The possibility is always there to act to suppress the number of cases. It's a political choice.
Re-opening Schools?
- Thread starter ska invita
- Start date
The possibility is always there to act to suppress the number of cases. It's a political choice.
elbows
Well-Known Member
And just to be totally clear about where I stand on that....
I see the return to relative normality as a journey. At this stage of the pandemic, it is reasonable for that journey to have begun. It is not reasonable to expect everyone to rapidly reach the final destination. And more people would be on board for that journey if it was conducted at a suitably slow pace, with all sorts of measures designed to limit infections and increase confidence.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I think it was a tweet from the Good Law Project which suggested that any prosecution of parents for not sending their kids to school would be unlikely to succeed in the circumstances, but it isn't fair to put parents into the position of not knowing whether or not they'd be prosecuted for doing little more than following what has been Government advice up until now, and for which the only reason any change has happened clearly has nothing to do with the prevalence of Covid, in schools or elsewhere.
I hope every parent put in this position remembers this when their next opportunity to walk into a voting booth arises. Or, for that matter, the next time they find themselves with a quantity of empty bottles, some petrol, and a few rags.
I'm not against most measures. Masks, sure. Bubbles, check. Testing, fine. But the mass closing of schools for extended periods, I can't get behind that and the government has already shown consistently that that's what they will allow to happen. That schools are not as important as football matches and international travel for example.
So I feel like we're talking in the hypothetical when we talk about the government taking action. That's why I'm envisaging a situation that I see as realistic with this government, that no such measures will be put in place to mitigate the infections in school.
I wonder if schools or head teachers as individuals would be open to legal action over the consequences of this.
Aladdin
Well-Known Member
Yes
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I agree that the mass closing of schools can't go on, but I refuse to believe that the only solution is simply to open and operate the schools regardless. There HAS to be a better way than that, but we're not going to find it all the time that the Government is setting everything up as a simplistic binary choice between isolation and letting the virus run riot...and lying about the latter.
The solution is strict measures across society outside of school. I don't see a public appetite for that.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Polling in the past tended to indicate more support for stronger measures than the government were prepared to go for.
I'd certainly have expected a more sensible attitude to that stuff to have been possible if our politicians and media had behaved appropriately in this pandemic.
I dont have any very recent figures in regards such attitudes towards restrictions, but I note this recent polling about a number of school issues:
I think you might be surprised. I don't have kids but I'd certainly see the benefit of stricter measures to make things better for schools. I don't think I'm alone in that -- most folk have friends/family with kids after all and are well aware of how hard it's all been/still is.
I'd be happy to see them try. But as I said, I can't really discuss the hypothetical ifs any more of what would have happened if they'd done the right thing.
I don't see or hear people in favour of tightening things up around me. Everyone is out around me, en mass.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The normalisation agenda certainly gained far more traction during the vaccine era, but even the government may be forced to try to change attitudes towards that in the months ahead. I dont think its a given though, especially as its currently unclear to me whether we will actually see a huge spike in cases with the schools back open.
That's nice to know. I thought it was a given.
Aladdin
Well-Known Member
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its not a brilliant situation but despite my cautious approach I in no way exclude the possibility that the return to relative normality will still be able to proceed, just not as quickly as some of the pandemic fucknuts would like. Failure is still possible, but it is no longer an absolute certainty in my book due to the huge combination of unknowns, and the changing immunity picture.
planetgeli
There's no future in England's dreaming
Fourth positive out of 20 staff today. We've been back a week.
Tried to book PCR at my local. Which is Carmarthen. They have 500 a day capacity. By 11am this morning they were taking no more appointments. Next nearest is Llanelli. They have nearly 500 slots a day. By 11am they had only 40 spots left.
Tried to book PCR at my local. Which is Carmarthen. They have 500 a day capacity. By 11am this morning they were taking no more appointments. Next nearest is Llanelli. They have nearly 500 slots a day. By 11am they had only 40 spots left.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Incidentally, I'm not sure that comparing coronavirus favourably with chicken pox and glandular fever is quite right. If we'd had 160,000 deaths from glandular fever over the last 18 months with the number of new cases we have now for covid, then I think glandular fever would be taken just as seriously.
Aladdin
Well-Known Member
spanglechick
High Empress of Dressing Up
What I keep coming back to, and perhaps elbows could shed some light on the matter, is: could this be as good as it gets?
I mean, what’s realistic in terms of hoping for a “post COVID” world? Are we waiting for a better vaccine? Will the virus just give up?
Because socially, I can’t see anything getting stricter than in lockdown one. And given that vaccination is now commonplace, and hospitalisation much rarer (notwithstanding the kind of long term complications that just don’t capture the public imagination), I can’t see there being another lockdown unless we get a variant that starts killing children. So if draconian social restrictions are in the past, do we actually stand a chance of living life without COVID?
And what kind of timescale are we looking at? Because 3 academic years is a tonne. But if we’re looking at another two, or another five, until people can stop being scared, then we need to either reinvent education, or start trying to come to terms with this illness as an inevitability.
I mean, what’s realistic in terms of hoping for a “post COVID” world? Are we waiting for a better vaccine? Will the virus just give up?
Because socially, I can’t see anything getting stricter than in lockdown one. And given that vaccination is now commonplace, and hospitalisation much rarer (notwithstanding the kind of long term complications that just don’t capture the public imagination), I can’t see there being another lockdown unless we get a variant that starts killing children. So if draconian social restrictions are in the past, do we actually stand a chance of living life without COVID?
And what kind of timescale are we looking at? Because 3 academic years is a tonne. But if we’re looking at another two, or another five, until people can stop being scared, then we need to either reinvent education, or start trying to come to terms with this illness as an inevitability.
elbows
Well-Known Member
It is expected that over time the immunity picture will continue to evolve. More vaccines, new vaccines, boosters, more people that have already been infected at least once. This will lead to further changes in our susceptibility to the virus and how many hospitalisations and deaths it causes. Gains on this front can also be lost via waning immunity and new variants, but even so that isnt widely considered likely to lead us totally back to square one. A pandemic is a pandemic because the virus is novel to humans, and that novelty inevitably wears off given enough time. I've heard at least one professional say they use a rule of thumb that pandemics can last about 3 years before the picture becomes so obviously different to the acute pandemic phases. I cannot offer that sort of indication of timescale myself, I dont know.
We should also expect further improvements to treatments over time. And more data about what sort of threat long covid actually represents.
So I dont expect recent months to be the ultimate guide as to what 'learning to live with covid' will look like for years to come. But I cant get too carried away because there could also be setbacks along this road. And also we havent seen what the current Delta variant can do when combined with winter and the rest of the UK picture.
In regards draconian measures, I think there are misperceptions about what levels fo hospitalisation this virus is still causing, in summer with our current levels of immunity. Just because the numbers dont rival previous waves peaks doesnt mean they are in any way insignificant. For example Scotland has 928 covid patients in hospital in the most recent figure. They had 2053 at the peak of their winter wave. They have 87 covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds, their winter peak figure was 161. Those numbers are still bad, just because they are lower than peak figures people saw in previous waves doesnt mean they are comfortable levels for the health system to cope with. So there is not as much wiggle room for the authorities as people may imagine. The authorities still hope to avoid having to impose further restrictions, but if numbers were to climb much further then such decisions would start to look more inevitable, no new variant may be required for that outcome to be plausible this coming autumn and winter. And if that is avoided, it will probably be due to the improving immunity picture I mentioned earlier in this post.
People will stop being scared at different times. Its still relatively early days in pandemic terms, many people will travel far from their current feelings about this virus given sufficient time. The extent to which some measures will remain and become part of a future normal is currently unclear.
Should we end up in a situation where we have to come to terms with quite large numbers of infections on an ongoing basis, there are all sorts of implications. Under those circumstances then part of learning to live with covid will mean permanently reconfiguring the health system and its capacity, so that it can handle a higher covid burden permanently without melting. And thats just one example of how changes elsewhere can impact what has to be done to in other sectors like education in order to cope.
Personally I dont intend to come to terms with the situation fully at any stage until the picture is more settled. A fairly wide range of possibilities still exists. People will adapt and will even come to terms with overall changes to life expectancy if that becomes an enduring legacy of this virus. But thats a somewhat different issue to what level of hospitalisations the systems and authorities can cope with at particular moments. Until a permanent grip is gotten on that, we can still be buffeted around and childrens education affected by emergency responses to nasty waves of this virus. Which is also worth thinking about in another possible future context, which is one where we have the virus under control and are 'living with it' most of the time, but where nasty epidemic waves could still appear every few years that require restrictions for a period.
We should also expect further improvements to treatments over time. And more data about what sort of threat long covid actually represents.
So I dont expect recent months to be the ultimate guide as to what 'learning to live with covid' will look like for years to come. But I cant get too carried away because there could also be setbacks along this road. And also we havent seen what the current Delta variant can do when combined with winter and the rest of the UK picture.
In regards draconian measures, I think there are misperceptions about what levels fo hospitalisation this virus is still causing, in summer with our current levels of immunity. Just because the numbers dont rival previous waves peaks doesnt mean they are in any way insignificant. For example Scotland has 928 covid patients in hospital in the most recent figure. They had 2053 at the peak of their winter wave. They have 87 covid patients in mechanical ventilation beds, their winter peak figure was 161. Those numbers are still bad, just because they are lower than peak figures people saw in previous waves doesnt mean they are comfortable levels for the health system to cope with. So there is not as much wiggle room for the authorities as people may imagine. The authorities still hope to avoid having to impose further restrictions, but if numbers were to climb much further then such decisions would start to look more inevitable, no new variant may be required for that outcome to be plausible this coming autumn and winter. And if that is avoided, it will probably be due to the improving immunity picture I mentioned earlier in this post.
People will stop being scared at different times. Its still relatively early days in pandemic terms, many people will travel far from their current feelings about this virus given sufficient time. The extent to which some measures will remain and become part of a future normal is currently unclear.
Should we end up in a situation where we have to come to terms with quite large numbers of infections on an ongoing basis, there are all sorts of implications. Under those circumstances then part of learning to live with covid will mean permanently reconfiguring the health system and its capacity, so that it can handle a higher covid burden permanently without melting. And thats just one example of how changes elsewhere can impact what has to be done to in other sectors like education in order to cope.
Personally I dont intend to come to terms with the situation fully at any stage until the picture is more settled. A fairly wide range of possibilities still exists. People will adapt and will even come to terms with overall changes to life expectancy if that becomes an enduring legacy of this virus. But thats a somewhat different issue to what level of hospitalisations the systems and authorities can cope with at particular moments. Until a permanent grip is gotten on that, we can still be buffeted around and childrens education affected by emergency responses to nasty waves of this virus. Which is also worth thinking about in another possible future context, which is one where we have the virus under control and are 'living with it' most of the time, but where nasty epidemic waves could still appear every few years that require restrictions for a period.
Last edited:
elbows
Well-Known Member
Or to put it another way, we are not yet in the phase of the pandemic where peoples attitudes to the virus and how seriously we should take it are the key difference maker that is blocking a sustained return to normal.
Those attitudes are one factor, and would be expected to become more of a key one over time. So when we are further into that stage then my own attitudes about that stuff will change. I wont be butting heads so much with people who think we should be getting on with normal life more. But make no mistake, we are still at the stage where authorities worry about hospital systems being overloaded by this virus. Thats the big driving force that will determine a lot of what we have to live through in the next 6 months. Thats what could lead to authorities rhetoric shifting again in similar ways to those we've become accustomed to in the last 18 months, and I cannot confidently assure anyone that we are beyond that point yet. We could be, but I wouldnt expect to be able to really tell until we actually got through the more difficult seasons at least once without measures having to be triggered.
Those attitudes are one factor, and would be expected to become more of a key one over time. So when we are further into that stage then my own attitudes about that stuff will change. I wont be butting heads so much with people who think we should be getting on with normal life more. But make no mistake, we are still at the stage where authorities worry about hospital systems being overloaded by this virus. Thats the big driving force that will determine a lot of what we have to live through in the next 6 months. Thats what could lead to authorities rhetoric shifting again in similar ways to those we've become accustomed to in the last 18 months, and I cannot confidently assure anyone that we are beyond that point yet. We could be, but I wouldnt expect to be able to really tell until we actually got through the more difficult seasons at least once without measures having to be triggered.
Similar threads
