difficult. But it’s nice to know my health isn’t worth the effort.

 

All I’m saying is it’s just wrong for people to be desperate for schools to reopen and at the same time be against protecting the staff first.

My word this thread is a depressing read, I think there’s a fine line between realism and pessimism. As much as I fully agree that kids and staff should be returning to school after the Easter holidays at the EARLIEST, I fail to see how the repercussions are going to be as extreme as what the majority of you are predicting. After all, when establishing a road-map the Government would have had to consider the impending reopening of schools with the calculating of each and every so-called “easing of restrictions”, especially given that we know whenever you offer a date to the GP, it becomes almost immovable. So there are people saying that this return to schools could set us back months and that cases will “sky-rocket”, well why would the Government so much as even contemplate telling everyone that we could see some strain of normality brought back by June 21st if that is so entirely impossible?

 

Yes I think it would be naive to assume that the intermingling of school staff and students won’t affect the case-rate, but to say that the road-map is now completely redundant is something I can’t wrap my head around otherwise why else would they have even fed us this false hope knowing that it had no logical support? I’m well aware that Chris Whitty was against the children returning to schools as soon as they are, and he has mentioned that there will be a noticeable spike in infections as a result, but with vaccine-uptake increasing extremely fast, the R rate dropping too, and 95% of the other restrictions still in play for the foreseeable future I can’t envision this one factor becoming the Armageddon-type situation that a lot of you are alluding to.

 

 

It’s not ‘impossible’ it’s just more difficult. But it’s nice to know my health isn’t worth the effort.

 

All I’m saying is it’s just wrong for people to be desperate for schools to reopen and at the same time be against protecting the staff first.

 

It would not be impossible for school staff or any public services, infact I think it would be relatively easy. But when you start involving self employed contractors and corporate companies it becomes impossible if we're vaccinating everyone who is at risk due to occupation. And you can't really get away without one or the other, certainly not supermarket staff. I can totally see the frustration and my own personal viewpoint is they should push schools back until after Easter.

Northern Ireland has released its coming out of lockdown roadmap. No dates are included as to when the restrictions are to ease, much to many people's annoyance, as it means planning for reopening will be tricky. The next review of restrictions will be on March 16th.

They've narrowed down the mystery case of the Brazil variant to a potential 379 households, do you think they have a a good chance of actually containing this?

 

All that money spent on a test + trace system where they can't even get this person's contact details. :rolleyes:

My word this thread is a depressing read, I think there’s a fine line between realism and pessimism. As much as I fully agree that kids and staff should be returning to school after the Easter holidays at the EARLIEST, I fail to see how the repercussions are going to be as extreme as what the majority of you are predicting. After all, when establishing a road-map the Government would have had to consider the impending reopening of schools with the calculating of each and every so-called “easing of restrictions”, especially given that we know whenever you offer a date to the GP, it becomes almost immovable. So there are people saying that this return to schools could set us back months and that cases will “sky-rocket”, well why would the Government so much as even contemplate telling everyone that we could see some strain of normality brought back by June 21st if that is so entirely impossible?

 

Yes I think it would be naive to assume that the intermingling of school staff and students won’t affect the case-rate, but to say that the road-map is now completely redundant is something I can’t wrap my head around otherwise why else would they have even fed us this false hope knowing that it had no logical support? I’m well aware that Chris Whitty was against the children returning to schools as soon as they are, and he has mentioned that there will be a noticeable spike in infections as a result, but with vaccine-uptake increasing extremely fast, the R rate dropping too, and 95% of the other restrictions still in play for the foreseeable future I can’t envision this one factor becoming the Armageddon-type situation that a lot of you are alluding to.

 

I’m sorry that a thread about a global pandemic isn’t upbeat enough.

 

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to trust this government to make sensible decisions on anything. They have a history of over promising, under delivering and going against the science. So I think it’s wrong to criticise anyone concerned about schools all reopening at once. After all, the last time this happened it signalled a second wave. Also the other three nations are being much more cautious with school reopening so why aren’t the UK government?

 

 

Of course, everything could just turn out ok but it could also not be.

Yes I think it would be naive to assume that the intermingling of school staff and students won’t affect the case-rate, but to say that the road-map is now completely redundant is something I can’t wrap my head around otherwise why else would they have even fed us this false hope knowing that it had no logical support? I’m well aware that Chris Whitty was against the children returning to schools as soon as they are, and he has mentioned that there will be a noticeable spike in infections as a result, but with vaccine-uptake increasing extremely fast, the R rate dropping too, and 95% of the other restrictions still in play for the foreseeable future I can’t envision this one factor becoming the Armageddon-type situation that a lot of you are alluding to.

 

We have reached the stage where its not necessarily a rise in cases that's the worry but a rise in cases of the South African variant that would render the vaccine less effective. Of course without testing everyone in the school for Covid regularly you can't tell who has the South African variant.

We have reached the stage where its not necessarily a rise in cases that's the worry but a rise in cases of the South African variant that would render the vaccine less effective. Of course without testing everyone in the school for Covid regularly you can't tell who has the South African variant.

 

The data coming out against the different variants is quite positive. I think we will be OK over the summer. In any cases with cases much lower this is where test, trace and isolate is actually effective providing they don't completely feck up (which in all likelihood is a certainty).

The data coming out against the different variants is quite positive. I think we will be OK over the summer. In any cases with cases much lower this is where test, trace and isolate is actually effective providing they don't completely feck up (which in all likelihood is a certainty).

 

It didn't look that good to me looking at the news articles of the current vaccines vs South African variant, but the South African government have of course have approved the Johnson and Johnson vaccine so there must be some decent data with that but alas the J&J vaccine hasn't been approved or used in the UK yet.

It didn't look that good to me looking at the news articles of the current vaccines vs South African variant, but the South African government have of course have approved the Johnson and Johnson vaccine so there must be some decent data with that but alas the J&J vaccine hasn't been approved or used in the UK yet.

 

It's all vaccines, the T-cell response is really good. The studies just take longer to come out, there is one out from a few days ago. While we should have some caution and they will be less effective, I don't think it's going to mean we're all back in lockdown.

I’m sorry that a thread about a global pandemic isn’t upbeat enough.

 

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to trust this government to make sensible decisions on anything. They have a history of over promising, under delivering and going against the science. So I think it’s wrong to criticise anyone concerned about schools all reopening at once. After all, the last time this happened it signalled a second wave. Also the other three nations are being much more cautious with school reopening so why aren’t the UK government?

Of course, everything could just turn out ok but it could also not be.

 

I wasn’t criticising anyone nor do I expect this particular type of thread to be a barrel of laughs. However, I do feel as though there is an undercurrent of cynicism fuelled by a year of disappointment and bad news atop of more bad news rearing it’s ugly head. I just think we should allow more time to see how the returning of students to school will actually effect the rate of infection instead of preaching that we’re effectively doomed.

 

A lot has changed since the last time we sent kids back to schools and with a much more sophisticated track and trace system, as well as a huge ramp-up in testing, I wouldn’t be fear-mongering based on a (albeit not extremely farfetched) suspicion. The Government wouldn’t give the GP a date if they realistically saw the restrictions lasting months upon months longer than that as they’re fully aware of the repercussions that this will excavate.

 

At this rate the Brazilian variant is what we must be more mindful of. Although the South African strain hasn’t seemed to have kicked up much dust, we’re in the dark with this new one - and it won’t be the last new variant to pop up either.

 

 

At this rate the Brazilian variant is what we must be more mindful of. Although the South African strain hasn’t seemed to have kicked up much dust, we’re in the dark with this new one - and it won’t be the last new variant to pop up either.

 

How did this Brazilian variant get into the UK during lockdown when most incoming travel was banned anyway. Must have been 'essential air travel' but are there any set guidelines as to what 'essential' air travel is....At least they all seem to have quarantined when they got home which is good though.

Edited March 2, 20214 yr by TheSnake

My word this thread is a depressing read, I think there’s a fine line between realism and pessimism. As much as I fully agree that kids and staff should be returning to school after the Easter holidays at the EARLIEST, I fail to see how the repercussions are going to be as extreme as what the majority of you are predicting. After all, when establishing a road-map the Government would have had to consider the impending reopening of schools with the calculating of each and every so-called “easing of restrictions”, especially given that we know whenever you offer a date to the GP, it becomes almost immovable. So there are people saying that this return to schools could set us back months and that cases will “sky-rocket”, well why would the Government so much as even contemplate telling everyone that we could see some strain of normality brought back by June 21st if that is so entirely impossible?

 

Yes I think it would be naive to assume that the intermingling of school staff and students won’t affect the case-rate, but to say that the road-map is now completely redundant is something I can’t wrap my head around otherwise why else would they have even fed us this false hope knowing that it had no logical support? I’m well aware that Chris Whitty was against the children returning to schools as soon as they are, and he has mentioned that there will be a noticeable spike in infections as a result, but with vaccine-uptake increasing extremely fast, the R rate dropping too, and 95% of the other restrictions still in play for the foreseeable future I can’t envision this one factor becoming the Armageddon-type situation that a lot of you are alluding to.

The government was heavily criticised for setting such dates, especially announcing the reopening of nightclubs and other mass gatherings. It's ridiculous, it is in fact giving people false hope, or at best, a hope that absolutely cannot be guaranteed. If we're very lucky it could happen but the timing of schools reopening throws the entire rest of the plan into doubt. They should have stuck with the review after 3 weeks system (or however long, after each stage) before extensively planning that far ahead, because as we've seen so far they've been unable to plan anything more than a couple of weeks away. Forgive me if I don't have much confidence in "when establishing a road-map the Government considering the impending reopening of schools" when so far, their track record particularly regarding schools has been so utterly abysmal. I don't blame them for reopening schools in September but I do blame them for not closing them in November for the 2nd lockdown (frankly the issue was becoming obvious as early as October) and I do blame them for the decision they're currently making.

 

Cases are much worse than September in pure numbers and after they opened in September cases did indeed skyrocket. With schools kept open in November the government utterly failed to significantly reduce the figures. It's obvious that schools have a significant effect on the numbers and the majority of people vaccinated are not in a school setting so cases WILL be spread in schools because almost no one there is vaccinated. In this particular setting the reduction in spread will be negligible- the ONE place where people are meeting en masse. I don't understand how so many people can't see how disastrous this is. It's not even a staggered return. Even if the effect doesn't end up being as bad as I'm expecting it is absolutely not worth the risk for 3 weeks. The very fact Chris Whitty was against it should say it all, he's the expert. If he says the cases will rise with the reopening of schools why is the government shooting itself in the foot when the end is (potentially) in sight? You could see he didn't believe the words he was saying on the 22nd Feb announcement, it was very forced.

 

Schools are direly underequipped to be testing every person twice a week. There needs to be a lot of manpower to supervise tests, kids will have to be guided through it (and I can barely imagine how bad the younger ones will be with it). Kids will still be in, mixing, while they're getting tested so the moment one tests positive the rest of the class/ year/ whatever will have to be isolated because they've already been mixing. It's a logistical nightmare.

 

Many of the other "95% of" restrictions staying in place would ironically have a negligible effect if they were relaxed. Groups of 6 people are probably already meeting outside without consequence. Going for 1 to 1 appointments wouldn't have a big effect and even small shops wouldn't be too bad. The "one factor" you reference is the mixing of 10 million people in confined spaces. Majority unvaccinated. It won't be Armageddon- none of us were saying it would be, that's melodramatic but it is undoubtedly bad. It's just more of the same old shit that we've been seeing for the past year and has the potential to extend this hellish situation for yet again longer than it needs to last.

 

I just think we should allow more time to see how the returning of students to school will actually effect the rate of infection instead of preaching that we’re effectively doomed.

This is exactly the problem though, the government is going "wait and see- let's open schools, see how the numbers change, see how bad it gets."

Their logic seems to be if schools can survive being open without too much of an uptick in cases, everything can! Which is of course absolutely the wrong way to do things, they should have started with small shops and businesses etc, then escalated in order of social contact, all the while letting people have the opportunity to have the vaccine. They're about 2 months ahead of themselves which will have an impact on the recovery. As it is, not only will the kids be mixing for 3 weeks with each other, they'll then go and mingle with the general population as things start to reopen over Easter.

 

I know you're trying to be positive but this is such a major failing in the "roadmap" that minimising how bad it really is would only be counter productive.

So the BBC have published an article saying that there may be a full school return in Wales before Easter. The Welsh Government have given this information to the BBC before they have even given it to headteachers. So many teachers, like me, are waking up this morning and finding this out in the news and without having been given any prior warning. Lots of parents will be contacting me today to find out what’s going on and I don’t know.

 

This is f***ing stupid and bowing to public pressure. I’m so fed up of not being considered important at all.