Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[platinumsage]

It’s hard for me to get into a mindset that is only now creating plans for high absences and so on. We’ve had contingency plans in place for a pandemic scenario for I don’t even know how long — at least 10 years but probably a lot longer. These business continuity plans (or operational resilience planning, as it now is) get reviewed and updated every year. Advantages of working in a regulated industry, I guess — the regulator requires you to plan for things like pandemics (and a lot more besides). Apparently, though, the government doesn’t turn that lens on itself.

I'm sure the relevant public sector organizations have already had pandemic-related plans for staff absences. But there's a difference between having a plan on the shelf and actually using it to prepare for a specific actuality that is presenting itself. No one knew before Christmas that there were unlikely to be further restrictions announced for example.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm sure the relevant public sector organizations have already had pandemic-related plans for staff absences. But there's a difference between having a plan on the shelf and actually using it to prepare for a specific actuality that is presenting itself. No one knew before Christmas that there were unlikely to be further restrictions announced for example.

There's no such plan for schools because you can't run a school without x number of qualified staff. The 'plan' is send whole year groups home at short notice with nothing in place for remote learning.

This time last year schools had between about 3pm on a Monday and 9am the next day to prepare for long term closures.

 

[platinumsage]

There's no such plan for schools because you can't run a school without x number of qualified staff. The 'plan' is send whole year groups home at short notice with nothing in place for remote learning.

Any school that hasn't planned for remote learning by now is negligent.

This time last year schools had between about 3pm on a Monday and 9am the next day to prepare for long term closures.

They had a lot longer than that because they'd have learned from the long-term closures in the first half of 2020.

 

[SpookyFrank]

They had a lot longer than that because they'd have learned from the long-term closures in the first half of 2020.

I mean I'm a teacher and I was there at the time but whatever you say I guess.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Any school that hasn't planned for remote learning by now is negligent.

I dunno how much spare run time you think schools have got to produce all these contingency plans whilst also doing 'catch up' from the last two school closures and operating with chronic staff shortages.

e2a: That and the government repeatedly saying 'we will not close schools' right before they close the schools. First time round they had got to the point of threatening legal action to force schools to stay open, less than a week before they were all unilaterally closed. Could you make a contingency plan for that?

 

[Chilli.s]

Any school that hasn't planned for remote learning by now is negligent.



They had a lot longer than that because they'd have learned from the long-term closures in the first half of 2020.

That's a fairly unrealistic view of the reality of how schools work. Not that it matters.

 

[pbsmooth]

Kicking off 2022 with another 154 deaths.

Normalised now, innit?

Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs

Omicron will definitely be the last we'll hear of covid. We can all get back to normal again once this wave passes and we'll all breathe a sigh of relief and never, ever have to think about covid or its consequences ever again. Just keep that positive thinking up. I'm really optimistic about climate change too.

 

[weepiper]

My kids go back to school on Thursday this week and my middle boy's prelims are supposed to start on the 14th of January. It's hard to see how they can possibly run them though. Our local bus company has said they're going to be running a Saturday service only for January because they've got staff shortages due to Covid. One imagines the teachers are going to be in a similar boat.

 

[Storm Fox]

Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs

Yes because science is based on 'mood' and 'feelings'

 

[StoneRoad]

If / When omicron gets into my workshop ...
Everyone goes home !
It'll be shut, until 10 days after that person gets negative tests.

I don't want it at home, thank you very much.

 

[wtfftw]

Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs

Yes I'm certainly sad about some people being more at risk. But nevermind! The death figures are low (100 a day for an extended period means it won't be my grandmother) and most of these vulnerable don't have intrinsic worth or people who love them and probably aren't even productive economic units anyway.

 

[pbsmooth]

Have you only just realised some people have always been more at risk from illness? And that people die?

 

[wtfftw]

Yes

 

[pbsmooth]

Wait til you find out 80 people per day die from the flu

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Wait til you find out 80 people per day die from the flu

It's all about the death. Massive strain on hospitals, amputating children's limbs, long covid, blood clots, heart damage, brain damage, kidney failure and huge backlogs in health care are all just meh.

 

[gentlegreen]

Smooth PNB is an abomination.

 

[brogdale]

Well, there will almost certainly always be deaths from covid...
Thankfully I feel like the general mood is much more positive than this thread. Get vaccinated, take precautions and slowly try to get back to normal while realising unvaccinated, vulnerable people will sadly be more at risk.
More news today suggesting omicron less deadly. New studies reinforce belief that Omicron is less likely to damage lungs

Well yes, obviously the pandemic was going to lead to some deaths, but my post was considering the level of deaths that appears to have been normalised as "acceptable" in the UK. You'll forgive me if I don't share your "positivity" that the UK government has been comfortable with this cost.

 

[gentlegreen]

25 to 30k a year from flu plus pneumonia apparently - and that's with a high level of vaccination in the over-60s ...

 

[brogdale]

Wait til you find out 80 people per day die from the flu

Johnsonesque

 

[cupid_stunt]

Not surprising TBH.

 

[andysays]

Not surprising TBH.

It may just be clumsy wording (although that's no excuse) but that statement seems to be suggesting that schools should wait until the "operational challenges" have already made face to face teaching impossible before "considering ways to implement a flexible approach".

It's the same waiting until too late in the vain hope that things won't get any worse that we've seen from day one.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Our local bus company has said they're going to be running a Saturday service only for January because they've got staff shortages due to Covid. One imagines the teachers are going to be in a similar boat.

I'm not going to work on a Saturday for nothing

 

[komodo]

I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.

The danger is far from over.

But when we got the vaccines case rates decoupled from the rate of hospitalization and death. Evidence is growing that Omnicron IS milder.

Saying this doesn’t mean I’m heartless or don’t care about vulnerable people FFS.

 

[kabbes]

I dunno how much spare run time you think schools have got to produce all these contingency plans whilst also doing 'catch up' from the last two school closures and operating with chronic staff shortages.

Of course, this is why you do your contingency planning before you become resource constrained as a result of the disaster you are planning for!

That plan shouldn’t be created school by school, either. The DfE should have it ready to go, with details included for how to adapt it to local circumstances. Modern operational resilience planning (in the financial sector) is based on identifying the "important business services", i.e. the ones that are going to cause serious problems for people if they fail. You then identify how you are going to prioritise keeping those specific services running in the event of different types of scenario. Extending that to schools, the "important service" is clearly the lessons for children. So you know what you need to keep running, you have scenarios for what can happen to the professionals responsible for keeping those running and from that, you can derive how to provide an alternative service in an emergency and what resources are needed to manage this.

 

[prunus]

Of course, this is why you do your contingency planning before you become resource constrained as a result of the disaster you are planning for!

That plan shouldn’t be created school by school, either. The DfE should have it ready to go, with details included for how to adapt it to local circumstances. Modern operational resilience planning (in the financial sector) is based on identifying the "important business services", i.e. the ones that are going to cause serious problems for people if they fail. You then identify how you are going to prioritise keeping those specific services running in the event of different types of scenario. Extending that to schools, the "important service" is clearly the lessons for children. So you know what you need to keep running, you have scenarios for what can happen to the professionals responsible for keeping those running and from that, you can derive how to provide an alternative service in an emergency and what resources are needed to manage this.

You are unfortunately implicitly ascribing to the DfE some measure of competence, planning, philosophy or idea of providing a service.

They have none of this. Of all the govt departments I’ve had the dubious pleasure of interacting with, DfE is spectacularly useless. It’s hard sometimes to lose the feeling they’re doing it as some kind of guerrilla long-term performance art project - a manifestation in real time of the worst of humanity.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Of course, this is why you do your contingency planning before you become resource constrained as a result of the disaster you are planning for!

That plan shouldn’t be created school by school, either. The DfE should have it ready to go, with details included for how to adapt it to local circumstances. Modern operational resilience planning (in the financial sector) is based on identifying the "important business services", i.e. the ones that are going to cause serious problems for people if they fail. You then identify how you are going to prioritise keeping those specific services running in the event of different types of scenario. Extending that to schools, the "important service" is clearly the lessons for children. So you know what you need to keep running, you have scenarios for what can happen to the professionals responsible for keeping those running and from that, you can derive how to provide an alternative service in an emergency and what resources are needed to manage this.

Schools have been 'resource constrained' for over a decade now.

E2a: Although tbh I'm glad there was no central plan from the DfE for the lockdowns. Because if there had been one it would have been catastrophically bad. Individual schools cobbling shit together on the fly was probably the least worst option, and I say that as someone who has seen first hand the toll taken on school staff by all this, particularly the 'centre assessed' grades fiasco.

 

[nagapie]

I very much doubt a move back to remote learning other than for a few isolating students. But being in London, Omicron has already ripped through our communities. We did send one class home in the last week of term.
I imagine however there will be a lot of kids being sent home in other parts of the country next week. Everyone is set up for remote learning, it's just that remote learning doesn't cut it.

 

[contadino]

There's a fair bit on continuity of essential public services in the Exercise Cygnus documents from 2016. Annex A: about Exercise Cygnus

It reads to me like they thought through many of the issues but got wrapped up elsewhere instead of implementing the recommendations.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

I’m getting interested in the psychology of people’s views on this. I felt under attack on this threadfor saying a couple of weeks ago that I was cautiously optimistic because 5 old fully vaxed people in my Dad’s care home in London had tested positive for probably Omicron and recovered after very mild or totally symptomless infection.

The danger is far from over.

But when we got the vaccines case rates decoupled from the rate of hospitalization and death. Evidence is growing that Omnicron IS milder.

Saying this doesn’t mean I’m heartless or don’t care about vulnerable people FFS.

It doesn't mean you're heartless, no but this constant optimism that's rife at the moment kinda makes me wanna puke. It's a child's view of the pandemic. We're in a pandemic. The sky isn't falling in like it was earlier but people are still being maimed, getting long debilitating illness from it, having heart problems, health systems being overwhelmed and so on. As for the whole 'Omicron is milder' line, milder than what? It's marginally milder than Delta, sure but it isn't milder than the original wuhan strain and look at the damage that did.

Sure, we have vaccines and drugs in the pipeline but the booster wains after 10 weeks and those only double jabbed have extremely poor protection, not to mention those with none at all that still number in the millions, in this country alone. Billions of people around the world have not even been near a covid vaccination and that's a perfect breeding ground for variants, and there will be more variants.

For me, the reasonable approach is to actually enforce mask wearing, put ventilation in schools and the workplace, actually limit infection spread, financially support those having to isolate and to just have a government that doesn't treat me like I'm a fucking child that's desperate to go out and play. Just tell me the truth of the situation and tell me wtf you're doing about it. At the moment it feels exactly like the climate change 'debate' that's been happening for 30 odd years. With covid about 95% of scientists are saying 'it's not looking too good better do something about that' and 5% are saying 'nah, its not that bad at all, in fact it's coming to an end so no need for further measures' and that 5% are being listened to more.