For those who get frustrated about people quoting deaths as per worldometer site as a reliable indicator - France brought a large number of people back to life yesterday - and the site faithfully reported this in its figures!
Why is the UK the only country where no-one seems to recover?
We've had one or two contributors do so, haven't we? And I know directly someone who has and of others as friends of friends.
Yes, but every other country except us is reporting statistics on it.
Britain is correctly prioritising death statistics. Its series on excess deaths is probably the single most important and gives us a much fuller picture than most have as to what is going on.
Of course it's very important to have the excess death statistics. Also, no country will have a completely accurate picture at any time of the proportion of the population who are currently living with the virus. Nevertheless, I think the recovery statistics are also helpful, if you read them in parallel with the other stats, and some context from the country/region.
So, for example, reported active cases per capita was extremely high in Iceland and the Faroes in March, but they are very low now: that is largely because testing worked in those countries alongside other public health measures (and closing borders I suppose). There have been sharp rises in the number of active cases in several Gulf states recently, including Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, but that also seems to be a result of extensive testing, and the death rates are still relatively low, so they could also fall sharply in a month or so (though that largely depends on how they treat migrant workers and how people come and go with other countries). On the other hand, in other parts of the world with weaker health care systems, such as much of Latin America, Africa and South Asia, the stats on active cases may be less reliable and therefore less helpful.
In the UK, I think having an idea of the active number of cases, disaggregated as locally as possible, as a proportion of the population of the area, would significantly help with planning and direction of resources, and could also increase public confidence, for example of parents about whether to send their children back to school. It would also mean that in areas that are localized hotspots at any one time, people could be more careful. This would all have to be in parallel, of course, with functional contact tracing, availability of PPE and so on.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
Give it time.. Nicola's rating are heading for a fall. Shit and fan shortly >?
Heard it all ten thousand times before. Mind you, stopped clock and all that: sometime a Unionist will actually get it right. By pure fluke.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
At the risk of sounding like a cybernat, this is good news for the SNP. The more split the opposition, the better for them.
You do not need to be a ScotNat nor a BritNat to see that the Carlaw/Leonard/Rennie axis is ugly, split and weak. Even neutral(ish) observers cannot miss that particular elephant.
It has been obvious for many weeks that Care homes had patients dumped on them by the NHS who were clearing wards for a tsunami of patients that in most parts of the country never came.
What is less clear is whether this was the source of infection in those care homes. Most of those cleared out will not have had CV, they were simply waiting for adequate care packages. They probably didn't get them which is almost certainly one of the reasons there have been so many "excess" deaths in care homes not directly caused by the virus. Lots of ill, confused, old people dumped into a strange environment without adequate resources and no contact with their loved ones, its hardly surprising. In normal times 50% of those put into care home die within 480 days. In the last couple of months I suspect 48 days will be found to have been more typical.
Care homes of course have a concentration of those most vulnerable to the disease. Was it ever realistic that they could be sufficiently isolated with staff and suppliers coming and going? Evidence elsewhere in Europe suggests not but I think that the first factor I have mentioned is why the UK's death toll in homes will prove to be such an outlier.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
Give it time.. Nicola's rating are heading for a fall. Shit and fan shortly >?
Heard it all ten thousand times before. Mind you, stopped clock and all that: sometime a Unionist will actually get it right. By pure fluke.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
The Times?! Guffaw. Widely read in key battlegrounds. Not.
We've had one or two contributors do so, haven't we? And I know directly someone who has and of others as friends of friends.
Yes, but every other country except us is reporting statistics on it.
Britain is correctly prioritising death statistics. Its series on excess deaths is probably the single most important and gives us a much fuller picture than most have as to what is going on.
Of course it's very important to have the excess death statistics. Also, no country will have a completely accurate picture at any time of the proportion of the population who are currently living with the virus. Nevertheless, I think the recovery statistics are also helpful, if you read them in parallel with the other stats, and some context from the country/region.
So, for example, reported active cases per capita was extremely high in Iceland and the Faroes in March, but they are very low now: that is largely because testing worked in those countries alongside other public health measures (and closing borders I suppose). There have been sharp rises in the number of active cases in several Gulf states recently, including Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, but that also seems to be a result of extensive testing, and the death rates are still relatively low, so they could also fall sharply in a month or so (though that largely depends on how they treat migrant workers and how people come and go with other countries). On the other hand, in other parts of the world with weaker health care systems, such as much of Latin America, Africa and South Asia, the stats on active cases may be less reliable and therefore less helpful.
In the UK, I think having an idea of the active number of cases, disaggregated as locally as possible, as a proportion of the population of the area, would significantly help with planning and direction of resources, and could also increase public confidence, for example of parents about whether to send their children back to school. It would also mean that in areas that are localized hotspots at any one time, people could be more careful. This would all have to be in parallel, of course, with functional contact tracing, availability of PPE and so on.
I agree. But to do that, first you need to have a reliable idea how many cases are out there. Because the government was so slow getting testing to an adequate level, that has only become a conceivable aim very recently indeed.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Cambridge (and Oxford) has a different model. The most worthwhile teaching for most (all?) subjects is very regular 1:1 or 2:1 or 4/5:1 with tutors.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
in the browser settings, on mine three little dots top right.
Then phone is no problem
Is "browser settings" part of the PB site or do you mean the normal phone "settings" icon? Sorry, I`m rubbish at this.
It is a part of the browser, google as standard in most non iphones.
Scroll up, you can see the address bar where the site address is. A button to the right of that
I have iphone. I`ll get my daughter to take a look. Thanks for your help.
On iPhone you should have AA on the left of the address bar. Click on that to bring up menu and select Request Desktop Site.
I have no AA in address bar. Neither does my wife on her iphone. Pissed off with this. The new site was supposed to be an improvement. Now I have to go to my desktop to access PB.com.
Bottom of the mobile version is a link to 'Classic version' - puts you back on the desktop site.
Classic deflation after a collapse in the velocity of money. I got my monthly credit card bill yesterday. It was £70, one tank of fuel in the month and I haven't filled up this month. Normally I would be more like £1500 including accommodation for several nights in Edinburgh.
Yes. I've spent money on drink, a few takeaways and a single tank of diesel in the last 9 weeks and thats it. Even had an exchange of emails with my usual hotel last night to check if I was a keyworker for my forthcoming bookings. I am, but will cancel them on a rolling basis as this continues on. My usual 5 nights away every month routine is I suspect gone and isn't coming back, but I book so far out to get the cheapest rate so why cancel yet when I don't need to?
"Go spend that surplus money" say the government. Errr no. I'll clear off some borrowing thanks.
We've had one or two contributors do so, haven't we? And I know directly someone who has and of others as friends of friends.
Yes, but every other country except us is reporting statistics on it.
Britain is correctly prioritising death statistics. Its series on excess deaths is probably the single most important and gives us a much fuller picture than most have as to what is going on.
Of course it's very important to have the excess death statistics. Also, no country will have a completely accurate picture at any time of the proportion of the population who are currently living with the virus. Nevertheless, I think the recovery statistics are also helpful, if you read them in parallel with the other stats, and some context from the country/region.
So, for example, reported active cases per capita was extremely high in Iceland and the Faroes in March, but they are very low now: that is largely because testing worked in those countries alongside other public health measures (and closing borders I suppose). There have been sharp rises in the number of active cases in several Gulf states recently, including Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, but that also seems to be a result of extensive testing, and the death rates are still relatively low, so they could also fall sharply in a month or so (though that largely depends on how they treat migrant workers and how people come and go with other countries). On the other hand, in other parts of the world with weaker health care systems, such as much of Latin America, Africa and South Asia, the stats on active cases may be less reliable and therefore less helpful.
In the UK, I think having an idea of the active number of cases, disaggregated as locally as possible, as a proportion of the population of the area, would significantly help with planning and direction of resources, and could also increase public confidence, for example of parents about whether to send their children back to school. It would also mean that in areas that are localized hotspots at any one time, people could be more careful. This would all have to be in parallel, of course, with functional contact tracing, availability of PPE and so on.
I agree. But to do that, first you need to have a reliable idea how many cases are out there. Because the government was so slow getting testing to an adequate level, that has only become a conceivable aim very recently indeed.
You're quite right. What I think would be really helpful at this stage is if the Government made a public commitment to beginning to introduce stats on recovered cases. Coupled with wider testing (if it actually happens), we might be able to catch up with other countries, at least as far as knowing what the situation is in this country, in a couple of months or so...
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
in the browser settings, on mine three little dots top right.
Then phone is no problem
Is "browser settings" part of the PB site or do you mean the normal phone "settings" icon? Sorry, I`m rubbish at this.
It is a part of the browser, google as standard in most non iphones.
Scroll up, you can see the address bar where the site address is. A button to the right of that
I have iphone. I`ll get my daughter to take a look. Thanks for your help.
On iPhone you should have AA on the left of the address bar. Click on that to bring up menu and select Request Desktop Site.
I have no AA in address bar. Neither does my wife on her iphone. Pissed off with this. The new site was supposed to be an improvement. Now I have to go to my desktop to access PB.com.
Bottom of the mobile version is a link to 'Classic version' - puts you back on the desktop site.
Yes, I found that. But you have to scroll right down to bottom press it , then on my phone it goes into classic version and them immediately clicks back out to new one and I have to repeat again. Then it works. Why should I have to jump through these hoops just to access a website as before. I`m annoyed as you can tell. I hate wasting time.
He’s been getting feedback from MPs I’d guess. I’ve been asking the parents in my social group in a non-leading way about this and even the most government-friendly ones are very wary. Compelling parents to put their children in what they perceive as harm’s way would be hugely unpopular.
Or so they say in a social group.
In my experience (on a 1:1 basis) opinion is very mixed.
One of my colleagues I spoke to yesterday is sending his back on Day One, same as me.
I don’t have children and I sympathise with your approach (indeed, I have been encouraging parents to send them back to school when the time comes, not least because most of the parents look knackered).
The fear of many about the health risks is clear. The studies about something like Kawasaki syndrome have been picked up on a lot.
It is fear. I remember similar fears about AIDS and therefore unprotected sex in the early 90s and I was terrified of eating beef for a couple of years in case I got mad cow disease.
It's largely irrational.
I see a real split amongst my network. Those parents who have management jobs and no at home childcare arrangements (spouse, live in grandparents etc) are pretty keen to get their kids back to school. Those with slightly less onerous jobs, much more reluctance....in line with @AlastairMeeks experience.
in the browser settings, on mine three little dots top right.
Then phone is no problem
Is "browser settings" part of the PB site or do you mean the normal phone "settings" icon? Sorry, I`m rubbish at this.
It is a part of the browser, google as standard in most non iphones.
Scroll up, you can see the address bar where the site address is. A button to the right of that
I have iphone. I`ll get my daughter to take a look. Thanks for your help.
On iPhone you should have AA on the left of the address bar. Click on that to bring up menu and select Request Desktop Site.
I have no AA in address bar. Neither does my wife on her iphone. Pissed off with this. The new site was supposed to be an improvement. Now I have to go to my desktop to access PB.com.
Bottom of the mobile version is a link to 'Classic version' - puts you back on the desktop site.
Yes, I found that. But you have to scroll right down to bottom press it , then on my phone it goes into classic version and them immediately clicks back out to new one and I have to repeat again. Then it works. Why should I have to jump through these hoops just to access a website as before. I`m annoyed as you can tell. I hate wasting time.
I use Chrome, and it works for me, if thats any help?
Classic deflation after a collapse in the velocity of money. I got my monthly credit card bill yesterday. It was £70, one tank of fuel in the month and I haven't filled up this month. Normally I would be more like £1500 including accommodation for several nights in Edinburgh.
Yes. I've spent money on drink, a few takeaways and a single tank of diesel in the last 9 weeks and thats it. Even had an exchange of emails with my usual hotel last night to check if I was a keyworker for my forthcoming bookings. I am, but will cancel them on a rolling basis as this continues on. My usual 5 nights away every month routine is I suspect gone and isn't coming back, but I book so far out to get the cheapest rate so why cancel yet when I don't need to?
"Go spend that surplus money" say the government. Errr no. I'll clear off some borrowing thanks.
I seem to have solved the "surplus money" issue by having a collapse in earnings but its quite a relief that there has also been a collapse in costs.
They lie, you die. Though with two of the four great offices of state filled by proven liars sacked for lying should anyone be surprised that the official government position here is also a lie? There apparently categorically wasn't a switch in approach due to lack of testing capacity. Until its confirmed there was. There definitely wasn't an edict to hospitals to discharge back to care homes. Until the document is leaked. And definitely wasn't any shortage of testing. Until there was.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
Classic deflation after a collapse in the velocity of money. I got my monthly credit card bill yesterday. It was £70, one tank of fuel in the month and I haven't filled up this month. Normally I would be more like £1500 including accommodation for several nights in Edinburgh.
Yes. I've spent money on drink, a few takeaways and a single tank of diesel in the last 9 weeks and thats it. Even had an exchange of emails with my usual hotel last night to check if I was a keyworker for my forthcoming bookings. I am, but will cancel them on a rolling basis as this continues on. My usual 5 nights away every month routine is I suspect gone and isn't coming back, but I book so far out to get the cheapest rate so why cancel yet when I don't need to?
"Go spend that surplus money" say the government. Errr no. I'll clear off some borrowing thanks.
Just had my CC bill, too - business expenses down 100%, personal down about 75%. It's just food and drink at home, and a single takeaway in a month. Makes me wonder just how low interest rates may have to go to stimulate some more demand....
The BBC is hoping to bring back BBC Three as a regular TV channel, four years after it was taken off air and moved online.
Good. There are several million channels of complete shite. Beeb 3 might not be the best channel in the world, but it’s better than most of them.
I now have two more episodes of Normal People to go. I am not normally one for TV miniseries, but this is exceptionally good. Very nuanced characterisation and scripting. Painfully beautiful to watch.
I found the book to be absolute drivel - obvious, mopey and didnt even go anywhere - so either it's been tremendously adapted for the screen or we have very different tastes.
This was reported on Jeremy Vine radio 2 on 8th April. By that stage we knew that Italy had realised, late in the day, that 1,000s were dying in their care homes. I imagine a conscious decision was made that the UK would tacitly accept care home deaths as the price of saving younger lives; where things went wrong was that our hospitals were not overwhelmed and that trade off was never there to be made.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
I know. University is about so much more than lectures and those going this year will really miss out in the important bits.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Maybe things have changed, but when I went to university there was minimal interaction with lecturers, and lectures might as well have been recorded and delivered online - particularly if it meant they could be better prepared and presented.
Of course, if that were true and generally acknowledged it would have a rather devastating effect on the justification for employing so many lecturers ...
That was already the case! Do people not read first time around so they act amazed when things get repeated later?
My daughters school has been in touch last week to confirm they're reopening though later in the week, not on 1 June though they're reopening on 3 June. As seems quite common I've seen others including in this thread mention that date.
1 June was never a deadline. It was an earliest possible date.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
There are several possible explanations for why Sturgeon is doing significantly better than Johnson. Some are substantive and important; others are trivial trappings.
As a former marketing man, I am of course interested in trappings over substance*. I would point out that Bute House/St Andrew's House is much better at positioning, sales and marketing than Downing Street/Whitehall. Boris needs a quality ad man.
(*for the avoidance of doubt: that was an attempt at humour)
He’s been getting feedback from MPs I’d guess. I’ve been asking the parents in my social group in a non-leading way about this and even the most government-friendly ones are very wary. Compelling parents to put their children in what they perceive as harm’s way would be hugely unpopular.
Or so they say in a social group.
In my experience (on a 1:1 basis) opinion is very mixed.
One of my colleagues I spoke to yesterday is sending his back on Day One, same as me.
I don’t have children and I sympathise with your approach (indeed, I have been encouraging parents to send them back to school when the time comes, not least because most of the parents look knackered).
The fear of many about the health risks is clear. The studies about something like Kawasaki syndrome have been picked up on a lot.
I have a child in year 6 so face a big dilemma in early June as to whether to send him back to school or not. Currently we are very uncertain. The piece in the Guardian on the science of sending kids back to school is something I found pretty useful for thinking it through (can't seem to access the paste fcn to add the link sorry). One thing that struck me was that some of the studies showing little risk come from situations with tiny class sizes, effective social distancing and proper testing and tracing systems in place. Our head has told us that social distancing will not be possible at school (which is obvious from the number of kids to be accommodated in a small space). So I am far from convinced that we are ready to do this in England.
That was already the case! Do people not read first time around so they act amazed when things get repeated later?
My daughters school has been in touch last week to confirm they're reopening though later in the week, not on 1 June though they're reopening on 3 June. As seems quite common I've seen others including in this thread mention that date.
1 June was never a deadline. It was an earliest possible date.
What I dont get is the excitement of Scott as though this like a u turn on passing a bill or something when the precise date doesnt matter. Theyd hoped to do it by then, it's not suitable for then, its moved a bit, so what?
I'd stick to the care home stuff, much meatier story.
Ha Ha - thanks Gallowgate. No I don`t have this button. neither does my wife on her iphone.
You clearly haven’t updated your phones in a while! In that case, you need to hold down the curly arrow, that’s normally used to refresh the page, and a button should pop up from the bottom that allows you to “Request Desktop Site”.
This was reported on Jeremy Vine radio 2 on 8th April. By that stage we knew that Italy had realised, late in the day, that 1,000s were dying in their care homes. I imagine a conscious decision was made that the UK would tacitly accept care home deaths as the price of saving younger lives; where things went wrong was that our hospitals were not overwhelmed and that trade off was never there to be made.
Exactly, but they were not to know that. Remember the reports of Italian Doctors making decisions on who to treat in the tents that had been erected outside hospitals as they did not have enough beds. Those who were deemed to ill got no treatment and were left outside to die. The Governments political problem now is that the NHS has coped so well.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
Lectures are just not as big a deal at Oxbridge - we always saw them as third division, behind I) Tutes and II) Self study.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
I know. University is about so much more than lectures and those going this year will really miss out in the important bits.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
True but any lecture could take down an entire subject worth of students.
Mind you it would make identifying the ones that skipped the lecture obvious.
I’m due to continue at university in September to complete the LPC. If it’s going to be all distant learning I probably won’t, and perhaps do it part-time and work if I can get a job...
40,000 National Guards have been deployed by the US Federal Govt to help the States. They are running testing stations, helping in homes, etc, etc, etc,
The States have asked for an extension of their deployment into the Autumn. The Trump administration has extended their deployment to an apparent random date of 24 June.
What is special about the 24 June? Well on 24 June they will have been deployed for 89 days. On 90 days they are entitled to some retirement and education benefits.
Ha Ha - thanks Gallowgate. No I don`t have this button. neither does my wife on her iphone.
You clearly haven’t updated your phones in a while! In that case, you need to hold down the curly arrow, that’s normally used to refresh the page, and a button should pop up from the bottom that allows you to “Request Desktop Site”.
Yeah - that works! You are a genius. It now comes up as was. Many thanks.
He’s been getting feedback from MPs I’d guess. I’ve been asking the parents in my social group in a non-leading way about this and even the most government-friendly ones are very wary. Compelling parents to put their children in what they perceive as harm’s way would be hugely unpopular.
Or so they say in a social group.
In my experience (on a 1:1 basis) opinion is very mixed.
One of my colleagues I spoke to yesterday is sending his back on Day One, same as me.
I don’t have children and I sympathise with your approach (indeed, I have been encouraging parents to send them back to school when the time comes, not least because most of the parents look knackered).
The fear of many about the health risks is clear. The studies about something like Kawasaki syndrome have been picked up on a lot.
It is fear. I remember similar fears about AIDS and therefore unprotected sex in the early 90s and I was terrified of eating beef for a couple of years in case I got mad cow disease.
It's largely irrational.
I see a real split amongst my network. Those parents who have management jobs and no at home childcare arrangements (spouse, live in grandparents etc) are pretty keen to get their kids back to school. Those with slightly less onerous jobs, much more reluctance....in line with @AlastairMeeks experience.
That figures. Necessity is the mother of all invention.
I think the risk to our daughter is vanishingly small.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
I know. University is about so much more than lectures and those going this year will really miss out in the important bits.
He’s been getting feedback from MPs I’d guess. I’ve been asking the parents in my social group in a non-leading way about this and even the most government-friendly ones are very wary. Compelling parents to put their children in what they perceive as harm’s way would be hugely unpopular.
Or so they say in a social group.
In my experience (on a 1:1 basis) opinion is very mixed.
One of my colleagues I spoke to yesterday is sending his back on Day One, same as me.
I don’t have children and I sympathise with your approach (indeed, I have been encouraging parents to send them back to school when the time comes, not least because most of the parents look knackered).
The fear of many about the health risks is clear. The studies about something like Kawasaki syndrome have been picked up on a lot.
It is fear. I remember similar fears about AIDS and therefore unprotected sex in the early 90s and I was terrified of eating beef for a couple of years in case I got mad cow disease.
It's largely irrational.
I see a real split amongst my network. Those parents who have management jobs and no at home childcare arrangements (spouse, live in grandparents etc) are pretty keen to get their kids back to school. Those with slightly less onerous jobs, much more reluctance....in line with @AlastairMeeks experience.
That figures. Necessity is the mother of all invention.
I think the risk to our daughter is vanishingly small.
I think thats probably about right.
Concurrently, I don't see the risk of a loss of a few more weeks education for children with engaged parents. My main concern, however, is for the children who get little or no learning opportunities/encouragement away from school.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Cambridge (and Oxford) has a different model. The most worthwhile teaching for most (all?) subjects is very regular 1:1 or 2:1 or 4/5:1 with tutors.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
At my university there are contingency plans for online lectures to continue and expected to be the case, at least in part, for the Autumn term. It does beg the question of why students would go this year, not because the teaching will be lower quality (in most courses, those with labs may be tricky) but due to the lack of student experience. Imagine going somewhere completely new and not being able to socialise with others except online. Having said that, what are the alternatives? Gap years are going to be pretty dull if there are restrictions; there won't be many jobs to fill the space. So maybe not as bad as we all might expect.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities' pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead.
(In case not clear, I'm aware that I'm very lucky - secure job for now, no pay cut so far, easy for me to work from home, but my industry may have big problems in the next year or so)
40,000 National Guards have been deployed by the US Federal Govt to help the States. They are running testing stations, helping in homes, etc, etc, etc,
The States have asked for an extension of their deployment into the Autumn. The Trump administration has extended their deployment to an apparent random date of 24 June.
What is special about the 24 June? Well on 24 June they will have been deployed for 89 days. On 90 days they are entitled to some retirement and education benefits.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
We could but I think that's unlikely. We don't have the speedy testing or tracing we require. Social distancing etc will keep the R rate under control, whatever shops etc are allowed to open, we are all trained in that now. But I can see infections burbling along at several hundred to a thousand a day for a very long time.
The bigger concern, as @RochdalePioneers has pointed out, are all the other aspects of University life. Will the student unions be open, the Societies operational, the common rooms available? Will there be any kind of a social life or sports? For many Universities the only sensible conclusion is why would you want to pay £10k for halls when you can do the course at home and there is nothing else to do there? Oxbridge may be more complicated for the reasons @Mortimer explained.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
I know. University is about so much more than lectures and those going this year will really miss out in the important bits.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
I would hate to have missed out on that.
My wife wasn't at Uni as such, but a Teacher Training College. She is still, 60 (almost) years later in touch with eight of the people on her 'floor' and in on a monthly visiting regimen with the three who live 'nearest'. That is within about 60 miles.
I don't want to catch out this government of liars like its a sport. They lie, you die. I want fewer people to die of this disease. Fewer people to catch it. Fewer people to have their lives and businesses ruined. Fewer people to suffer. The need to hold the government to account is so that they can finally be forced to act.
I want my kids to go back to school because they want and need to learn. Online bits simply isn't the same, nor is the lack of physical interaction with other children. But we can't just throw them back into schools because some liar claims its a good idea, and as pretty much all the teachers are pointing out trying to test and learn the new rules and restrictions with the smallest children is utter lunacy - you cannot tell a 5 year old to socially distance when they're upset or excited to see their friends for the first time in months.
BUT WHAT ABOUT OTHER COUNTRIES goes the cry? Yes, like Denmark who had 10% of the deaths we've had, or South Korea who had 5% and are sending their kids to school in masks. We aren't like them, we aren't doing like them, but the blame is with feckless teachers and next month it will be workshy parents withholding their kids from school.
Someone mentioned Jason Cundy comparing schools to care homes. This government said there was no risk in care homes either. No need to test patients being forcibly removed from hospitals and dumped back into said care homes. No risk. Then they wonder why people aren't following their simple advice which always follows the science until the scientists pop up and point out that it was a political decision based on lack of testing capability...
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
University does seem an expensive and time-consuming way of meeting people though.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
It’s not expensive though, at least not at undergraduate level. The “debt” is rather meaningless. I’m sitting on at least £30k of it, and it has no effect on my life.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
We could but I think that's unlikely. We don't have the speedy testing or tracing we require. Social distancing etc will keep the R rate under control, whatever shops etc are allowed to open, we are all trained in that now. But I can see infections burbling along at several hundred to a thousand a day for a very long time.
The bigger concern, as @RochdalePioneers has pointed out, are all the other aspects of University life. Will the student unions be open, the Societies operational, the common rooms available? Will there be any kind of a social life or sports? For many Universities the only sensible conclusion is why would you want to pay £10k for halls when you can do the course at home and there is nothing else to do there? Oxbridge may be more complicated for the reasons @Mortimer explained.
Hopefully the Oxford Union and Cambridge Footlights will remain closed. Politics and light entertainment will benefit for many years to come.
Swedish schools (for under 16s) have been open throughout. It is a non-issue.
The problem with closing things is not the initial closure, but the much more difficult re-opening. It is a bit like the classic equity market problem: yes, of course it is fantastic to sell at or near the top, but you also need to buy at or near the bottom. In other words, you need to get it right *twice*, which is bloody hard, which is why most intelligent folks just shrug their shoulders and stay in.
The mental health repercussions of disrupted education and social life for the young, in combination with mass unemployment, could well outweigh the benefits of lockdown. We’ll have a better idea of that when we have the perspective of hindsight.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Cambridge (and Oxford) has a different model. The most worthwhile teaching for most (all?) subjects is very regular 1:1 or 2:1 or 4/5:1 with tutors.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
At my university there are contingency plans for online lectures to continue and expected to be the case, at least in part, for the Autumn term. It does beg the question of why students would go this year, not because the teaching will be lower quality (in most courses, those with labs may be tricky) but due to the lack of student experience. Imagine going somewhere completely new and not being able to socialise with others except online. Having said that, what are the alternatives? Gap years are going to be pretty dull if there are restrictions; there won't be many jobs to fill the space. So maybe not as bad as we all might expect.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead
The gap in funding is going to be massive and will come from a very sharp drop off of foreign students who pay by far the highest fees. Edinburgh is looking at a gap of something like £150m, mainly from the Chinese market. And of course the effect of that will be felt for 3-4 years as that depleted cohort works through. For the University sector winter is coming I'm afraid.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
I know. University is about so much more than lectures and those going this year will really miss out in the important bits.
The lash.
Spinning slowly round on a kids roundabout in the park at 3am staring up at the stars and expressing interesting theories about the meaning of life to your friends whilst smoking a large joint. For example...
The silver lining with the widespread concerns about return to school, is that they will inform the eventual return, when it happens. Hopefully this will mean a less chaotic return than it would otherwise be.
At my university there are contingency plans for online lectures to continue and expected to be the case, at least in part, for the Autumn term. It does beg the question of why students would go this year, not because the teaching will be lower quality (in most courses, those with labs may be tricky) but due to the lack of student experience. Imagine going somewhere completely new and not being able to socialise with others except online. Having said that, what are the alternatives? Gap years are going to be pretty dull if there are restrictions; there won't be many jobs to fill the space. So maybe not as bad as we all might expect.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities' pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead.
(In case not clear, I'm aware that I'm very lucky - secure job for now, no pay cut so far, easy for me to work from home, but my industry may have big problems in the next year or so)
Like you I'm watching on with interest. I have a part-time job with a University supporting dance and theatre courses and I reckon it's 50/50 on whether I'll be made redundant when furlough ends.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
Its not just the cost of tuition. With respect to it they don't actually have to pay that up front nor is it really debt, just a hypothecated tax on future earnings above a certain level. The real banger is the cost of living. Halls cost a bomb. Pay the cash to live away. But don't attend lectures. Don't socialise. Don't party. Don't spend lengthy nights talking drunk/stoned shit in somene's room down the hall. Pay the bills. But don't have fun or study properly.
I know. University is about so much more than lectures and those going this year will really miss out in the important bits.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
I would hate to have missed out on that.
Exactly so. I met my wife there. We still have friends from that time 35 years on.
I have a child in year 6 so face a big dilemma in early June as to whether to send him back to school or not. Currently we are very uncertain. The piece in the Guardian on the science of sending kids back to school is something I found pretty useful for thinking it through (can't seem to access the paste fcn to add the link sorry). One thing that struck me was that some of the studies showing little risk come from situations with tiny class sizes, effective social distancing and proper testing and tracing systems in place. Our head has told us that social distancing will not be possible at school (which is obvious from the number of kids to be accommodated in a small space). So I am far from convinced that we are ready to do this in England.
It's a nasty dilemma and nobody should advise without knowing the details of your situation. In general, I think I'd feel that parents who are in a position to provide home education for a few months should stick it out and expect to send the kids back in September, while parents who can't for whatever reason should probably send them back, but it depends on the details of the home arrangements and the school and what one makes of the fragmentary science.
I do think Britain exaggerates the importance of early formal schooling - in many countries they start later than we do, with no obvious impact on later attainment. But giving children active interaction (including via Zoom etc.) at almost any age is pretty crucial. Living abroad, I was only sent to school from 8, but had loads of home teaching before - the net effect was that I was more advanced but also more shy. Hard to win!
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
University does seem an expensive and time-consuming way of meeting people though.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
It’s not expensive though, at least not at undergraduate level. The “debt” is rather meaningless. I’m sitting on at least £30k of it, and it has no effect on my life.
My graduate grandchildren seem totally unfazed by the debt's they are carrying. Possibly interesting thought ...... couple of years Eldest Grandson and his (then) fiancée were furnishing their first home, and we gave them, inter alia of course, a substantial contribution to a suite of furniture. The rest was on HP. The HP firm were 'interested' in their mortgage but totally uninterested in their student debts...... four years worth in one case, three in the other.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Cambridge (and Oxford) has a different model. The most worthwhile teaching for most (all?) subjects is very regular 1:1 or 2:1 or 4/5:1 with tutors.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
At my university there are contingency plans for online lectures to continue and expected to be the case, at least in part, for the Autumn term. It does beg the question of why students would go this year, not because the teaching will be lower quality (in most courses, those with labs may be tricky) but due to the lack of student experience. Imagine going somewhere completely new and not being able to socialise with others except online. Having said that, what are the alternatives? Gap years are going to be pretty dull if there are restrictions; there won't be many jobs to fill the space. So maybe not as bad as we all might expect.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities' pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead.
(In case not clear, I'm aware that I'm very lucky - secure job for now, no pay cut so far, easy for me to work from home, but my industry may have big problems in the next year or so)
30% of pay into pensions across the university? Am I reading that right or is it an individual choice? That is crazy, particularly in a sector where people can work at a high level into their sixties and beyond. Surely it just encourages people to retire at 50ish?
Yup, that's what I get. How did the e-exam go yesterday.
Thanks for asking @OldKingCole, I think it went well! Half way through my exams now. The next one is tomorrow: mind-numbingly boring EU law.
My stable, Terrafirmachambers, did an online seminar about the continuing effect of EU law yesterday. Only an hour with 4 reasonably digestible talks. I understand that it is available on youtube. PM me if you want a link.
I am whiling away lockdown by doing, online, the theory part of the coastal skipper qualification. It seems a perfectly satisfactory way of learning something (but then perhaps I am more disciplined than I was 30 years ago).
And one final aftertiming gloat - I sold GCP student living in February. This crisis has seen off the theory that REITs and suchlike property shares are uncorrelated with equities generally.
It’s pretty obvious that the assessment was that the biggest threat from the virus came from an overwhelmed health service. Everything was done in that context (cancelling routine and non emergency hospital treatment and cancellations, clearing the beds, and indeed the lockdown policy itself etc etc). It didn’t help clearly that Care homes fall outside of the jurisdiction of those planning and implementing this policy. Since the health service wasn’t overwhelmed it’s difficult to know if that was ultimately justified.
It may be the case that age and vulnerability is far far more important than ability to access hospital care and most of the approach was therefore misguided.
The point is that they did not know that the health service was not going to be overwhelmed. Imagine if they did not clear hospitals out and then the NHS was overrun. How many retweets would there be from Scott about the Governments failure to protect the NHS?
I wouldn't be surprised if similar post hoc justifications were made for the Maginot Line.
Starmer is doing well in Scotland thus far: he’s in a +5 to +10 range, which is approximately where Ruth Davidson used to poll before she got the boot.
Starmer is certainly miles ahead of Richard Leonard, and galaxies ahead of Boris Johnson, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn ratings.
The problem is he is well behind Sturgeon.
The missing man is Jackson Carlaw, who theoretically is the main Unionist candidate to be Next FM. In reality he is nothing of the sort.
Give it time.. Nicola's rating are heading for a fall. Shit and fan shortly >?
Heard it all ten thousand times before. Mind you, stopped clock and all that: sometime a Unionist will actually get it right. By pure fluke.
Tbf Rooty just hates Sturgeon for some unaccountable reason.
It’s pretty obvious that the assessment was that the biggest threat from the virus came from an overwhelmed health service. Everything was done in that context (cancelling routine and non emergency hospital treatment and cancellations, clearing the beds, and indeed the lockdown policy itself etc etc). It didn’t help clearly that Care homes fall outside of the jurisdiction of those planning and implementing this policy. Since the health service wasn’t overwhelmed it’s difficult to know if that was ultimately justified.
It may be the case that age and vulnerability is far far more important than ability to access hospital care and most of the approach was therefore misguided.
The point is that they did not know that the health service was not going to be overwhelmed. Imagine if they did not clear hospitals out and then the NHS was overrun. How many retweets would there be from Scott about the Governments failure to protect the NHS?
I wouldn't be surprised if similar post hoc justifications were made for the Maginot Line.
For Conrad fans, It's like Lord Jim - the problem being the ship not sinking.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
True but any lecture could take down an entire subject worth of students.
Mind you it would make identifying the ones that skipped the lecture obvious.
Cambridge University is too dangerous for students whereas Cambridge Infants School needs to start packing them in from the end of the month. No mixed signals there.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Not to say Sturgeon would have done better if she'd been running the show - we can't know that - but there is a correlation between the countries with an above average virus performance and female leaders.
It also appears that the worst type of leader to have in this situation is a Strongman. The Putins, the Bolsonaros, the Lukashenkos. These guys have their qualities but they are handicapped in meeting the challenge of Covid-19 by a pronounced tendency to not give a shit about people dying.
I exempt President Donald Trump from the above since he is a wannabee Strongman rather than the real thing. He has the requisite indifference to pain and suffering but - thankfully for USA - he lacks the power to give full vent to it. The states are able to mitigate.
It’s pretty obvious that the assessment was that the biggest threat from the virus came from an overwhelmed health service. Everything was done in that context (cancelling routine and non emergency hospital treatment and cancellations, clearing the beds, and indeed the lockdown policy itself etc etc). It didn’t help clearly that Care homes fall outside of the jurisdiction of those planning and implementing this policy. Since the health service wasn’t overwhelmed it’s difficult to know if that was ultimately justified.
It may be the case that age and vulnerability is far far more important than ability to access hospital care and most of the approach was therefore misguided.
The point is that they did not know that the health service was not going to be overwhelmed. Imagine if they did not clear hospitals out and then the NHS was overrun. How many retweets would there be from Scott about the Governments failure to protect the NHS?
I wouldn't be surprised if similar post hoc justifications were made for the Maginot Line.
So if you were in Government and you read this, ( and remember everyone said the Italian Health System was much better than ours) what would you have done?
This was reported on Jeremy Vine radio 2 on 8th April. By that stage we knew that Italy had realised, late in the day, that 1,000s were dying in their care homes. I imagine a conscious decision was made that the UK would tacitly accept care home deaths as the price of saving younger lives; where things went wrong was that our hospitals were not overwhelmed and that trade off was never there to be made.
The problem with this story that I don't see an easy answer to is the word "back".
This wasn't the hospital dumping a patient on a care home, this was a care home patient returning back to their own home after being discharged. Now in an ideal world they'd have been tested first but clearly there wasn't sufficient testing capacity to do that.
So I'm not sure what else they're supposed to do? Genuine question. If a care home has a patient who needs medical treatment they will quite rightly send them to the hospital but the hospital can't then have them live there forever. If not back to their own home they live in then where else should discharged patients return back to?
I think before the next pandemic we need a serious answer to this question. Because the only alternative solution I can think of is that hospitals refuse to take patients from care homes - which would increase care home deaths even more.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Cambridge (and Oxford) has a different model. The most worthwhile teaching for most (all?) subjects is very regular 1:1 or 2:1 or 4/5:1 with tutors.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
At my university there are contingency plans for online lectures to continue and expected to be the case, at least in part, for the Autumn term. It does beg the question of why students would go this year, not because the teaching will be lower quality (in most courses, those with labs may be tricky) but due to the lack of student experience. Imagine going somewhere completely new and not being able to socialise with others except online. Having said that, what are the alternatives? Gap years are going to be pretty dull if there are restrictions; there won't be many jobs to fill the space. So maybe not as bad as we all might expect.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead
The gap in funding is going to be massive and will come from a very sharp drop off of foreign students who pay by far the highest fees. Edinburgh is looking at a gap of something like £150m, mainly from the Chinese market. And of course the effect of that will be felt for 3-4 years as that depleted cohort works through. For the University sector winter is coming I'm afraid.
Yes, that's the big impact. I believe the universities have agreed a non-aggression pact with regard to home students (no more than a 5% increase in numbers per university, but even that scuppers the lower ranked universities - almost all their students could be taken by higher ranked ones) but it will be ferrets in a sack when it comes to international students.
Our VC circulated some estimates from on funding shortfalls for next year - optimistic for us is over 10%, pessimistic approaching 1/3. That's for a research-intensive university, it will be much worse for those relying more heavily on fee income.
Starmer is doing well. Although it's a very challenging time for any opposition leader, he probably has just the right type of personality in this situation to make a mark: unemotional, forensic, clinical, intelligent, detailed and calm.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
University does seem an expensive and time-consuming way of meeting people though.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
I was the last year that had their fees paid.
Plus as my father pointed out sending me to university for three years was cheaper than anyone of the preceding seven years at school.
My university experience was slightly different than most. I never drank nor did I do drugs.
But you have made up for that since
Not on the drink or drugs front.
University was a bit of a culture shock for me, from an all boys school/Muslim household.
I was too innocent for university at the start.
Culture shock? My first day meant my first cheese and wine party, and my first encounter with the pineapple and cheese flavour combination, though on cocktail sticks rather than grilled on round bread.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Given Scotland have taken a different course in coming out of lockdown, some people are asking whether or not they could or should have taken different action to begin with.
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
University does seem an expensive and time-consuming way of meeting people though.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
I was the last year that had their fees paid.
Plus as my father pointed out sending me to university for three years was cheaper than anyone of the preceding seven years at school.
My university experience was slightly different than most. I never drank nor did I do drugs.
But you have made up for that since
Not on the drink or drugs front.
University was a bit of a culture shock for me, from an all boys school/Muslim household.
I was too innocent for university at the start.
Culture shock? My first day meant my first cheese and wine party, and my first encounter with the pineapple and cheese flavour combination, though on cocktail sticks rather than grilled on round bread.
My first day involved a group of strangers and I making our way to a Sainsbury’s in inner-city Newcastle to buy a huge bottle of vodka...
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Given Scotland have taken a different course in coming out of lockdown, some people are asking whether or not they could or should have taken different action to begin with.
The problem is that different regions are in different stages at the moment. The country was locked down due to London but the regions with issues at the moment are away from London (Wales, the North, Scotland).
On schools: it's the logistics. I've got a friend who works in one and they're desperately trying to work out how to make it work.
They wish to maintain social distancing as much as practicable. After all, even if kids don't die of this as much (albeit there are, I am reliably informed, children with asthma or diabetes or even other issues that can make them specifically vulnerable), it has been found that the vast majority of them live in households that contain adults.
Some of these adults will be vulnerable. Risk categories include asthma, diabetes, hypertension, age, vitamin D deficiency, and being male. If just 10% of households contain vulnerable adults, then any randomly chosen group of 7 children will have a better than fifty-fifty chance that a vulnerable adult is in close daily contact with at least one of them.
We have found some indications that children might not carry the disease to infect others. Unfortunately, this hasn't been confirmed in any remotely reliable way. It's also difficult to see how you could catch it from touching a parcel (confirmed) but not from touching a child's skin or clothes. After all, they are indeed mobile surfaces that interact with others.
So - social distancing. Maximum of 10 children per class to have any chance of this. Most schools don't have anywhere near enough classrooms to cope with even a half of their normal capacity while maintaining social distancing. Children to stay in that single bubble and not mingle. They have to go to the loo at specified times to be escorted and controlled in their group. Sectioned-off areas of the playground. No sharing anything. No playing games in close contact. No hugging friends. So many restrictions that the teachers may not have the opportunity to, you know, teach anything.
Children have been looking on a return to school and their friends as a source of hope. They traipse in, and cannot come close to their friends, have to stay in their "bubble" (even if their best friends are in another one", are in the wrong classroom with weird restrictions, probably with the wrong teacher, who's wearing mask and gloves.
It’s pretty obvious that the assessment was that the biggest threat from the virus came from an overwhelmed health service. Everything was done in that context (cancelling routine and non emergency hospital treatment and cancellations, clearing the beds, and indeed the lockdown policy itself etc etc). It didn’t help clearly that Care homes fall outside of the jurisdiction of those planning and implementing this policy. Since the health service wasn’t overwhelmed it’s difficult to know if that was ultimately justified.
It may be the case that age and vulnerability is far far more important than ability to access hospital care and most of the approach was therefore misguided.
The point is that they did not know that the health service was not going to be overwhelmed. Imagine if they did not clear hospitals out and then the NHS was overrun. How many retweets would there be from Scott about the Governments failure to protect the NHS?
I wouldn't be surprised if similar post hoc justifications were made for the Maginot Line.
For Conrad fans, It's like Lord Jim - the problem being the ship not sinking.
Trampling the oldsters in a premature rush to the lifeboats it would appear.
It’s pretty obvious that the assessment was that the biggest threat from the virus came from an overwhelmed health service. Everything was done in that context (cancelling routine and non emergency hospital treatment and cancellations, clearing the beds, and indeed the lockdown policy itself etc etc). It didn’t help clearly that Care homes fall outside of the jurisdiction of those planning and implementing this policy. Since the health service wasn’t overwhelmed it’s difficult to know if that was ultimately justified.
It may be the case that age and vulnerability is far far more important than ability to access hospital care and most of the approach was therefore misguided.
The point is that they did not know that the health service was not going to be overwhelmed. Imagine if they did not clear hospitals out and then the NHS was overrun. How many retweets would there be from Scott about the Governments failure to protect the NHS?
I wouldn't be surprised if similar post hoc justifications were made for the Maginot Line.
So if you were in Government and you read this, ( and remember everyone said the Italian Health System was much better than ours) what would you have done?
Funny how the same people who, year in, year out, complain about the fetishisation of the NHS, sorry, "our" NHS, now hasten to remind us how everyone agreed the Italian health service was better, or the German health service was better.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
I am getting increasingly concerned about this. My son is due to go to University next year. He is aiming for Oxford with fall backs such as LSE. I am now worried that he will not only be competing against his cohort but also against those due to go this year who will defer rather than pay substantial fees for an online course. It was going to be tough enough already.
The Cambridge decision sounds insane overreaction. Summer 2021?? I can hear Toby Young yelling in his writer's shed from my house!
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
True but any lecture could take down an entire subject worth of students.
Mind you it would make identifying the ones that skipped the lecture obvious.
Cambridge University is too dangerous for students whereas Cambridge Infants School needs to start packing them in from the end of the month. No mixed signals there.
As a headmaster you can say you have no choice in the matter - the local authority / Ofsted / Department of Education say you have to open so you open.
For Cambridge university the buck stops and the responsibility sits within the University.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
University does seem an expensive and time-consuming way of meeting people though.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
Time to broaden it out to more people.
We’ve tried that.
We need to reduce university numbers.
Re-invent university for the 21st century:
Flexible length from Fasttrack degrees (same content, same hours worked) available in 18 months but with workplace style schedule and holidays rather than long breaks, to current set up, to part time, distance learning over several years as with Open University
Scrap teaching ratios bigger than 10:1
Modular content
Significant proportion online
All adults over 18 get a govt funded voucher for 40 hours free education per year (at least 10 contact/30 can be online) that they can spend at university
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Again not news.
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
A simple search of the internet reveals dozens of warnings that the NHS would collapse unless everything else was cancelled and beds were made available. Im sure Scott would have great joy in posting these warnings now if the Government had not done anything and the NHS was overrun:
A factor not much discussed with respect to hospitals and care homes is that ~20% of cases in hospitals are reckoned to have caught the virus while in hospital.
So there may well be a lot of patients who were discharged from hospital to care homes, and were consequently kept safe from the virus as a result.
We circle back to the problem being insufficient testing being available, and that available being slow to the point of uselessness, that meant all these decisions were being made blind.
This is bad news for universities. If other institutions follow - and I can understand why - then the deferral rate for the 20/21 year will bankrupt them. Why would a student want to start a university course now where there are no lectures? Where there is no student life? Where you pay all the money for 15% of the experience?
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
Cambridge (and Oxford) has a different model. The most worthwhile teaching for most (all?) subjects is very regular 1:1 or 2:1 or 4/5:1 with tutors.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
At my university there are contingency plans for online lectures to continue and expected to be the case, at least in part, for the Autumn term. It does beg the question of why students would go this year, not because the teaching will be lower quality (in most courses, those with labs may be tricky) but due to the lack of student experience. Imagine going somewhere completely new and not being able to socialise with others except online. Having said that, what are the alternatives? Gap years are going to be pretty dull if there are restrictions; there won't be many jobs to fill the space. So maybe not as bad as we all might expect.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities' pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead.
(In case not clear, I'm aware that I'm very lucky - secure job for now, no pay cut so far, easy for me to work from home, but my industry may have big problems in the next year or so)
30% of pay into pensions across the university? Am I reading that right or is it an individual choice? That is crazy, particularly in a sector where people can work at a high level into their sixties and beyond. Surely it just encourages people to retire at 50ish?
Yep, you read it right 30% of overall salary, but only 10% from employee (although if universities weren't putting in 20% you could assume that headline pay might be a bit higher too). The crazy employer rates are, in theory, temporary to try and make up projected shortfalls (this all precedes the coronavirus stock market falls too). Nuts. Private sector more like 10-15% total, employee and employer?
As to why everyone doesn't retire early, at least for recentish joiners to the scheme the early retirement options are not very attractive. It is defined benefit, but for at least the last ten years or so average rather than final salary (each year of service adds 1/80, or maybe 1/85 I forget, of current salary to yearly pension - so say for a researcher on £40k each year adds £500 to the yearly pension amount - 10 years service at £40k gives a retirement pension of £5000/year. £40 years service at £40k would give a retirement pension of £20k/year - realistically you can expect over a full career to get a pension of approx half of your average career earnings. In the good old days it was 1/80 (actually better, I think, maybe 1/70 or more per year of service) of final salary. If you finished on £80k and had 40 years service you could retire on £40k. Those who paid in when it was final salary still get that number of years as final salary, which doesn't help with the shortfalls.
I think coronavirus might be the thing that finally does for defined benefit pensions in universities. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there will be mass outrage, I expect.
Most of my deepest and longest lasting friendships were formed at university.
University does seem an expensive and time-consuming way of meeting people though.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
I was the last year that had their fees paid.
Plus as my father pointed out sending me to university for three years was cheaper than anyone of the preceding seven years at school.
My university experience was slightly different than most. I never drank nor did I do drugs.
But you have made up for that since
Not on the drink or drugs front.
University was a bit of a culture shock for me, from an all boys school/Muslim household.
I was too innocent for university at the start.
Culture shock? My first day meant my first cheese and wine party, and my first encounter with the pineapple and cheese flavour combination, though on cocktail sticks rather than grilled on round bread.
Prior to university my only real interaction with non Muslim females were teachers.
I was on a pathway for an arranged marriage so my mother was worried her innocent son might get corrupted by Western ways.
One of the reasons she wanted to read medicine at the University of Sheffield so I could stay at home.
I was not prepared for university, fortunately people I got to know at university brought me out of my shell.
I am not a Unionist.. I have no opinion one way or another, The times wasn't very kind about the sainted Nicola and her handling of Scottish matters. Sooner or later questions will be asked.. and they are starting to be asked.
There seems to be a contradiction here: The outcomes in Scotland versus England seem broadly similar, yet the same people who claim that Boris will have to resign in disgrace for his handling of the epidemic, say Sturgeon has been made stronger.
This does not make sense.
Without commenting either way on the Scottish government’s performance, I note that could easily be reconciled by noting that the lamentable failings in the initial decision-making at a UK-wide level were the responsibility of Boris Johnson.
Not to say Sturgeon would have done better if she'd been running the show - we can't know that - but there is a correlation between the countries with an above average virus performance and female leaders.
It also appears that the worst type of leader to have in this situation is a Strongman. The Putins, the Bolsonaros, the Lukashenkos. These guys have their qualities but they are handicapped in meeting the challenge of Covid-19 by a pronounced tendency to not give a shit about people dying.
I exempt President Donald Trump from the above since he is a wannabee Strongman rather than the real thing. He has the requisite indifference to pain and suffering but - thankfully for USA - he lacks the power to give full vent to it. The states are able to mitigate.
The problem with "strongman" leaders is that people become afraid to speak truth to power. Look how Trump sacks anyone he perceives as disloyal; Chinese whistleblowers disappear; Russian doctors fall out of windows. And how #ClassicDom had SpAds frogmarched out while Boris purged even the most eminent dissentors.
More or Less worth a listen again. Comparison with Germany very interesting, but ran the testing story again. The deception here really is disgraceful.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
Again not news.
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
A dropped test counts as 2 tests? You are defending the indefensible
On schools: it's the logistics. I've got a friend who works in one and they're desperately trying to work out how to make it work.
They wish to maintain social distancing as much as practicable. After all, even if kids don't die of this as much (albeit there are, I am reliably informed, children with asthma or diabetes or even other issues that can make them specifically vulnerable), it has been found that the vast majority of them live in households that contain adults.
Some of these adults will be vulnerable. Risk categories include asthma, diabetes, hypertension, age, vitamin D deficiency, and being male. If just 10% of households contain vulnerable adults, then any randomly chosen group of 7 children will have a better than fifty-fifty chance that a vulnerable adult is in close daily contact with at least one of them.
We have found some indications that children might not carry the disease to infect others. Unfortunately, this hasn't been confirmed in any remotely reliable way. It's also difficult to see how you could catch it from touching a parcel (confirmed) but not from touching a child's skin or clothes. After all, they are indeed mobile surfaces that interact with others.
So - social distancing. Maximum of 10 children per class to have any chance of this. Most schools don't have anywhere near enough classrooms to cope with even a half of their normal capacity while maintaining social distancing. Children to stay in that single bubble and not mingle. They have to go to the loo at specified times to be escorted and controlled in their group. Sectioned-off areas of the playground. No sharing anything. No playing games in close contact. No hugging friends. So many restrictions that the teachers may not have the opportunity to, you know, teach anything.
Children have been looking on a return to school and their friends as a source of hope. They traipse in, and cannot come close to their friends, have to stay in their "bubble" (even if their best friends are in another one", are in the wrong classroom with weird restrictions, probably with the wrong teacher, who's wearing mask and gloves.
Yeah, this will work well, won't it?
I have been thinking all of the above, thanks for expressing so eloquently.
Comments
So, for example, reported active cases per capita was extremely high in Iceland and the Faroes in March, but they are very low now: that is largely because testing worked in those countries alongside other public health measures (and closing borders I suppose). There have been sharp rises in the number of active cases in several Gulf states recently, including Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, but that also seems to be a result of extensive testing, and the death rates are still relatively low, so they could also fall sharply in a month or so (though that largely depends on how they treat migrant workers and how people come and go with other countries). On the other hand, in other parts of the world with weaker health care systems, such as much of Latin America, Africa and South Asia, the stats on active cases may be less reliable and therefore less helpful.
In the UK, I think having an idea of the active number of cases, disaggregated as locally as possible, as a proportion of the population of the area, would significantly help with planning and direction of resources, and could also increase public confidence, for example of parents about whether to send their children back to school. It would also mean that in areas that are localized hotspots at any one time, people could be more careful. This would all have to be in parallel, of course, with functional contact tracing, availability of PPE and so on.
What is less clear is whether this was the source of infection in those care homes. Most of those cleared out will not have had CV, they were simply waiting for adequate care packages. They probably didn't get them which is almost certainly one of the reasons there have been so many "excess" deaths in care homes not directly caused by the virus. Lots of ill, confused, old people dumped into a strange environment without adequate resources and no contact with their loved ones, its hardly surprising. In normal times 50% of those put into care home die within 480 days. In the last couple of months I suspect 48 days will be found to have been more typical.
Care homes of course have a concentration of those most vulnerable to the disease. Was it ever realistic that they could be sufficiently isolated with staff and suppliers coming and going? Evidence elsewhere in Europe suggests not but I think that the first factor I have mentioned is why the UK's death toll in homes will prove to be such an outlier.
My eldest due to start in September, now looking at a work experience year in schools. Will cost me a bit of money to enable him to pay his keep to his mum, but I don't see the point in losing a year of university doing courses in his bedroom...
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/19/cambridge-university-moves-all-lectures-online-until-summer-2021
This does not make sense.
Wouldn't surprise me if more students attend the online lectures than the physical ones - when I bothered to go to my one weekly lecture, there was rarely more than 20% attendance.
"Go spend that surplus money" say the government. Errr no. I'll clear off some borrowing thanks.
Of course, if that were true and generally acknowledged it would have a rather devastating effect on the justification for employing so many lecturers ...
My daughters school has been in touch last week to confirm they're reopening though later in the week, not on 1 June though they're reopening on 3 June. As seems quite common I've seen others including in this thread mention that date.
1 June was never a deadline. It was an earliest possible date.
We could have had 12 months with only a handful of cases in sporadic hotspots by the end of that period.
As a former marketing man, I am of course interested in trappings over substance*. I would point out that Bute House/St Andrew's House is much better at positioning, sales and marketing than Downing Street/Whitehall. Boris needs a quality ad man.
(*for the avoidance of doubt: that was an attempt at humour)
I'd stick to the care home stuff, much meatier story.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/
Imagine being in Government and reading this report. You would do everything possible to increase NHS capacity.
I would hate to have missed out on that.
Mind you it would make identifying the ones that skipped the lecture obvious.
How did the e-exam go yesterday.
40,000 National Guards have been deployed by the US Federal Govt to help the States. They are running testing stations, helping in homes, etc, etc, etc,
The States have asked for an extension of their deployment into the Autumn. The Trump administration has extended their deployment to an apparent random date of 24 June.
What is special about the 24 June? Well on 24 June they will have been deployed for 89 days. On 90 days they are entitled to some retirement and education benefits.
Not so stupid on some things eh!
I think the risk to our daughter is vanishingly small.
Concurrently, I don't see the risk of a loss of a few more weeks education for children with engaged parents. My main concern, however, is for the children who get little or no learning opportunities/encouragement away from school.
If student numbers do plummet then there will obviously be a big black hole in university finances. But universities are businesses that should recover pretty much fully after the pandemic, even with a bit of a boom from deferred students. So what do they do - extended furlough scheme for lecturers? Temporary redundancy? (many have options and may never come back). Loans (government or otherwise) to tide over universities?
This will particularly affect the old polytechnics that are more focused on teaching, I guess. My department (Russell group uni) has far more income from research than students and I'm not directly affected (research contract and my own funding for the next couple of years) but expect pay freezes/cuts etc to apply to all. On the face of it, stock market falls will also deepen the Universities' pensions funding shortfall. We already pay almost 10% of salary in pension; employers pay over 20% (that second figure is particularly nuts). Something has to give, but it won't be pretty. Interesting times ahead.
(In case not clear, I'm aware that I'm very lucky - secure job for now, no pay cut so far, easy for me to work from home, but my industry may have big problems in the next year or so)
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/19/national-guard-coronavirus-267514
The bigger concern, as @RochdalePioneers has pointed out, are all the other aspects of University life. Will the student unions be open, the Societies operational, the common rooms available? Will there be any kind of a social life or sports? For many Universities the only sensible conclusion is why would you want to pay £10k for halls when you can do the course at home and there is nothing else to do there? Oxbridge may be more complicated for the reasons @Mortimer explained.
Higher education has long needed a fundamental re-think, perhaps this is the opportunity?
I want my kids to go back to school because they want and need to learn. Online bits simply isn't the same, nor is the lack of physical interaction with other children. But we can't just throw them back into schools because some liar claims its a good idea, and as pretty much all the teachers are pointing out trying to test and learn the new rules and restrictions with the smallest children is utter lunacy - you cannot tell a 5 year old to socially distance when they're upset or excited to see their friends for the first time in months.
BUT WHAT ABOUT OTHER COUNTRIES goes the cry? Yes, like Denmark who had 10% of the deaths we've had, or South Korea who had 5% and are sending their kids to school in masks. We aren't like them, we aren't doing like them, but the blame is with feckless teachers and next month it will be workshy parents withholding their kids from school.
Someone mentioned Jason Cundy comparing schools to care homes. This government said there was no risk in care homes either. No need to test patients being forcibly removed from hospitals and dumped back into said care homes. No risk. Then they wonder why people aren't following their simple advice which always follows the science until the scientists pop up and point out that it was a political decision based on lack of testing capability...
They lie, you die
The problem with closing things is not the initial closure, but the much more difficult re-opening. It is a bit like the classic equity market problem: yes, of course it is fantastic to sell at or near the top, but you also need to buy at or near the bottom. In other words, you need to get it right *twice*, which is bloody hard, which is why most intelligent folks just shrug their shoulders and stay in.
The mental health repercussions of disrupted education and social life for the young, in combination with mass unemployment, could well outweigh the benefits of lockdown. We’ll have a better idea of that when we have the perspective of hindsight.
Plus as my father pointed out sending me to university for three years was cheaper than anyone of the preceding seven years at school.
My university experience was slightly different than most. I never drank nor did I do drugs.
I do think Britain exaggerates the importance of early formal schooling - in many countries they start later than we do, with no obvious impact on later attainment. But giving children active interaction (including via Zoom etc.) at almost any age is pretty crucial. Living abroad, I was only sent to school from 8, but had loads of home teaching before - the net effect was that I was more advanced but also more shy. Hard to win!
And one final aftertiming gloat - I sold GCP student living in February. This crisis has seen off the theory that REITs and suchlike property shares are uncorrelated with equities generally.
University was a bit of a culture shock for me, from an all boys school/Muslim household.
I was too innocent for university at the start.
We need to reduce university numbers.
It also appears that the worst type of leader to have in this situation is a Strongman. The Putins, the Bolsonaros, the Lukashenkos. These guys have their qualities but they are handicapped in meeting the challenge of Covid-19 by a pronounced tendency to not give a shit about people dying.
I exempt President Donald Trump from the above since he is a wannabee Strongman rather than the real thing. He has the requisite indifference to pain and suffering but - thankfully for USA - he lacks the power to give full vent to it. The states are able to mitigate.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/who-gets-hospital-bed/607807/
This wasn't the hospital dumping a patient on a care home, this was a care home patient returning back to their own home after being discharged. Now in an ideal world they'd have been tested first but clearly there wasn't sufficient testing capacity to do that.
So I'm not sure what else they're supposed to do? Genuine question. If a care home has a patient who needs medical treatment they will quite rightly send them to the hospital but the hospital can't then have them live there forever. If not back to their own home they live in then where else should discharged patients return back to?
I think before the next pandemic we need a serious answer to this question. Because the only alternative solution I can think of is that hospitals refuse to take patients from care homes - which would increase care home deaths even more.
Our VC circulated some estimates from on funding shortfalls for next year - optimistic for us is over 10%, pessimistic approaching 1/3. That's for a research-intensive university, it will be much worse for those relying more heavily on fee income.
They picked the 15/5 when 136,000 tests were done but they are not only including posted tests but also non diagnosed tests carried out by Uni and Research Labs (30,000) so useful for other reasons but not tests to determine if people have or don't have Covid. Also 2nd tests are not generally because the previous test needs verifying, but because say the test was dropped on the floor or the testee vomited on the first test. Also a spit and nasal test is counted as two.
Total people tested = 43,000 out of a quoted figure of 136,000
It really is an appalling deception.
I have never heard 'More or Less' get so annoyed in its fact checking.
They wish to maintain social distancing as much as practicable. After all, even if kids don't die of this as much (albeit there are, I am reliably informed, children with asthma or diabetes or even other issues that can make them specifically vulnerable), it has been found that the vast majority of them live in households that contain adults.
Some of these adults will be vulnerable. Risk categories include asthma, diabetes, hypertension, age, vitamin D deficiency, and being male. If just 10% of households contain vulnerable adults, then any randomly chosen group of 7 children will have a better than fifty-fifty chance that a vulnerable adult is in close daily contact with at least one of them.
We have found some indications that children might not carry the disease to infect others. Unfortunately, this hasn't been confirmed in any remotely reliable way. It's also difficult to see how you could catch it from touching a parcel (confirmed) but not from touching a child's skin or clothes. After all, they are indeed mobile surfaces that interact with others.
So - social distancing. Maximum of 10 children per class to have any chance of this. Most schools don't have anywhere near enough classrooms to cope with even a half of their normal capacity while maintaining social distancing. Children to stay in that single bubble and not mingle. They have to go to the loo at specified times to be escorted and controlled in their group. Sectioned-off areas of the playground. No sharing anything. No playing games in close contact. No hugging friends. So many restrictions that the teachers may not have the opportunity to, you know, teach anything.
Children have been looking on a return to school and their friends as a source of hope. They traipse in, and cannot come close to their friends, have to stay in their "bubble" (even if their best friends are in another one", are in the wrong classroom with weird restrictions, probably with the wrong teacher, who's wearing mask and gloves.
Yeah, this will work well, won't it?
For Cambridge university the buck stops and the responsibility sits within the University.
Flexible length from Fasttrack degrees (same content, same hours worked) available in 18 months but with workplace style schedule and holidays rather than long breaks, to current set up, to part time, distance learning over several years as with Open University
Scrap teaching ratios bigger than 10:1
Modular content
Significant proportion online
All adults over 18 get a govt funded voucher for 40 hours free education per year (at least 10 contact/30 can be online) that they can spend at university
On the very day the 100,000 test target was announced, they announced five strands of testing including diagnostic and yes non-diagnostic testing etc - someone from the media asked what was meant by the 100,000 and Hancock replied that it was "all tests from all strands".
So that some are non-diagnostic is not news. It was what was said would be counted literally on day one.
Im sure Scott would have great joy in posting these warnings now if the Government had not done anything and the NHS was overrun:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/21/doctors-warn-coronavirus-could-overwhelm-nhs-intensive-care
So there may well be a lot of patients who were discharged from hospital to care homes, and were consequently kept safe from the virus as a result.
We circle back to the problem being insufficient testing being available, and that available being slow to the point of uselessness, that meant all these decisions were being made blind.
As to why everyone doesn't retire early, at least for recentish joiners to the scheme the early retirement options are not very attractive. It is defined benefit, but for at least the last ten years or so average rather than final salary (each year of service adds 1/80, or maybe 1/85 I forget, of current salary to yearly pension - so say for a researcher on £40k each year adds £500 to the yearly pension amount - 10 years service at £40k gives a retirement pension of £5000/year. £40 years service at £40k would give a retirement pension of £20k/year - realistically you can expect over a full career to get a pension of approx half of your average career earnings. In the good old days it was 1/80 (actually better, I think, maybe 1/70 or more per year of service) of final salary. If you finished on £80k and had 40 years service you could retire on £40k. Those who paid in when it was final salary still get that number of years as final salary, which doesn't help with the shortfalls.
I think coronavirus might be the thing that finally does for defined benefit pensions in universities. Not necessarily a bad thing, but there will be mass outrage, I expect.
I was on a pathway for an arranged marriage so my mother was worried her innocent son might get corrupted by Western ways.
One of the reasons she wanted to read medicine at the University of Sheffield so I could stay at home.
I was not prepared for university, fortunately people I got to know at university brought me out of my shell.