We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
Noting that about your wife Malc, how is your good lady? Progressing well, I hope.
Bit like Labour party , they are exactly the same, they have been closing it down for 100 years but the scramble to get in is incredible.
If the Lords was 'elected' on a party list system based on GE vote-share, the SNP would be entitled to peerages, and their opposition to the HOL would not stand, because it wouldn't be 'an affront to democracy'. If that were the case, should they take them? Arise Baron Salmond of Banff and Buchan?
The SNP has always had a position of not taking seats in the HoL (on whatever basis), if that changed my membership would certainly be finished.
Of course Salmond is not currently a member of the SNP..
I did think that might be some SNP supporters' view, but it's surely just a visceral response to all the trappings, rather than a valid objection? The HOL is a revising chamber in a bicameral parliamentary system. Refusing to take seats would be disadvantageous (very marginally I grant you) to the causes of the SNP.
I am also not sure Salmond not being a member of the SNP would preclude his being on the SNP's list - but of course this is all theory. The system was devised by Ydoethur.
Plaid Cymru were against taking seats for a long while but then were offered one, on the revising chamber basis, and because family responsibilities were getting too much for Dafydd Wigley
I know I'm a collectivist in an individualist age, but bear with me - after all, Johnson seems willing to pick and mix from any variety of belief. This situation calls for looking at society as a whole, helping the sectors that are most important, and compensating those that are least important and helping them adjust.
As David H says, education is crucial for direct and indirect reasons. In my opinion, cafes and restaurants in city centres are not. Sports arenas are not. Eyebrow-threading specialists and tattooists are not. People may disagree, but the Government should make some choices and stick with them. Having made the choices, they should recognise that the sectors being deliberately neglected in the national interest are suffering through no fault of their own, and they should get substantial, prolonged assistance to get through the crisis if we think if it temporary or completely remodel themselves if it's long-term.
Say you own a city centre cafe. The outlook doesn't look good. Should the Government urge people to go back to work so as to rescue you? Or should they merely point you at Universal Credit - sorry about your business, good luck getting a job stacking shelves? No, they should help you relocate your business to a suburb where most people live and, increasingly, work.
Sacrifices in times of crisis are inevitable, but unevenly distributed. Some of us are having no problem, personally. Tax us more and use the money to help those who are suffering for the sake of all of us.
All very sensible but this is precisely what the government is not doing. It is now withdrawing assistance to those sectors most badly affected. And if it closes down - again - those businesses which have reopened, without any further substantial and prolonged assistance then it is condemning millions to hopelessness and poverty. That is simply untenable, especially if those businesses have been operating without causing any increase in the virus in their areas.
If there have to be further lockdowns - whether temporary or by sector or geography - there simply has to be proper support for those affected for as long as it takes.
All the harms @David mentions will occur if people become unemployed and lose hope.
They have had many months to draw up plans of how to handle things if infections rise, they should be able to do so only by the required locations and have detailed local plans and help in place. Instead they have not bothered and come up with hare brained plans late at night , announced via twitter and with no plans whatsover in place. Saying they are useless does not cut it, they are pathetic, but of course they will be fine and dandy and have the family ensconced in nice public positions with free cash rolling in.
Bit like Labour party , they are exactly the same, they have been closing it down for 100 years but the scramble to get in is incredible.
If the Lords was 'elected' on a party list system based on GE vote-share, the SNP would be entitled to peerages, and their opposition to the HOL would not stand, because it wouldn't be 'an affront to democracy'. If that were the case, should they take them? Arise Baron Salmond of Banff and Buchan?
They have always said it was wrong and would never accept, only principled party in the UK. The greedy troughers not so much.
But they've said it was wrong on the basis that it is an affront to democracy to have an appointed upper house. If the upper house is elected, it's no longer an affront to democracy, and they would effectively be refusing to take their seats, Gerry Adams style, with the 'spare places' that would leave given to other parties. Should they not take them? Appreciate it's just hypothetical.
If the HOL was elected by the public similar to MP's then that is a different story. Currently it is a trough for chums of useless politicians and themselves on retirement to ensure they keep up their lifestyles of living entirely on the massive expenses they get so used to. Heaven forbid they had to dip into salaries or pensions and buy anything themselves. PS: they will never change it as they are desperate to get the free 300 a day plus expenses themselves just for turning up for subsidised food and drinks.
Well, effectively it would still be a chamber full of old duffers that people wanted to do favours to, but the ability to do these favours would be distributed equitably amongst the parties getting the most votes at elections, rather than with the UK Government, and a few tiny amounts given to some opposition parties. Evolution not revolution.
A comment on schools from a Governor at a state-maintained, non-selective rural secondary school. We have a plan for the return in September that works on paper, i.e. it conforms to distancing guidelines and will deliver the full curriculum. Key stage three forms will stay together for all subjects other than the core, English, Maths and Science, where they will be in sets as usual; teachers will move and pupils more or less stay in one place all day. Key stage four will be as normal for their GCSEs but Year 10 and Y11 will be one “bubble” as we have some option subjects taught to pupils from both years as a one-year GCSE. A levels will be taught as usual.
However, there are clearly risks. Firstly, even without COVID infections there will be the usual seasonal coughs and colds that will result in 10-day self isolations for pupils and staff. We have contingencies to cope with some level of absence but it could become unmanageable and we revert to all-remote learning again. A mid-way plan will be to have pupils join lessons from home over Teams but this is, as yet, untested. Also, there is an idea to have teachers projected from home into a classroom surpervised by non-teaching staff. Again, untested.
Two other risks: firstly, the majority of pupils are bussed in from remote areas, with no separation of bubbles possible. Even if discipline is good, masks worn, no horseplay etc., some parents may not trust it and choose to keep parents home. We really don’t have a contingency to avoid this and will have to deal with the absences as set out above. We assume that fines will not be imposed for absence, whatever the Govt says. That may be wrong. Secondly, a small proportion of pupils have not been engaged and we anticipate challenges with behaviour if they do turn up in September. In a small school we cannot afford more than basic alternative provision so there are chances that exclusions will rise if that’s necessary to maintain discipline, especially discipline in sticking to distancing rules.
So, a challenge awaits in September. The staff have worked bloody hard since March to deliver learning to pupils spread across a catchment area that’s 20 miles wide. The headteacher and team have worked bloody hard to prepare for September to put the additional cleaning, staffing, technology etc. into place. There will be some funding for “catch-up” initiatives but for all the other costs incurred (c. £100,000) the additional funding is £0.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
Newsflash - it isn’t possible. Or at least, it makes everything so much more difficult as to render any actual education a lucky bonus.
Depends what you are teaching: Newton’s Laws using water rockets goes pretty well, as does the speed of sound and modelling the size of the solar system.
Our history department re-enacts the Battle of Hastings using water balloons and Y7...
Well, I’m always happy to hear somebody is killing off Year 7, but what I meant was a serious lesson.
How, for example, can I teach about the Five Year Plans without a whiteboard?
Moreover, even as a trained vocalist it’s hard to project my voice far enough to be heard when I am explaining something.
Finally, all too few of our schools have outside spaces now.
So I really don’t think ‘whenever possible’ covers many scenarios.
Julie Andrews seemed to manage. And all she had was a guitar.
I'm assuming that remark was ironic?
Potentially.
Though to some degree (please forgive an outsider's view of teaching) I think that teaching (education of any kind) should be based on delivering simple, and few, concepts, and having them stick. It's all very well the teacher conveying the depth, breadth and subtlety of their knowledge, but unless the pupil afterwards can do the same, it hasn't worked. Learning by wrote, chanting and calling etc. could all be done outside.
Learning by wrote?
Repeat after me: R O T E R O T E R O T E...
It's a fair cop.
I think karma has just bitten me in the arse for taking the mickey out of DavidL's 'copywrite' yesterday.
I’m impressed you didn’t just say it was a typo. That’s watt I do on the rare occasion that I make a mistake...
The difference is that one has the potential to grow exponentially, and the other doesn't.
Lockdown got the death rate down from a thousand a day to a few tens a day, and the infection rate from probably 100 k a day to a few thousand a day. That was done at substantial cost in money and happiness.
And it's true that the treatment options are better now than in March, but if the controls are relaxed to the extent that R goes consistently above 1, the infection rate and death rate are likely to go up exponentially again.
Wrong.
Evidence?
Sweden.
Sweden is not the UK. The population density of Sweden is nothing like the UK.
My favourite remark about Sweden is that when people were told to stand 2 metres apart there, the response was "why do we need to be closer together than normal"?
But then you know that already. This point has been raised with you time and again already but you just wilfully ignore it. That makes me think you're trolling and not serious because nobody could be that silly as to ignore that.
Its not a relevant point given the nature of Corona.
Are you seriously arguing that a pub or theatre full of Swedes would jnfect each other less than a pub full of Britons because Sweden is more spaced out than Britain is??
Look at Japan. A hundred and thirty million people squashed into to a group of mountainous islands. Corona?
Your excuses are just as spurious now as they always have been.
Of course they wouldn't.
If you have ten infected people, and at each step, the further number infected by each ten are 8, 9, 44, 7, 9 (with 44 being your theatre or pub in Sweden), and compare that to a more gregarious group with less isolation and have each ten infecting 24, 31, 22, 28, 24, you get massive differences, obviously.
(I just ran the numbers - there's a factor of 18 difference. 99 infected in total in option A; 1833 infected in option B. For every person infected at the start in option A, there are 2 infected after 5 iterations; under option B, there are 110 infected after 5 iterations for every 1 at the start. An R number of 1.15 for Option A and an R number of 2.56 for Option B. Exponential growth is a bastard)
It's just mathematics. If you can stop it from taking root in the first place, great. If you can't, then unless you socially distance enough to get the R rate down, you're fucked. Places where the default is to have greater social distancing to start with have an advantage; that's life.
I know I'm a collectivist in an individualist age, but bear with me - after all, Johnson seems willing to pick and mix from any variety of belief. This situation calls for looking at society as a whole, helping the sectors that are most important, and compensating those that are least important and helping them adjust.
As David H says, education is crucial for direct and indirect reasons. In my opinion, cafes and restaurants in city centres are not. Sports arenas are not. Eyebrow-threading specialists and tattooists are not. People may disagree, but the Government should make some choices and stick with them. Having made the choices, they should recognise that the sectors being deliberately neglected in the national interest are suffering through no fault of their own, and they should get substantial, prolonged assistance to get through the crisis if we think if it temporary or completely remodel themselves if it's long-term.
Say you own a city centre cafe. The outlook doesn't look good. Should the Government urge people to go back to work so as to rescue you? Or should they merely point you at Universal Credit - sorry about your business, good luck getting a job stacking shelves? No, they should help you relocate your business to a suburb where most people live and, increasingly, work.
Sacrifices in times of crisis are inevitable, but unevenly distributed. Some of us are having no problem, personally. Tax us more and use the money to help those who are suffering for the sake of all of us.
All very sensible but this is precisely what the government is not doing. It is now withdrawing assistance to those sectors most badly affected. And if it closes down - again - those businesses which have reopened, without any further substantial and prolonged assistance then it is condemning millions to hopelessness and poverty. That is simply untenable, especially if those businesses have been operating without causing any increase in the virus in their areas.
If there have to be further lockdowns - whether temporary or by sector or geography - there simply has to be proper support for those affected for as long as it takes.
All the harms @David mentions will occur if people become unemployed and lose hope.
The key bit is what Nick said about the collectivist - individualist spectrum. There are times when rugged individualism can produce wonderful things for society. Equally, there are times when circumstances need us to act collectively, and this virus looks like such a time. For example, it's interesting that some people have a real blind spot about mask use; the idea that I wear a mask to protect others doesn't compute for them. It's the same with economics; some areas of business might need to close because of the overall amount of social mixing that's safe. And in that case, those of us who are lucky, because we can work from home, have a responsibility to support those whose jobs have been kyboshed.
That element of luck is always there, and Ron Swanson libertarianism underplays it, but the virus has made the issues much bigger and starker.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
As always from @david_herdson, a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece for which many thanks. As I have no children, I have no skin in the game to use the American expression.
Much of the school capital programme is spent during the summer holidays when schools become building sites, primarily for the creation of additional classroom space to take more children so that means either extensions to existing teaching blocks or whole new blocks (which have had to go through local planning etc).
The planning for these projects takes several months as does the mobilisation of resources (contractors, subbies, suppliers etc) so the notion of an earlier opening just isn't a runner. The works are on incredibly tight timetable to be handed over to the school often just days before the start of the new term.
Add on to that works to enforce social distancing and you have a huge cocktail of improvement works currently happening at every school.
It may not be enough - many schools are already full in terms of the teaching capacity (as measured by sufficiency and sustainability assessments which inform how many pupils each school can accommodate).
Reducing capacities means a hybrid of part-time in-class education balanced by home learning. That may in turn require some different thinking around school opening hours, weekend working and prioritising certain age groups and years over others.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
Noting that about your wife Malc, how is your good lady? Progressing well, I hope.
OKC, thanks for asking, she is a bit better , has had heavy cold last week which did not help, waiting to get CT scan to see how lungs are doing , huge queue so no idea when it will happen. Her latest appointment changed to by telephone yet again. She is getting up the courage to go privately for the cardioversion to hopefully cure the heart flutter caused by illness. However much better than she was but not 100% by any means yet. She is still a bit traumatised by it all, ptsd like.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
4,000 a week, not 4,000 a day, no?
Yes slip of the pen I think, but big big increase in any case
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
4,000 a week, not 4,000 a day, no?
Yes slip of the pen I think, but big big increase in any case
It really isn't.
New infections are down 99% from the peak and 99% of people being tested are negative.
And any increase in infections among the young and healthy adds a little more towards herd immunity.
Newsflash - it isn’t possible. Or at least, it makes everything so much more difficult as to render any actual education a lucky bonus.
Depends what you are teaching: Newton’s Laws using water rockets goes pretty well, as does the speed of sound and modelling the size of the solar system.
Our history department re-enacts the Battle of Hastings using water balloons and Y7...
Well, I’m always happy to hear somebody is killing off Year 7, but what I meant was a serious lesson.
How, for example, can I teach about the Five Year Plans without a whiteboard?
Moreover, even as a trained vocalist it’s hard to project my voice far enough to be heard when I am explaining something.
Finally, all too few of our schools have outside spaces now.
So I really don’t think ‘whenever possible’ covers many scenarios.
Julie Andrews seemed to manage. And all she had was a guitar.
I'm assuming that remark was ironic?
Potentially.
Though to some degree (please forgive an outsider's view of teaching) I think that teaching (education of any kind) should be based on delivering simple, and few, concepts, and having them stick. It's all very well the teacher conveying the depth, breadth and subtlety of their knowledge, but unless the pupil afterwards can do the same, it hasn't worked. Learning by wrote, chanting and calling etc. could all be done outside.
Learning by wrote?
Repeat after me: R O T E R O T E R O T E...
It's a fair cop.
I think karma has just bitten me in the arse for taking the mickey out of DavidL's 'copywrite' yesterday.
I’m impressed you didn’t just say it was a typo. That’s watt I do on the rare occasion that I make a mistake...
The truth is Goodwood choose to race under the circumstances - they could have told the BHA they didn't want to race as it wasn't economic.
I've never run a business so I'm probably talking out my backside here but there just come a point when trading and losing money is pointless - better to shut down completely and wait until full normality returns.
If there had been no Goodwood, no Ascot or no Derby this year, the world wouldn't have ended (it would have been bad for the commercial bloodstock industry).
To what extent are the Government propping up hundreds if not thousands of zombie companies which, if you accept the brutality of capitalism, it would be better killing off and allowing new entrepreneurs the opportunity to fill the gap?
I keep thinking about Python:
"Every job is sacred, every business is good If one business gets wasted, Rishi gets quite irate"
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Not everyone.
Though one thing I'm confident of now is that alcohol consumption has a bigger effect on weight change than food or exercise.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Sorry to hear your woes Rochdale. It's a tough time, no doubt about it.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that, but maybe an evening out at the pub with some friends is exactly what you need? Man is a social animal, being isolated from your friends isn't healthy and as you say it has led you to anti-depressants.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
The truth is Goodwood choose to race under the circumstances - they could have told the BHA they didn't want to race as it wasn't economic.
I've never run a business so I'm probably talking out my backside here but there just come a point when trading and losing money is pointless - better to shut down completely and wait until full normality returns.
If there had been no Goodwood, no Ascot or no Derby this year, the world wouldn't have ended (it would have been bad for the commercial bloodstock industry).
To what extent are the Government propping up hundreds if not thousands of zombie companies which, if you accept the brutality of capitalism, it would be better killing off and allowing new entrepreneurs the opportunity to fill the gap?
I keep thinking about Python:
"Every job is sacred, every business is good If one business gets wasted, Rishi gets quite irate"
I spent too much time in the sun yesterday....
I think govts propping up zombie companies may be a permanent feature of the landscape from here on in. Like sending everyone to toy universities, it keeps people off the unemployment stats and postpones arguments about UBI and such.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Not everyone.
Though one thing I'm confident of now is that alcohol consumption has a bigger effect on weight change than food or exercise.
Boozahol doesn't help matters, but the key thing is and always has been food - eating too much and eating rubbish. It's very easy to get into and very hard to stop. Making exercise more tedious and more difficult merely exacerbates the problem by tipping previously fit and healthy people into energy surplus and creating yet more fatties.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that, but maybe an evening out at the pub with some friends is exactly what you need? Man is a social animal, being isolated from your friends isn't healthy and as you say it has led you to anti-depressants.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
Which is an advantage going to a workplace has for many people.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
Not been able to post recently as the site had become slow and unstable on my ipad. Anyway, a good thread to return on.
They'd better not change my grades as I followed my value added scores to the letter (well, number) from last year so that the groups are directly comparable. Not a grade point up or down from what might have been expected. Any wholesale downgrading will then give my students a lower grade than they should get. The school already has the ammo to fight any attempt at such downgrading having gone through this process with each subject and I presume other schools will have similar evidence.
Boozahol doesn't help matters, but the key thing is and always has been food - eating too much and eating rubbish. It's very easy to get into and very hard to stop. Making exercise more tedious and more difficult merely exacerbates the problem by tipping previously fit and healthy people into energy surplus and creating yet more fatties.
I'm going to contradict you and a lot of other people on here.
What made me overweight was the commuting lifestyle - long days with early starts and not enough sleep. I was hungry because I was tired or tired because I was hungry. I snacked on sugary and.or salty crap just to keep going through the day, drank too much coffee as well.
Working at home has given me back three and a half hours of each weekday. I sleep better, feel less tired, drink less coffee and while I still enjoy my weekly late breakfast down the cafe, I am less stressed as a result.
I appreciate for those who have long days with nothing to do it's difficult but for very many people (I would argue) the end of commuting has been a mental, physical, financial, emotional and sartorial liberation.
The virus is rising again. We will need further restrictions and semi-lockdown I'm afraid.
Yes they are. While I am more anti-education than most, an increasing gap is opening up between those disciplined households, and those where no one cares for education.
Parental interest and motivation probably the biggest factor in educational achievement in normal times, and that factor is now supercharged.
Nope. We can do education at home and online.
Yes it affects parents and carers but that's tough.
Schools are not essential.
Do you know anyone with school-age children?
Schools should be the very last things to close when everything else has been tried. Closing them is clearly not in the interests of the children.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that, but maybe an evening out at the pub with some friends is exactly what you need? Man is a social animal, being isolated from your friends isn't healthy and as you say it has led you to anti-depressants.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
If you're not in a very high risk group or locality then now is the time to take advantage of facilities like pubs, restaurants and gyms. One of the easiest things for the Government to do, as and when conditions deteriorate, will be to simply command the population to stop visiting each others' homes, and as I suggested downthread pretty much every venue where mask wearing is impractical has had it if sending the kids back to school forces up the rate of infections significantly, which has to be considered a serious possibility for the secondaries at least.
I reckon those of us not living in certain northerly parts with big families stuffed into rows of tiny houses probably have August left in which to enjoy ourselves, after which everything starts going to shit. It's probably not so much a question of if that happens, but how long it takes.
Boozahol doesn't help matters, but the key thing is and always has been food - eating too much and eating rubbish. It's very easy to get into and very hard to stop. Making exercise more tedious and more difficult merely exacerbates the problem by tipping previously fit and healthy people into energy surplus and creating yet more fatties.
I'm going to contradict you and a lot of other people on here.
What made me overweight was the commuting lifestyle - long days with early starts and not enough sleep. I was hungry because I was tired or tired because I was hungry. I snacked on sugary and.or salty crap just to keep going through the day, drank too much coffee as well.
Working at home has given me back three and a half hours of each weekday. I sleep better, feel less tired, drink less coffee and while I still enjoy my weekly late breakfast down the cafe, I am less stressed as a result.
I appreciate for those who have long days with nothing to do it's difficult but for very many people (I would argue) the end of commuting has been a mental, physical, financial, emotional and sartorial liberation.
Different effects for every individual.
But I wonder if there has been any research / polling on general trends among different groups by location, age, occupation, lifestyle, housing etc.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
You and a lot of other people. This lockdown is ghastly. You should gird your loins, man up, and go to the pub/restaurant with your friends - on a nice day - sitting outside. There is a new dreadful peril in out lives which isn`t going away. We have to learn to live with it. We also must get the economy going fast. No more sitting indoors moping.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that, but maybe an evening out at the pub with some friends is exactly what you need? Man is a social animal, being isolated from your friends isn't healthy and as you say it has led you to anti-depressants.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
Which is an advantage going to a workplace has for many people.
Yeah absolutely, which is why the death of the office is massively overdone at the moment. From September a bunch of us are doing two days a week in office together. When I started organising it there was a surprising amount of take up, enough that I had to actually get the company involved to organise it rather than just handle it myself. Obviously it depends on the work culture and people but I do miss office bants a lot, I know most of my friends do as well.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
The difference is that one has the potential to grow exponentially, and the other doesn't.
Lockdown got the death rate down from a thousand a day to a few tens a day, and the infection rate from probably 100 k a day to a few thousand a day. That was done at substantial cost in money and happiness.
And it's true that the treatment options are better now than in March, but if the controls are relaxed to the extent that R goes consistently above 1, the infection rate and death rate are likely to go up exponentially again.
Wrong.
Evidence?
Sweden.
Sweden is not the UK. The population density of Sweden is nothing like the UK.
My favourite remark about Sweden is that when people were told to stand 2 metres apart there, the response was "why do we need to be closer together than normal"?
But then you know that already. This point has been raised with you time and again already but you just wilfully ignore it. That makes me think you're trolling and not serious because nobody could be that silly as to ignore that.
Its not a relevant point given the nature of Corona.
Are you seriously arguing that a pub or theatre full of Swedes would jnfect each other less than a pub full of Britons because Sweden is more spaced out than Britain is??
Look at Japan. A hundred and thirty million people squashed into to a group of mountainous islands. Corona?
Your excuses are just as spurious now as they always have been.
On the main point of the (excellent) thread header, there are some interesting international comparisons now to make. The big problem is that Johnson has proposed a return as Israel did and we know how disastrously that went. At the very least we will need to have smaller classes, compulsory mask wearing, outdoor lessons where practicable and investment in HEPA air filtering equipment. Other problems such as shared transport to and from school are a major problem that I don't think anyone has an answer to. I've put a diagram regarding US education below and what is becoming the consensus view there to see just how far we are away from fulfilling any meaningful attempts at safety.
Sweden has been interesting, given that their schools closed in mid June and suddenly the number of cases fell markedly. It shows, among other things, how they have let children spread the virus (and they do, and the medical consensus, again, is finding that they both get and transmit the virus as per adults, especially at secondary age). The added extras of greater mobility and mixing in the general public will also have increased that marked fall, so we've been gifted the opportunity to see what difference opening education up to 16 years old does to the R rate.
One thing is for sure, closing pubs is nowhere near enough to compensate. Has Johnson got the guts to reclose large sections of the economy again or is it (as I suspect) going to be a half in/half out solution with leisure businesses bearing the brunt of any 'squeezing'?
My idea of shifting the school year is still out there as an option, we need radical solutions and this is the most obvious one. If education suffers, then add on time lost at the end of when it would otherwise finish.
I'm in one of the local areas with the new tightened measures, by the way. I can only say that, given the very low compliance with mask wearing apart from the public facing workers such as taxi drivers, takeaway and restaurant workers, this is not surprising.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
You and a lot of other people. This lockdown is ghastly. You should gird your loins, man up, and go to the pub/restaurant with your friends - on a nice day - sitting outside. There is a new dreadful peril in out lives which isn`t going away. We have to learn to live with it. We also must get the economy going fast. No more sitting indoors moping.
I appreciate everyone's kind words, but I haven't been sat indoors moping. Even in the depths of the lockdown I was doimg exercise - running and then cycling. Problem is the repetition of things - every day has a similar feel, doubly so when furloughed. Depression is something I have lived with on and off for a couple of years, so actually getting treatment for it is a big step that I'm pleased I have done.
Times are hard, lots of absurd contradictory rules, work is absolutely flat out and still won't be enough to keep everyone at our place in a job. Knackered stressed worried = really don't want to sit in a pub full of dickheads. Turned down a pub offer last night as was on long Zoom drinking session with another friend. Doing it virtually just feels safer right now. If it's not safe for me to visit my parents in their home it shouldn't be safe for me to visit a whole load of people in a pub. Glasses vs classes indeed
So my reading glasses have been 'lost' since Tuesday. I've just found them. In plain sight on my desk.
To be fair, when the laptop lid was open it hid them, but still...
Time for a lie down. Night all. Cooler tomoz.
Do we need to strategise this? Probably common on PB :-)
My glasses strategy is nearly the best variowotsit, and identical frames - one pair with tints (for outside), and a clear identical one (for inside).
Green case for the case for the outside glasses (same colour as car), and international orange for the inside pair so I can find them.
And a vague feeling of OUCH every time I sign a bill at Specsavers (value the local service), even though I get most of it back via BHSF and a cash grant.
Impressed with the growth of the local Specsavers. When I approached them for a gym membership scheme they turned out to have about 40 staff.
Who else remembers the Professor Branestawm books? He had I think five pairs of glasses, one of which was for finding the others when he lost them.
I thought the idea was hilarious when I was nine. I now find myself wondering if Specsavers would give a discount on them.
Indeed yes. An ingenious idea from Norman about Huntering for glasses.
At present it looks horribly as if October = April + schools, the surviving non-essential retailers, perhaps hairdressers and nail bars, and masks absolutely everywhere.
Apart from primary schools, where sticking young children in masks is impractical, everything that can't be done without them is liable to be chucked on the bonfire to compensate for the disease spreading superpowers of kiddies, and that includes the gyms as well as the entire hospitality sector, save for takeaway restaurants.
Trying to operate any kind of obesity strategy, even if the Government actually had one in the first place, is entirely pointless given circumstances that are custom-made to promote sitting at home on our arses whilst getting more and more bored and depressed. I confidently predict that - even allowing for the impending Fatty Holocaust this Winter - the mean waist measurement of what's left of the population next year will be a good couple of inches bigger than it was in February. Accompanied, of course, by a rapidly building tidal wave of alcoholism, especially come December when it becomes apparent that family Christmas now means sticking on a paper crown and effecting forced, synthetic jollity on a Zoom call (whilst trying not to talk about the fact that several of the participants aren't there because they died of Covid-19, and some of the remainder face long-term unemployment and may very well end up sleeping under bridges by the Spring.)
Myself, I intend to take advantage of the gym and going out for meals as much as possible whilst those options still exist, and I think I've a reasonable chance of getting my September parental visits done before the hotels shut down and "non-essential" travel results in the levying of £100 fines. But Winter is going to be epically shit, complete with God alone knows how many millions out of work and a great tsunami of suicides.
Apart from that everything's peachy.
Yep. Good post, as always from you. You are right, many worries but must find a way through it. Going back to the gym has already boosted my mood and self-esteem no-end. My weights are a tad down on all machnes - not surprising after four months lapse I guess.
On the main point of the (excellent) thread header, there are some interesting international comparisons now to make. The big problem is that Johnson has proposed a return as Israel did and we know how disastrously that went. At the very least we will need to have smaller classes, compulsory mask wearing, outdoor lessons where practicable and investment in HEPA air filtering equipment. Other problems such as shared transport to and from school are a major problem that I don't think anyone has an answer to. I've put a diagram regarding US education below and what is becoming the consensus view there to see just how far we are away from fulfilling any meaningful attempts at safety.
Sweden has been interesting, given that their schools closed in mid June and suddenly the number of cases fell markedly. It shows how they have let children spread the virus (and they do, and the medical consensus, again, is finding that they both get and transmit the virus as per adults, especially at secondary age). The added extras of greater mobility and mixing in the general public will also have increased that marked fall, so we've been gifted the opportunity to see what difference opening education up to 16 years old does to the R rate.
One thing is for sure, closing pubs is nowhere near enough to compensate. Has Johnson got the guts to reclose large sections of the economy again or is it (as I suspect) going to be a half in/half out solution with leisure businesses bearing the brunt of any 'squeezing'.
My idea of shifting the school year is still out there as an option, we need radical solutions and this is the most obvious one. If education suffers, then add on time lost at the end of when it would otherwise finish.
I'm in one of the local areas with the new tightened measures, by the way. I can only say that, given the very low compliance with mask wearing apart from the public facing workers such as taxi drivers, takeaway and restaurant workers, this is not surprising.
Or we just accept a few hundred more deaths is the price to be paid for a functioning economy and society.
Yeah absolutely, which is why the death of the office is massively overdone at the moment. From September a bunch of us are doing two days a week in office together. When I started organising it there was a surprising amount of take up, enough that I had to actually get the company involved to organise it rather than just handle it myself. Obviously it depends on the work culture and people but I do miss office bants a lot, I know most of my friends do as well.
It's "massively overdone" in your opinion based on your experience at your company and among your peer group.
Nobody is saying there won't still be offices and nobody is saying if firms want to continue to run offices and ask staff to come to work that won't happen.
I do think the volume of office based work will reduce substantially and as the range of support industries among offices survive on office workers, reducing that number by two thirds or more is going to present problems.
My experience (among older (I suspect) people) is there is a great resistance to returning to work and firms are now starting to realise and recognise that. Some are unfortunately using cajolery and threats to get staff back to desks - others are thinking more strategically about how they wish to operate and commercial real estate is of dwindling significance.
At present it looks horribly as if October = April + schools, the surviving non-essential retailers, perhaps hairdressers and nail bars, and masks absolutely everywhere.
Apart from primary schools, where sticking young children in masks is impractical, everything that can't be done without them is liable to be chucked on the bonfire to compensate for the disease spreading superpowers of kiddies, and that includes the gyms as well as the entire hospitality sector, save for takeaway restaurants.
Trying to operate any kind of obesity strategy, even if the Government actually had one in the first place, is entirely pointless given circumstances that are custom-made to promote sitting at home on our arses whilst getting more and more bored and depressed. I confidently predict that - even allowing for the impending Fatty Holocaust this Winter - the mean waist measurement of what's left of the population next year will be a good couple of inches bigger than it was in February. Accompanied, of course, by a rapidly building tidal wave of alcoholism, especially come December when it becomes apparent that family Christmas now means sticking on a paper crown and effecting forced, synthetic jollity on a Zoom call (whilst trying not to talk about the fact that several of the participants aren't there because they died of Covid-19, and some of the remainder face long-term unemployment and may very well end up sleeping under bridges by the Spring.)
Myself, I intend to take advantage of the gym and going out for meals as much as possible whilst those options still exist, and I think I've a reasonable chance of getting my September parental visits done before the hotels shut down and "non-essential" travel results in the levying of £100 fines. But Winter is going to be epically shit, complete with God alone knows how many millions out of work and a great tsunami of suicides.
Apart from that everything's peachy.
Yep. Good post, as always from you. You are right, many worries but must find a way through it. Going back to the gym has already boosted my mood and self-esteem no-end. My weights are a tad down on all machnes - not surprising after four months lapse I guess.
Have we seen any actual evidence about the Coronavirus spread caused by schools?
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
You and a lot of other people. This lockdown is ghastly. You should gird your loins, man up, and go to the pub/restaurant with your friends - on a nice day - sitting outside. There is a new dreadful peril in out lives which isn`t going away. We have to learn to live with it. We also must get the economy going fast. No more sitting indoors moping.
I appreciate everyone's kind words, but I haven't been sat indoors moping. Even in the depths of the lockdown I was doimg exercise - running and then cycling. Problem is the repetition of things - every day has a similar feel, doubly so when furloughed. Depression is something I have lived with on and off for a couple of years, so actually getting treatment for it is a big step that I'm pleased I have done.
Times are hard, lots of absurd contradictory rules, work is absolutely flat out and still won't be enough to keep everyone at our place in a job. Knackered stressed worried = really don't want to sit in a pub full of dickheads. Turned down a pub offer last night as was on long Zoom drinking session with another friend. Doing it virtually just feels safer right now. If it's not safe for me to visit my parents in their home it shouldn't be safe for me to visit a whole load of people in a pub. Glasses vs classes indeed
Seems to me that you don`t feel safe. Why are you not visitng your parents? What are their thoughts on the matter? I don`t mean to pry, but I am curious.
I feel safe. I`m in my mid fifties. This is it - this is what I`ve been working for all my life for and I`m damned if I`m going to allow a virus to thwart my plans. Wait until I`m over 60? No thanks.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
I reckon I have written off at least six cars on the road in accidents but I have never hit another vehicle. The worst was the Mk.2 Golf GTI that I rolled twice. The sunroof broke the resulting shrapnel just fucking shredded us. My mate's eye came out of his head but the medics got it back in. He was never as good at snooker afterwards. He's a LHS 737 pilot for Jet2 now. Lol.
At present it looks horribly as if October = April + schools, the surviving non-essential retailers, perhaps hairdressers and nail bars, and masks absolutely everywhere.
Apart from primary schools, where sticking young children in masks is impractical, everything that can't be done without them is liable to be chucked on the bonfire to compensate for the disease spreading superpowers of kiddies, and that includes the gyms as well as the entire hospitality sector, save for takeaway restaurants.
Trying to operate any kind of obesity strategy, even if the Government actually had one in the first place, is entirely pointless given circumstances that are custom-made to promote sitting at home on our arses whilst getting more and more bored and depressed. I confidently predict that - even allowing for the impending Fatty Holocaust this Winter - the mean waist measurement of what's left of the population next year will be a good couple of inches bigger than it was in February. Accompanied, of course, by a rapidly building tidal wave of alcoholism, especially come December when it becomes apparent that family Christmas now means sticking on a paper crown and effecting forced, synthetic jollity on a Zoom call (whilst trying not to talk about the fact that several of the participants aren't there because they died of Covid-19, and some of the remainder face long-term unemployment and may very well end up sleeping under bridges by the Spring.)
Myself, I intend to take advantage of the gym and going out for meals as much as possible whilst those options still exist, and I think I've a reasonable chance of getting my September parental visits done before the hotels shut down and "non-essential" travel results in the levying of £100 fines. But Winter is going to be epically shit, complete with God alone knows how many millions out of work and a great tsunami of suicides.
Yeah absolutely, which is why the death of the office is massively overdone at the moment. From September a bunch of us are doing two days a week in office together. When I started organising it there was a surprising amount of take up, enough that I had to actually get the company involved to organise it rather than just handle it myself. Obviously it depends on the work culture and people but I do miss office bants a lot, I know most of my friends do as well.
It's "massively overdone" in your opinion based on your experience at your company and among your peer group.
Nobody is saying there won't still be offices and nobody is saying if firms want to continue to run offices and ask staff to come to work that won't happen.
I do think the volume of office based work will reduce substantially and as the range of support industries among offices survive on office workers, reducing that number by two thirds or more is going to present problems.
My experience (among older (I suspect) people) is there is a great resistance to returning to work and firms are now starting to realise and recognise that. Some are unfortunately using cajolery and threats to get staff back to desks - others are thinking more strategically about how they wish to operate and commercial real estate is of dwindling significance.
We're probably at opposite ends of this particular issue. You're an extreme anti-office person, and I'm the opposite, office life has been great for me pretty much over my whole career and I wouldn't want to give it up. Our office take up at work has been way, way higher than expected though. Some people want to do all 5 days again and loads are asking for timetables on when it will be 4 or 5 days in office again.
It's probably the sectors I've worked in (tech, finance) that are the major reasons why office culture has been a huge positive for me. I'm sure people have had different experiences which aren't the same.
Since Miss @Cyclefree is on the prowl, I thought I would go back to garden questions, as I went from cautious to shielding due to an obscure and treatable Lukemia diagnosis, and am now being slightly let out more again as it seems to be going into remission.
One of my mini projects has been to create an embyronic blueberry grove a couple of years time. Now I am thinking about the bilberries I used to forage on Derbyshire hillsides when a child.
Does anyone know about bilberries? I am probably planning to put them in an old bath.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
You and a lot of other people. This lockdown is ghastly. You should gird your loins, man up, and go to the pub/restaurant with your friends - on a nice day - sitting outside. There is a new dreadful peril in out lives which isn`t going away. We have to learn to live with it. We also must get the economy going fast. No more sitting indoors moping.
I appreciate everyone's kind words, but I haven't been sat indoors moping. Even in the depths of the lockdown I was doimg exercise - running and then cycling. Problem is the repetition of things - every day has a similar feel, doubly so when furloughed. Depression is something I have lived with on and off for a couple of years, so actually getting treatment for it is a big step that I'm pleased I have done.
Times are hard, lots of absurd contradictory rules, work is absolutely flat out and still won't be enough to keep everyone at our place in a job. Knackered stressed worried = really don't want to sit in a pub full of dickheads. Turned down a pub offer last night as was on long Zoom drinking session with another friend. Doing it virtually just feels safer right now. If it's not safe for me to visit my parents in their home it shouldn't be safe for me to visit a whole load of people in a pub. Glasses vs classes indeed
Seems to me that you don`t feel safe. Why are you not visitng your parents? What are their thoughts on the matter? I don`t mean to pry, but I am curious.
I feel safe. I`m in my mid fifties. This is it - this is what I`ve been working for all my life for and I`m damned if I`m going to allow a virus to thwart my plans. Wait until I`m over 60? No thanks.
Why am I not seeing my parents: 1. Mid 70s and physically broken 2. Even a non-covid serious respiratory infection will kill my dad. They are being *very* cautious 3. They live in Rochdale
On the main point of the (excellent) thread header, there are some interesting international comparisons now to make. The big problem is that Johnson has proposed a return as Israel did and we know how disastrously that went. At the very least we will need to have smaller classes, compulsory mask wearing, outdoor lessons where practicable and investment in HEPA air filtering equipment. Other problems such as shared transport to and from school are a major problem that I don't think anyone has an answer to. I've put a diagram regarding US education below and what is becoming the consensus view there to see just how far we are away from fulfilling any meaningful attempts at safety.
Sweden has been interesting, given that their schools closed in mid June and suddenly the number of cases fell markedly. It shows how they have let children spread the virus (and they do, and the medical consensus, again, is finding that they both get and transmit the virus as per adults, especially at secondary age). The added extras of greater mobility and mixing in the general public will also have increased that marked fall, so we've been gifted the opportunity to see what difference opening education up to 16 years old does to the R rate.
One thing is for sure, closing pubs is nowhere near enough to compensate. Has Johnson got the guts to reclose large sections of the economy again or is it (as I suspect) going to be a half in/half out solution with leisure businesses bearing the brunt of any 'squeezing'.
My idea of shifting the school year is still out there as an option, we need radical solutions and this is the most obvious one. If education suffers, then add on time lost at the end of when it would otherwise finish.
I'm in one of the local areas with the new tightened measures, by the way. I can only say that, given the very low compliance with mask wearing apart from the public facing workers such as taxi drivers, takeaway and restaurant workers, this is not surprising.
Or we just accept a few hundred more deaths is the price to be paid for a functioning economy and society.
Per day? Because that's a plausible outcome or, even if skews younger this time, many thousands injured for life. We are struggling to stop any rise now and that's with just the current tinkering at the edges of reopenings. At the very least I would expect an 'all work, no play' lockdown. You get to work and go home and everything else is like a full lockdown so that schools can reopen in some meaningful way. I doubt it's going to go down well with those who don't have children of school age but it's a trade off.
It ignores how defining and important the ITN libel suit was in empowering the RCP in the media.
A veritable who's who of people came out to support the plucky little genocide deniers when ITN sued them. It gave their nascent Institute of Ideas a massive boost and got people hooked into their network.
Yeah absolutely, which is why the death of the office is massively overdone at the moment. From September a bunch of us are doing two days a week in office together. When I started organising it there was a surprising amount of take up, enough that I had to actually get the company involved to organise it rather than just handle it myself. Obviously it depends on the work culture and people but I do miss office bants a lot, I know most of my friends do as well.
It's "massively overdone" in your opinion based on your experience at your company and among your peer group.
Nobody is saying there won't still be offices and nobody is saying if firms want to continue to run offices and ask staff to come to work that won't happen.
I do think the volume of office based work will reduce substantially and as the range of support industries among offices survive on office workers, reducing that number by two thirds or more is going to present problems.
My experience (among older (I suspect) people) is there is a great resistance to returning to work and firms are now starting to realise and recognise that. Some are unfortunately using cajolery and threats to get staff back to desks - others are thinking more strategically about how they wish to operate and commercial real estate is of dwindling significance.
We're probably at opposite ends of this particular issue. You're an extreme anti-office person, and I'm the opposite, office life has been great for me pretty much over my whole career and I wouldn't want to give it up. Our office take up at work has been way, way higher than expected though. Some people want to do all 5 days again and loads are asking for timetables on when it will be 4 or 5 days in office again.
It's probably the sectors I've worked in (tech, finance) that are the major reasons why office culture has been a huge positive for me. I'm sure people have had different experiences which aren't the same.
Likewise here.
I think a problem with much of this, is that it is all too easy to look through the prism of ones own experiences.
Things to think about -
- Some people really enjoy the office - Some teams/groups have an excellent social dynamic. I have groups of friends from previous jobs, who I keep in touch with a decade later. - Some people have office space at home. If you have space for a proper desk, chair, monitor etc it makes a big difference - Some people are gregarious by nature - Some work is relatively compartmented - the developer who codes all day with the headphones on. - Some work is 100% desk bound. - Some people have a long commute. - Some people live in very spacious properties. - Some people live in a shoe box designed only for sleeping in.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
The one thing we can predict: those whose grades disappoint and who have “pushy” parents will create a fuss (see the response to IB results) whilst those pleasantly surprised will remain quiet.
We're probably at opposite ends of this particular issue. You're an extreme anti-office person, and I'm the opposite, office life has been great for me pretty much over my whole career and I wouldn't want to give it up. Our office take up at work has been way, way higher than expected though. Some people want to do all 5 days again and loads are asking for timetables on when it will be 4 or 5 days in office again.
It's probably the sectors I've worked in (tech, finance) that are the major reasons why office culture has been a huge positive for me. I'm sure people have had different experiences which aren't the same.
I'm happy to agree to disagree on this. I've worked in offices for over 35 years and have had many very good times. I've simply come to the conclusion I no longer "need" the physicality of the office space to do my job or interact with colleagues.
However, I would never force anyone to work from home if they cannot or prefer, as you do, the social and cultural interaction of the office, It's not a "one size fits all" situation and it must never be like that.
Conversely, I would be staunchly opposed to anyone being forced back against their will to an office desk if they consider themselves or those in their immediate family at risk. I fear that is happening with staff being threatened with dismissal if they do not return to desks. It is also a sign of a lack of strategic foresight and thinking in some organisations they see no alternative but to have staff in banks of desks (probably a cultural or trust issue).
Where we should be concentrating is the question of the economic consequences of a situation where the commuting and office based population is perhaps a third of what it was. A clue - not uniformly negative by any means.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
Road accidents are not infectious with a capacity to grow exponentially.
Some real idiots on here, should not be allowed out without supervision.
Was that directed at me, or were you agreeing?
Not that I’m saying I should be allowed out without supervision of course...
Not at all, it was directed at the selfish poster with his "I am all right Jack" attitude and he then has the temerity to say I am juvenile, proving me correct.
The selfish are the ones who post about closing down pubs etc whilst still drawing their same guaranteed salary month on month or benefits whilst not considering the job losses for others that this madness is doing
Government are making a pig's ear of it for sure , I am not going to pub as my wife is shielding so not concerned there either. It needs some honest clever people to manage it and so that will never be the case whilst Tories are in power. Pretending it is nothing and going back to normal is NOT an option , we see already in England the rise from 800 a day to 4000 a day and if NHS gets overwhelmed it would be a complete disaster and not only for old codgers.
Noting that about your wife Malc, how is your good lady? Progressing well, I hope.
OKC, thanks for asking, she is a bit better , has had heavy cold last week which did not help, waiting to get CT scan to see how lungs are doing , huge queue so no idea when it will happen. Her latest appointment changed to by telephone yet again. She is getting up the courage to go privately for the cardioversion to hopefully cure the heart flutter caused by illness. However much better than she was but not 100% by any means yet. She is still a bit traumatised by it all, ptsd like.
Not surprised about 'ptsd'; every sympathy. Best of luck. I found a complaint to the CEO of the hospital worked wonders when Mrs C was being messed about last year.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
I share your concern. My daughter is in the GCSE cohort. The metric that concerns me is the one where teachers had to rank pupils - football league style. My understanding is there was no basis for this ranking other that each teacher`s gut feeling on how each child would have done if they had sat the exam compared to the other pupils in his/her class.
In the case of my daughter - who is not academically bright but works hard - she did well in her mocks and would have been aiming for a grade higher in each subject in the actual exams. In contrast some bright pupils were lazy and didn`t try in the mocks.
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
The one thing we can predict: those whose grades disappoint and who have “pushy” parents will create a fuss (see the response to IB results) whilst those pleasantly surprised will remain quiet.
There's a case in the Southend area where this might happen, and the father's lining a crowdfunding appeal. Unusually bright student in a poor to average school.
We're probably at opposite ends of this particular issue. You're an extreme anti-office person, and I'm the opposite, office life has been great for me pretty much over my whole career and I wouldn't want to give it up. Our office take up at work has been way, way higher than expected though. Some people want to do all 5 days again and loads are asking for timetables on when it will be 4 or 5 days in office again.
It's probably the sectors I've worked in (tech, finance) that are the major reasons why office culture has been a huge positive for me. I'm sure people have had different experiences which aren't the same.
I'm happy to agree to disagree on this. I've worked in offices for over 35 years and have had many very good times. I've simply come to the conclusion I no longer "need" the physicality of the office space to do my job or interact with colleagues.
However, I would never force anyone to work from home if they cannot or prefer, as you do, the social and cultural interaction of the office, It's not a "one size fits all" situation and it must never be like that.
Conversely, I would be staunchly opposed to anyone being forced back against their will to an office desk if they consider themselves or those in their immediate family at risk. I fear that is happening with staff being threatened with dismissal if they do not return to desks. It is also a sign of a lack of strategic foresight and thinking in some organisations they see no alternative but to have staff in banks of desks (probably a cultural or trust issue).
Where we should be concentrating is the question of the economic consequences of a situation where the commuting and office based population is perhaps a third of what it was. A clue - not uniformly negative by any means.
I just think the idea that the office population will be a third of what it was ridiculous. I'd say about 75-80% and most of that reduction will be flexible working.
As Head of Commercial based 90 miles from the office I was only every in 2-3 days a week, so if we go back to part time office that won't make that much of a difference to how I work. There is no requirement for me to be in at the moment barring monthly management meetings, but I'm going in for 2 of my 3 working days next week as I think its important to be seen to be leading from the front at the moment.
It feels as if we have made 10 years of progress in 10 weeks - there really is no need to move remote based teams back into expensive offices. You can't beat face to face for meetings, but even out there with customers I'm now expecting occasional review meetings face to face and the rest done remotely. Business can save a fortune with the change to ways of working and having seen that saving they aren't just going to give that extra profit up just because the government says go to the office to save Pret.
Since Miss @Cyclefree is on the prowl, I thought I would go back to garden questions, as I went from cautious to shielding due to an obscure and treatable Lukemia diagnosis, and am now being slightly let out more again as it seems to be going into remission.
One of my mini projects has been to create an embyronic blueberry grove a couple of years time. Now I am thinking about the bilberries I used to forage on Derbyshire hillsides when a child.
Does anyone know about bilberries? I am probably planning to put them in an old bath.
I just think the idea that the office population will be a third of what it was ridiculous. I'd say about 75-80% and most of that reduction will be flexible working.
At the moment, with social distancing rules in place, most buildings can operate at between 30-40% capacity so in terms of where we are now and will be for as long as social distancing protocols are in place, I stand by my comment.
IF we get a vaccine and it works and social distancing is abandoned next year then there will be a renewed uptick to maybe 60% but that's guesswork.
I just think the idea that the office population will be a third of what it was ridiculous. I'd say about 75-80% and most of that reduction will be flexible working.
At the moment, with social distancing rules in place, most buildings can operate at between 30-40% capacity so in terms of where we are now and will be for as long as social distancing protocols are in place, I stand by my comment.
IF we get a vaccine and it works and social distancing is abandoned next year then there will be a renewed uptick to maybe 60% but that's guesswork.
Yes, I'm talking about a post-vaccine world, not pre-vaccine which is capacity limited.
I am thoroughly depressed by everything. My brother has been made redundant. My son lost his job too. I am looking for work as my consultancy work has reduced significantly for the moment. I hope it can be from home but I may have to take the health risk of working in an office. Bills need to be paid. Family needs to be supported. Other son is working for daughter, who expects her business to be closed down again this autumn and - if there is no second support package at least as good as the first - it will be for good this time. So that will be all 3 children unemployed and with little chance of finding alternative employment.
All very well talking about the importance of education but what happens to the children of parents who lose their jobs and face losing their homes? Going to school does not insulate them from the mental, emotional, financial and other consequences.
I don’t know what the answer is. But the horizon looks very dark and bleak to me.
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
The difference is that one has the potential to grow exponentially, and the other doesn't.
Lockdown got the death rate down from a thousand a day to a few tens a day, and the infection rate from probably 100 k a day to a few thousand a day. That was done at substantial cost in money and happiness.
And it's true that the treatment options are better now than in March, but if the controls are relaxed to the extent that R goes consistently above 1, the infection rate and death rate are likely to go up exponentially again.
Wrong.
Evidence?
Sweden.
Sweden is not the UK. The population density of Sweden is nothing like the UK.
My favourite remark about Sweden is that when people were told to stand 2 metres apart there, the response was "why do we need to be closer together than normal"?
But then you know that already. This point has been raised with you time and again already but you just wilfully ignore it. That makes me think you're trolling and not serious because nobody could be that silly as to ignore that.
Its not a relevant point given the nature of Corona.
Are you seriously arguing that a pub or theatre full of Swedes would jnfect each other less than a pub full of Britons because Sweden is more spaced out than Britain is??
Look at Japan. A hundred and thirty million people squashed into to a group of mountainous islands. Corona?
Your excuses are just as spurious now as they always have been.
Yes, yes I am seriously arguing that.
Population density matters intensely.
And yet if you look at the statistics within a single country like Germany all of the districts with the highest per capita numbers of Covid cases and deaths are not densely populated, which suggests it doesn't necessarily matter so intensely.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
I share your concern. My daughter is in the GCSE cohort. The metric that concerns me is the one where teachers had to rank pupils - football league style. My understanding is there was no basis for this ranking other that each teacher`s gut feeling on how each child would have done if they had sat the exam compared to the other pupils in his/her class.
In the case of my daughter - who is not academically bright but works hard - she did well in her mocks and would have been aiming for a grade higher in each subject in the actual exams. In contrast some bright pupils were lazy and didn`t try in the mocks.
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
The real problem is methodology and rigour are going to vary widely from school to school - which in itself makes any attempt to impose uniformity a total nonsense.
It's those doing A-levels I'm sorriest for. Guinea pigs for the GCSEs, which were messed up. Now their A-levels are, like it or not, going to be cheapened. And even if they resit in the autumn, that isn't going to help because 'A-level 2020' will say to potential employers 'estimated grades' for the next fifty years.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will.
I share your concern. My daughter is in the GCSE cohort. The metric that concerns me is the one where teachers had to rank pupils - football league style. My understanding is there was no basis for this ranking other that each teacher`s gut feeling on how each child would have done if they had sat the exam compared to the other pupils in his/her class.
In the case of my daughter - who is not academically bright but works hard - she did well in her mocks and would have been aiming for a grade higher in each subject in the actual exams. In contrast some bright pupils were lazy and didn`t try in the mocks.
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
Well, I would be very surprised if that had been the process at your daughter’s school. The general practice, as I understand it from the schools I know, has been for the school to award grades based objective data (such as assessments, mocks, etc) and then to rank the pupils within the grades and then to have the grades and ranking moderated by peer review. Any school allowing subjects to rely on gut feel would be open to parents complaining to the exam board(s). Ofqual guidelines state: If students or others have concerns about bias, discrimination or any other factor that suggests that a centre did not behave with care or integrity when determining the centre assessment grade and/or rank order information they should normally raise these concerns with their centre, in the first instance; or they could take their concerns to the relevant exam board if this was the more appropriate route. Where there is evidence, we require exam boards to investigate such allegations as potential malpractice or maladministration.
I am thoroughly depressed by everything. My brother has been made redundant. My son lost his job too. I am looking for work as my consultancy work has reduced significantly for the moment. I hope it can be from home but I may have to take the health risk of working in an office. Bills need to be paid. Family needs to be supported. Other son is working for daughter, who expects her business to be closed down again this autumn and - if there is no second support package at least as good as the first - it will be for good this time. So that will be all 3 children unemployed and with little chance of finding alternative employment.
All very well talking about the importance of education but what happens to the children of parents who lose their jobs and face losing their homes? Going to school does not insulate them from the mental, emotional, financial and other consequences.
I don’t know what the answer is. But the horizon looks very dark and bleak to me.
That sucks, Cyclefree.
I offer good wishes if they are of any value, but I'm aware they can be just empty words.
I was talking to the NatWest this morning about some changes to my mortgage (not a holiday, as I am obviously in a fortunate position where I don't need one). The lady on the telephone was in Manchester and she sounded pretty depressed all around as well. Lockdown, plus she's got people on the phone every five minutes weeping and begging for help.
And unfortunately, like @Black_Rook I think there might be more to come.
Do people think we're heading for the rocks with coronavirus?
The brutal fact is, that even those countries that started well, e.g. Vietnam or Taiwan, are now struggling.
Those countries that did badly, e.g. the USA and Spain, do not appear to have made significant progress despite some headline relaxations.
That means we have to face the realistic possibility that the choice is either hundreds of millions of deaths, or economic chaos until we get a vaccine.
Berlin demonstrating against restrictions (I think)
Lunabics - one of my neighbours (a Belgian) who rune a b&B in thour village is posting garbage on FB about the conspiracy of governments to force the people into masks... etc, etc
Do people think we're heading for the rocks with coronavirus?
Things are not good in Spain - my provice has gone from 2/3 infections a day to 80+ in a matter of days. Linked to nightlife, family reunions and agricultural workers. All getting very messy. The UK government was right to act quickly.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
I share your concern. My daughter is in the GCSE cohort. The metric that concerns me is the one where teachers had to rank pupils - football league style. My understanding is there was no basis for this ranking other that each teacher`s gut feeling on
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
The real problem is methodology and rigour are going to vary widely from school to school - which in itself makes any attempt to impose uniformity a total nonsense.
It's those doing A-levels I'm sorriest for. Guinea pigs for the GCSEs, which were messed up. Now their A-levels are, like it or not, going to be cheapened. And even if they resit in the autumn, that isn't going to help because 'A-level 2020' will say to potential employers 'estimated grades' for the next fifty years.
Not sure I agree that 2020 qualifications will be discounted in the way you suggest. I do, however, have sympathy for those looking forward to their first year at University. Their experience is going to be quite different, and none of it for the better as far as I can see. On the other hand, the income from missing, overseas students has to be made up somehow and so there will be some very good courses at top institutions available through clearing and plenty of leeway given for missed grades.
Berlin demonstrating against restrictions (I think)
Lunabics - one of my neighbours (a Belgian) who rune a b&B in thour village is posting garbage on FB about the conspiracy of governments to force the people into masks... etc, etc
It does seem obvious that these evil Governments who want to control us would force us all to wear masks to make it more difficult for them to identify who we were... er...
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will.
I share your concern. My daughter is in the GCSE cohort. The metric that concerns me is the one where teachers had to rank pupils - football league style. My understanding is there was no basis for this ranking other that each teacher`s gut feeling on how each child would have done if they had sat the exam compared to the other pupils in his/her class.
In the case of my daughter - who is not academically bright but works hard - she did well in her mocks and would have been aiming for a grade higher in each subject in the actual exams. In contrast some bright pupils were lazy and didn`t try in the mocks.
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
Well, I would be very surprised if that had been the process at your daughter’s school. The general practice, as I understand it from the schools I know, has been for the school to award grades based objective data (such as assessments, mocks, etc) and then to rank the pupils within the grades and then to have the grades and ranking moderated by peer review. Any school allowing subjects to rely on gut feel would be open to parents complaining to the exam board(s). Ofqual guidelines state: If students or others have concerns about bias, discrimination or any other factor that suggests that a centre did not behave with care or integrity when determining the centre assessment grade and/or rank order information they should normally raise these concerns with their centre, in the first instance; or they could take their concerns to the relevant exam board if this was the more appropriate route. Where there is evidence, we require exam boards to investigate such allegations as potential malpractice or maladministration.
I`ve dug out the correspondence from the school on the matter. The school says that grades will be estimated based on:
- GL baseline data (these are the cognitive (IQ tests) - Year 10 (Year 10!) examination results - Mock exam results - Teacher assessed grades based on coursework
This produces a grade for each subject. And then each teacher ranks the pupils in each class.
My issue is that my daughter is likely to do badly on this ranking compared to other pupils in her class, even though she did better than them in the mocks - because of the first two factors in the list above, which up to now didn`t have any bearing on the final results. These two factors have deliberately been brought into the mix due to concerns that bright pupils were lazy in the mocks (I know this - teachers have told me this - without bringing these factors in they simply do not have sufficient evidence to back up the grades that they want to award to those particular children).
We are clinging to the hope that she gets grades for each subject at least at the level of the mock in that subject. If she doesn`t I`m going to have to go through the painful experience and worry of an appeal.
Do people think we're heading for the rocks with coronavirus?
I don't know. I am one of the fortunate ones who has been insulated both medically and economically from the virus and its fallout so far by virtue of where I live and the nature of the job I do.
So my observations are that we are going to be fine. But I could easily be one of those frogs sitting in my Bromeliad leaves in the Brazilian rain forest with the logging machines just a few yards away and getting closer.
Intellectually it seems to me that if our previous economic theories had any real world relevance at all then we must be fecked.
The old and vulnerable should be shielded, the young and fit allowed to get on with their lives while being vigilant on hand washing and good hygiene. It’s called risk segmentation, and it is the only way forward.
It ignores how defining and important the ITN libel suit was in empowering the RCP in the media.
A veritable who's who of people came out to support the plucky little genocide deniers when ITN sued them. It gave their nascent Institute of Ideas a massive boost and got people hooked into their network.
Beckett's uninspiring article seemed to me entirely free of substance when it came to questions like:
What difference has this phenomenon made?
Which laws and policies are enacted because of their influence?
Why is it remarkable that self regarding leftists develop a right wing regard for media and political careers as they grow up?
Why is the Guardian full of clickbait articles of this sort?
The old and vulnerable should be shielded, the young and fit allowed to get on with their lives while being vigilant on hand washing and good hygiene. It’s called risk segmentation, and it is the only way forward.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that.
This is a rumour, so treat with usual caution.
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will.
I share your concern. My daughter is in the GCSE cohort. The metric that concerns me is the one where teachers had to rank pupils - football league style. My understanding is there was no basis for this ranking other that each teacher`s gut feeling on how each child would have done if they had sat the exam compared to the other pupils in his/her class.
In the case of my daughter - who is not academically bright but works hard - she did well in her mocks and would have been aiming for a grade higher in each subject in the actual exams. In contrast some bright pupils were lazy and didn`t try in the mocks.
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
Well, I would be very surprised if that had been the process at your daughter’s school. The general practice, as I understand it from the schools I know, has been for the school to award grades based objective data (such as assessments, mocks, etc) and then to rank the pupils within the grades and then to have the grades and ranking moderated by peer review. Any school allowing subjects to rely on gut feel would be open to parents complaining to the exam board(s). Ofqual guidelines state: If students or others have concerns about bias, discrimination or any other factor that suggests that a centre did not behave with care or integrity when determining the centre assessment grade and/or rank order information they should normally raise these concerns with their centre, in the first instance; or they could take their concerns to the relevant exam board if this was the more appropriate route. Where there is evidence, we require exam boards to investigate such allegations as potential malpractice or maladministration.
I`ve dug out the correspondence from the school on the matter. The school says that grades will be estimated based on:
- GL baseline data (these are the cognitive (IQ tests) - Year 10 (Year 10!) examination results - Mock exam results - Teacher assessed grades based on coursework
This produces a grade for each subject. And then each teacher ranks the pupils in each class.
My issue is that my daughter is likely to do badly on this ranking compared to other pupils in her class, even though she did better than them in the mocks - because of the first two factors in the list above, which up to now didn`t have any bearing on the final results. These two factors have deliberately been brought into the mix due to concerns that bright pupils were lazy in the mocks (I know this - teachers have told me this - without bringing these factors in they simply do not have sufficient evidence to back up the grades that they want to award to those particular children).
We are clinging to the hope that she gets grades for each subject at least at the level of the mock in that subject. If she doesn`t I`m going to have to go through the painful experience and worry of an appeal.
I feel so sorry for these children.
You do know there will be resits available in the autumn, all other things being equal?
I know it’s not an ideal option, but it might still be an option.
Report in Spain says that 18 to 29 year olds have very low perception of the risk of the virus to themselves, want to enjoy their holidays and suffer accrue peer pressure to join in with the majority. Not surprising but maybe there should be more focus on publicizing the Long term risks at whatever age.
Do people think we're heading for the rocks with coronavirus?
Fair question
I think I'd like some definition of "the rocks" before I pass judgement.
Had this virus had 90% infection and 75% mortality then yes, we'd be well over the cliff with the rocks closing in at speed.
Otherwise, no. It will be unpleasant for all, potentially life-changing for many (both positive and negative) but the end of civilisation, hardly.
We will adapt - human ingenuity is wondrous. Look at the strands of incredible work being done to understand the virus and produce a vaccine - unthinkable thirty or forty years ago.
Life will change - it always has - and it will continue.
I am thoroughly depressed by everything. My brother has been made redundant. My son lost his job too. I am looking for work as my consultancy work has reduced significantly for the moment. I hope it can be from home but I may have to take the health risk of working in an office. Bills need to be paid. Family needs to be supported. Other son is working for daughter, who expects her business to be closed down again this autumn and - if there is no second support package at least as good as the first - it will be for good this time. So that will be all 3 children unemployed and with little chance of finding alternative employment.
All very well talking about the importance of education but what happens to the children of parents who lose their jobs and face losing their homes? Going to school does not insulate them from the mental, emotional, financial and other consequences.
I don’t know what the answer is. But the horizon looks very dark and bleak to me.
I can offer nothing but sympathy and understanding.
My brother still has the virus and for all it has not developed into anything more serious, it has caused him long term emotional and medical damage.
The "cost" of this is measured in so many different ways.
At present it looks horribly as if October = April + schools, the surviving non-essential retailers, perhaps hairdressers and nail bars, and masks absolutely everywhere.
Apart from primary schools, where sticking young children in masks is impractical, everything that can't be done without them is liable to be chucked on the bonfire to compensate for the disease spreading superpowers of kiddies, and that includes the gyms as well as the entire hospitality sector, save for takeaway restaurants.
Trying to operate any kind of obesity strategy, even if the Government actually had one in the first place, is entirely pointless given circumstances that are custom-made to promote sitting at home on our arses whilst getting more and more bored and depressed. I confidently predict that - even allowing for the impending Fatty Holocaust this Winter - the mean waist measurement of what's left of the population next year will be a good couple of inches bigger than it was in February. Accompanied, of course, by a rapidly building tidal wave of alcoholism, especially come December when it becomes apparent that family Christmas now means sticking on a paper crown and effecting forced, synthetic jollity on a Zoom call (whilst trying not to talk about the fact that several of the participants aren't there because they died of Covid-19, and some of the remainder face long-term unemployment and may very well end up sleeping under bridges by the Spring.)
Myself, I intend to take advantage of the gym and going out for meals as much as possible whilst those options still exist, and I think I've a reasonable chance of getting my September parental visits done before the hotels shut down and "non-essential" travel results in the levying of £100 fines. But Winter is going to be epically shit, complete with God alone knows how many millions out of work and a great tsunami of suicides.
Apart from that everything's peachy.
Yep. Good post, as always from you. You are right, many worries but must find a way through it. Going back to the gym has already boosted my mood and self-esteem no-end. My weights are a tad down on all machnes - not surprising after four months lapse I guess.
Have we seen any actual evidence about the Coronavirus spread caused by schools?
If they don’t spread C19 it will be about the only infectious disease that they don’t. I spent a week in hospital last year with pneumonia which I picked up somehow at school, and the number of respiratory illnesses I get in any one year can approach double figures (it is difficult to tell as they often merge into each other).
Do people think we're heading for the rocks with coronavirus?
Fair question
I think I'd like some definition of "the rocks" before I pass judgement.
Had this virus had 90% infection and 75% mortality then yes, we'd be well over the cliff with the rocks closing in at speed.
Otherwise, no. It will be unpleasant for all, potentially life-changing for many (both positive and negative) but the end of civilisation, hardly.
We will adapt - human ingenuity is wondrous. Look at the strands of incredible work being done to understand the virus and produce a vaccine - unthinkable thirty or forty years ago.
Life will change - it always has - and it will continue.
It is perhaps worth remembering that of the most lethal pandemics in history measured by numbers of deaths, the approximate order is the Black Death, Spanish Flu, and then the AIDS pandemic, which is still ongoing, with appalling implications for sub Saharan Africa. At the moment, this is probably still only fifth or sixth on the overall list (in real world figures, not the ones countries are putting out). So technically it’s not the worst of all time and isn’t even the worst at the moment.
What makes this problematic is how very infectious it is and how many curious side effects it seems to have. AIDS, for example, is contagious but its transmission can be reduced. Spanish flu was brutal due to the unfortunate timing, but would be fairly straightforward to manage now and would have been much less lethal even at the time had the chaos left by World War I not made control so difficult. If coronavirus had hit then, the consequences are damn near unimaginable.
I am thoroughly depressed by everything. My brother has been made redundant. My son lost his job too. I am looking for work as my consultancy work has reduced significantly for the moment. I hope it can be from home but I may have to take the health risk of working in an office. Bills need to be paid. Family needs to be supported. Other son is working for daughter, who expects her business to be closed down again this autumn and - if there is no second support package at least as good as the first - it will be for good this time. So that will be all 3 children unemployed and with little chance of finding alternative employment.
All very well talking about the importance of education but what happens to the children of parents who lose their jobs and face losing their homes? Going to school does not insulate them from the mental, emotional, financial and other consequences.
I don’t know what the answer is. But the horizon looks very dark and bleak to me.
Sorry to hear this news Cyclefree.
"if there is no second support package at least as good as the first - it will be for good this time."
I really hope Rishi reads PB, because he needs to hear this message.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that, but maybe an evening out at the pub with some friends is exactly what you need? Man is a social animal, being isolated from your friends isn't healthy and as you say it has led you to anti-depressants.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
If you're not in a very high risk group or locality then now is the time to take advantage of facilities like pubs, restaurants and gyms. One of the easiest things for the Government to do, as and when conditions deteriorate, will be to simply command the population to stop visiting each others' homes, and as I suggested downthread pretty much every venue where mask wearing is impractical has had it if sending the kids back to school forces up the rate of infections significantly, which has to be considered a serious possibility for the secondaries at least.
I reckon those of us not living in certain northerly parts with big families stuffed into rows of tiny houses probably have August left in which to enjoy ourselves, after which everything starts going to shit. It's probably not so much a question of if that happens, but how long it takes.
Indeed. Am rocking my lockdown hair. Am resembling the great Bob Ross (But without the artistic talent). It has been great not to have to be arsed. But Monday for a number 2. The opportunity might not be around for long.
At present it looks horribly as if October = April + schools, the surviving non-essential retailers, perhaps hairdressers and nail bars, and masks absolutely everywhere.
Apart from primary schools, where sticking young children in masks is impractical, everything that can't be done without them is liable to be chucked on the bonfire to compensate for the disease spreading superpowers of kiddies, and that includes the gyms as well as the entire hospitality sector, save for takeaway restaurants.
Trying to operate any kind of obesity strategy, even if the Government actually had one in the first place, is entirely pointless given circumstances that are custom-made to promote sitting at home on our arses whilst getting more and more bored and depressed. I confidently predict that - even allowing for the impending Fatty Holocaust this Winter - the mean waist measurement of what's left of the population next year will be a good couple of inches bigger than it was in February. Accompanied, of course, by a rapidly building tidal wave of alcoholism, especially come December when it becomes apparent that family Christmas now means sticking on a paper crown and effecting forced, synthetic jollity on a Zoom call (whilst trying not to talk about the fact that several of the participants aren't there because they died of Covid-19, and some of the remainder face long-term unemployment and may very well end up sleeping under bridges by the Spring.)
Myself, I intend to take advantage of the gym and going out for meals as much as possible whilst those options still exist, and I think I've a reasonable chance of getting my September parental visits done before the hotels shut down and "non-essential" travel results in the levying of £100 fines. But Winter is going to be epically shit, complete with God alone knows how many millions out of work and a great tsunami of suicides.
Apart from that everything's peachy.
Yep. Good post, as always from you. You are right, many worries but must find a way through it. Going back to the gym has already boosted my mood and self-esteem no-end. My weights are a tad down on all machnes - not surprising after four months lapse I guess.
Have we seen any actual evidence about the Coronavirus spread caused by schools?
If they don’t spread C19 it will be about the only infectious disease that they don’t. I spent a week in hospital last year with pneumonia which I picked up somehow at school, and the number of respiratory illnesses I get in any one year can approach double figures (it is difficult to tell as they often merge into each other).
The problem is that the current information is contradictory in the extreme.
In April we have the papers claiming the WHO saying transmission from children has not happened
Short answer on balance seems to be risks from children are low but maybe not non existent.
*Incidentally when did the BMJ become such a commercial concern? I genuinely thought I had stumbled on a drugs company/medical supplies website when I was directed to them for this article.
I've been invited down the pub several times now - really don't fancy it, nor restaurants. This week coming up I'll be all on my lonesome but expecting 12 hour days working the front half of the week then what do I do now furlough / weekend before the family return home from the Iberian plague factory.
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that, but maybe an evening out at the pub with some friends is exactly what you need? Man is a social animal, being isolated from your friends isn't healthy and as you say it has led you to anti-depressants.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
If you're not in a very high risk group or locality then now is the time to take advantage of facilities like pubs, restaurants and gyms. One of the easiest things for the Government to do, as and when conditions deteriorate, will be to simply command the population to stop visiting each others' homes, and as I suggested downthread pretty much every venue where mask wearing is impractical has had it if sending the kids back to school forces up the rate of infections significantly, which has to be considered a serious possibility for the secondaries at least.
I reckon those of us not living in certain northerly parts with big families stuffed into rows of tiny houses probably have August left in which to enjoy ourselves, after which everything starts going to shit. It's probably not so much a question of if that happens, but how long it takes.
Indeed. Am rocking my lockdown hair. Am resembling the great Bob Ross (But without the artistic talent). It has been great not to have to be arsed. But Monday for a number 2. The opportunity might not be around for long.
Why? Is your toilet likely to be blocked in the event of a second wave?
We are now down to levels of deaths from covid 19 that match road accidents . We seem to have built a weird groupthink that we must get it to zero by banning all risk . The equivalent with road deaths would be to ban cars or at least get a bloke with a red flag walking in front of any car- and we have all ridiculed that for over a century
The difference is that one has the potential to grow exponentially, and the other doesn't.
Lockdown got the death rate down from a thousand a day to a few tens a day, and the infection rate from probably 100 k a day to a few thousand a day. That was done at substantial cost in money and happiness.
And it's true that the treatment options are better now than in March, but if the controls are relaxed to the extent that R goes consistently above 1, the infection rate and death rate are likely to go up exponentially again.
Wrong.
Evidence?
Sweden.
Sweden is not the UK. The population density of Sweden is nothing like the UK.
My favourite remark about Sweden is that when people were told to stand 2 metres apart there, the response was "why do we need to be closer together than normal"?
But then you know that already. This point has been raised with you time and again already but you just wilfully ignore it. That makes me think you're trolling and not serious because nobody could be that silly as to ignore that.
Its not a relevant point given the nature of Corona.
Are you seriously arguing that a pub or theatre full of Swedes would jnfect each other less than a pub full of Britons because Sweden is more spaced out than Britain is??
Look at Japan. A hundred and thirty million people squashed into to a group of mountainous islands. Corona?
Your excuses are just as spurious now as they always have been.
Yes, yes I am seriously arguing that.
Population density matters intensely.
And yet if you look at the statistics within a single country like Germany all of the districts with the highest per capita numbers of Covid cases and deaths are not densely populated, which suggests it doesn't necessarily matter so intensely.
I'd like to see a citation for that please.
For any data I've seen unless the virus has been essentially contained completely the numbers within countries with out of control outbreaks all have seen hits vary by population density.
Comments
However, there are clearly risks. Firstly, even without COVID infections there will be the usual seasonal coughs and colds that will result in 10-day self isolations for pupils and staff. We have contingencies to cope with some level of absence but it could become unmanageable and we revert to all-remote learning again. A mid-way plan will be to have pupils join lessons from home over Teams but this is, as yet, untested. Also, there is an idea to have teachers projected from home into a classroom surpervised by non-teaching staff. Again, untested.
Two other risks: firstly, the majority of pupils are bussed in from remote areas, with no separation of bubbles possible. Even if discipline is good, masks worn, no horseplay etc., some parents may not trust it and choose to keep parents home. We really don’t have a contingency to avoid this and will have to deal with the absences as set out above. We assume that fines will not be imposed for absence, whatever the Govt says. That may be wrong. Secondly, a small proportion of pupils have not been engaged and we anticipate challenges with behaviour if they do turn up in September. In a small school we cannot afford more than basic alternative provision so there are chances that exclusions will rise if that’s necessary to maintain discipline, especially discipline in sticking to distancing rules.
So, a challenge awaits in September. The staff have worked bloody hard since March to deliver learning to pupils spread across a catchment area that’s 20 miles wide. The headteacher and team have worked bloody hard to prepare for September to put the additional cleaning, staffing, technology etc. into place. There will be some funding for “catch-up” initiatives but for all the other costs incurred (c. £100,000) the additional funding is £0.
Finally, GCSE and A level classes will start with the assumption that exams will happen as usual (or a couple of weeks late), there is every chance that the approach this year will be repeated given that so many schools and pupils will again have their education disrupted. The one factor that might cause the Government to stick to the plan for exams as usual is if the grades awarded this summer prove to be highly controversial.
If you have ten infected people, and at each step, the further number infected by each ten are 8, 9, 44, 7, 9 (with 44 being your theatre or pub in Sweden), and compare that to a more gregarious group with less isolation and have each ten infecting 24, 31, 22, 28, 24, you get massive differences, obviously.
(I just ran the numbers - there's a factor of 18 difference. 99 infected in total in option A; 1833 infected in option B. For every person infected at the start in option A, there are 2 infected after 5 iterations; under option B, there are 110 infected after 5 iterations for every 1 at the start.
An R number of 1.15 for Option A and an R number of 2.56 for Option B.
Exponential growth is a bastard)
It's just mathematics. If you can stop it from taking root in the first place, great. If you can't, then unless you socially distance enough to get the R rate down, you're fucked. Places where the default is to have greater social distancing to start with have an advantage; that's life.
That element of luck is always there, and Ron Swanson libertarianism underplays it, but the virus has made the issues much bigger and starker.
As always from @david_herdson, a thoughtful and thought-provoking piece for which many thanks. As I have no children, I have no skin in the game to use the American expression.
Much of the school capital programme is spent during the summer holidays when schools become building sites, primarily for the creation of additional classroom space to take more children so that means either extensions to existing teaching blocks or whole new blocks (which have had to go through local planning etc).
The planning for these projects takes several months as does the mobilisation of resources (contractors, subbies, suppliers etc) so the notion of an earlier opening just isn't a runner. The works are on incredibly tight timetable to be handed over to the school often just days before the start of the new term.
Add on to that works to enforce social distancing and you have a huge cocktail of improvement works currently happening at every school.
It may not be enough - many schools are already full in terms of the teaching capacity (as measured by sufficiency and sustainability assessments which inform how many pupils each school can accommodate).
Reducing capacities means a hybrid of part-time in-class education balanced by home learning. That may in turn require some different thinking around school opening hours, weekend working and prioritising certain age groups and years over others.
You've just given an example of the innumeracy which is behind government panic.
She is getting up the courage to go privately for the cardioversion to hopefully cure the heart flutter caused by illness. However much better than she was but not 100% by any means yet. She is still a bit traumatised by it all, ptsd like.
Confirmed new daily cases? Estimated new daily cases whether tested or not? Total active cases on a day?
At the moment, OFQUAL are kicking up a huge stink about the submitted grades and saying how they're having to savagely moderate everyone because their teachers have overpredicted by about 15 million percent (well, 10, but the principle holds).
There are those in the examination system who are saying off the record that this is all bollocks designed to make it sound as though OFQUAL are acting tough to avoid any future repercussions. That would in fact make sense given OFQUAL have nothing to do with grading.
It will be interesting to see whether the grades have indeed been changed. Given that I was pretty conservative with mine I will be bloody furious if my students are marked down for a bunch of failed pen pushers to try and show that their cushy jobs are relevant.
Back the NHS
Crack the virus
Sack Jackson Coleslaw
I do note the comments earlier about everyone getting fatter / drunkier / more depressed. Yep, all 3, though now I've actually started on anti-depressants I am making a concerted effort to drink less. This thing isn't going away any time soon and that means finding new ways to distract ourselves without going totally mad.
Edit: I now see that this point has already been made.
New infections are down 99% from the peak and 99% of people being tested are negative.
And any increase in infections among the young and healthy adds a little more towards herd immunity.
https://www.racingpost.com/news/latest/goodwood-managing-director-warns-racecourses-could-close-if-crowds-dont-return/444846
The truth is Goodwood choose to race under the circumstances - they could have told the BHA they didn't want to race as it wasn't economic.
I've never run a business so I'm probably talking out my backside here but there just come a point when trading and losing money is pointless - better to shut down completely and wait until full normality returns.
If there had been no Goodwood, no Ascot or no Derby this year, the world wouldn't have ended (it would have been bad for the commercial bloodstock industry).
To what extent are the Government propping up hundreds if not thousands of zombie companies which, if you accept the brutality of capitalism, it would be better killing off and allowing new entrepreneurs the opportunity to fill the gap?
I keep thinking about Python:
"Every job is sacred, every business is good
If one business gets wasted, Rishi gets quite irate"
I spent too much time in the sun yesterday....
Though one thing I'm confident of now is that alcohol consumption has a bigger effect on weight change than food or exercise.
I was feeling very down and I have to say the pubs reopening, meeting friends who I hadn't seen for while except over rubbish zoom meetings really did me a world of good. Just sitting in a familiar place having a drink and a chat in person, a nice meal etc... has been great. It gave me renewed motivation to get out an exercise and get back to my old routine of using the stationary bike, just gave me back a lot of normality which I'd been missing after being stuck in a 2 bedroom flat with my wife for months.
And I doubt the economy would take it.
That's not to say government wont do some stupid things given their innumeracy and lack of strategy.
They'd better not change my grades as I followed my value added scores to the letter (well, number) from last year so that the groups are directly comparable. Not a grade point up or down from what might have been expected. Any wholesale downgrading will then give my students a lower grade than they should get. The school already has the ammo to fight any attempt at such downgrading having gone through this process with each subject and I presume other schools will have similar evidence.
What made me overweight was the commuting lifestyle - long days with early starts and not enough sleep. I was hungry because I was tired or tired because I was hungry. I snacked on sugary and.or salty crap just to keep going through the day, drank too much coffee as well.
Working at home has given me back three and a half hours of each weekday. I sleep better, feel less tired, drink less coffee and while I still enjoy my weekly late breakfast down the cafe, I am less stressed as a result.
I appreciate for those who have long days with nothing to do it's difficult but for very many people (I would argue) the end of commuting has been a mental, physical, financial, emotional and sartorial liberation.
Schools should be the very last things to close when everything else has been tried.
Closing them is clearly not in the interests of the children.
I reckon those of us not living in certain northerly parts with big families stuffed into rows of tiny houses probably have August left in which to enjoy ourselves, after which everything starts going to shit. It's probably not so much a question of if that happens, but how long it takes.
But I wonder if there has been any research / polling on general trends among different groups by location, age, occupation, lifestyle, housing etc.
Population density matters intensely.
Sweden has been interesting, given that their schools closed in mid June and suddenly the number of cases fell markedly. It shows, among other things, how they have let children spread the virus (and they do, and the medical consensus, again, is finding that they both get and transmit the virus as per adults, especially at secondary age). The added extras of greater mobility and mixing in the general public will also have increased that marked fall, so we've been gifted the opportunity to see what difference opening education up to 16 years old does to the R rate.
One thing is for sure, closing pubs is nowhere near enough to compensate. Has Johnson got the guts to reclose large sections of the economy again or is it (as I suspect) going to be a half in/half out solution with leisure businesses bearing the brunt of any 'squeezing'?
My idea of shifting the school year is still out there as an option, we need radical solutions and this is the most obvious one. If education suffers, then add on time lost at the end of when it would otherwise finish.
I'm in one of the local areas with the new tightened measures, by the way. I can only say that, given the very low compliance with mask wearing apart from the public facing workers such as taxi drivers, takeaway and restaurant workers, this is not surprising.
Times are hard, lots of absurd contradictory rules, work is absolutely flat out and still won't be enough to keep everyone at our place in a job. Knackered stressed worried = really don't want to sit in a pub full of dickheads. Turned down a pub offer last night as was on long Zoom drinking session with another friend. Doing it virtually just feels safer right now. If it's not safe for me to visit my parents in their home it shouldn't be safe for me to visit a whole load of people in a pub. Glasses vs classes indeed
Nobody is saying there won't still be offices and nobody is saying if firms want to continue to run offices and ask staff to come to work that won't happen.
I do think the volume of office based work will reduce substantially and as the range of support industries among offices survive on office workers, reducing that number by two thirds or more is going to present problems.
My experience (among older (I suspect) people) is there is a great resistance to returning to work and firms are now starting to realise and recognise that. Some are unfortunately using cajolery and threats to get staff back to desks - others are thinking more strategically about how they wish to operate and commercial real estate is of dwindling significance.
I feel safe. I`m in my mid fifties. This is it - this is what I`ve been working for all my life for and I`m damned if I`m going to allow a virus to thwart my plans. Wait until I`m over 60? No thanks.
It's probably the sectors I've worked in (tech, finance) that are the major reasons why office culture has been a huge positive for me. I'm sure people have had different experiences which aren't the same.
Since Miss @Cyclefree is on the prowl, I thought I would go back to garden questions, as I went from cautious to shielding due to an obscure and treatable Lukemia diagnosis, and am now being slightly let out more again as it seems to be going into remission.
One of my mini projects has been to create an embyronic blueberry grove a couple of years time. Now I am thinking about the bilberries I used to forage on Derbyshire hillsides when a child.
Does anyone know about bilberries? I am probably planning to put them in an old bath.
https://twitter.com/mattwardman/status/1289542313312575489
1. Mid 70s and physically broken
2. Even a non-covid serious respiratory infection will kill my dad. They are being *very* cautious
3. They live in Rochdale
Headline - 4 - new low
7 Days - 4
Yesterday - 0
A veritable who's who of people came out to support the plucky little genocide deniers when ITN sued them. It gave their nascent Institute of Ideas a massive boost and got people hooked into their network.
I think a problem with much of this, is that it is all too easy to look through the prism of ones own experiences.
Things to think about -
- Some people really enjoy the office
- Some teams/groups have an excellent social dynamic. I have groups of friends from previous jobs, who I keep in touch with a decade later.
- Some people have office space at home. If you have space for a proper desk, chair, monitor etc it makes a big difference
- Some people are gregarious by nature
- Some work is relatively compartmented - the developer who codes all day with the headphones on.
- Some work is 100% desk bound.
- Some people have a long commute.
- Some people live in very spacious properties.
- Some people live in a shoe box designed only for sleeping in.
However, I would never force anyone to work from home if they cannot or prefer, as you do, the social and cultural interaction of the office, It's not a "one size fits all" situation and it must never be like that.
Conversely, I would be staunchly opposed to anyone being forced back against their will to an office desk if they consider themselves or those in their immediate family at risk. I fear that is happening with staff being threatened with dismissal if they do not return to desks. It is also a sign of a lack of strategic foresight and thinking in some organisations they see no alternative but to have staff in banks of desks (probably a cultural or trust issue).
Where we should be concentrating is the question of the economic consequences of a situation where the commuting and office based population is perhaps a third of what it was. A clue - not uniformly negative by any means.
In the case of my daughter - who is not academically bright but works hard - she did well in her mocks and would have been aiming for a grade higher in each subject in the actual exams. In contrast some bright pupils were lazy and didn`t try in the mocks.
My hunch is that the teachers will rank a "lazy but bright" ahead of a "less bright but diligent" even though they have no evidence for such a ranking other than gut feeling (and, no doubt, the IQ-type cognitive tests that they all had to sit a few months ago which my daughter did poorly in).
It feels as if we have made 10 years of progress in 10 weeks - there really is no need to move remote based teams back into expensive offices. You can't beat face to face for meetings, but even out there with customers I'm now expecting occasional review meetings face to face and the rest done remotely. Business can save a fortune with the change to ways of working and having seen that saving they aren't just going to give that extra profit up just because the government says go to the office to save Pret.
IF we get a vaccine and it works and social distancing is abandoned next year then there will be a renewed uptick to maybe 60% but that's guesswork.
All very well talking about the importance of education but what happens to the children of parents who lose their jobs and face losing their homes? Going to school does not insulate them from the mental, emotional, financial and other consequences.
I don’t know what the answer is. But the horizon looks very dark and bleak to me.
It's those doing A-levels I'm sorriest for. Guinea pigs for the GCSEs, which were messed up. Now their A-levels are, like it or not, going to be cheapened. And even if they resit in the autumn, that isn't going to help because 'A-level 2020' will say to potential employers 'estimated grades' for the next fifty years.
I offer good wishes if they are of any value, but I'm aware they can be just empty words.
I was talking to the NatWest this morning about some changes to my mortgage (not a holiday, as I am obviously in a fortunate position where I don't need one). The lady on the telephone was in Manchester and she sounded pretty depressed all around as well. Lockdown, plus she's got people on the phone every five minutes weeping and begging for help.
And unfortunately, like @Black_Rook I think there might be more to come.
Berlin demonstrating against restrictions (I think)
Those countries that did badly, e.g. the USA and Spain, do not appear to have made significant progress despite some headline relaxations.
That means we have to face the realistic possibility that the choice is either hundreds of millions of deaths, or economic chaos until we get a vaccine.
Linked to nightlife, family reunions and agricultural workers. All getting very messy. The UK government was right to act quickly.
- GL baseline data (these are the cognitive (IQ tests)
- Year 10 (Year 10!) examination results
- Mock exam results
- Teacher assessed grades based on coursework
This produces a grade for each subject. And then each teacher ranks the pupils in each class.
My issue is that my daughter is likely to do badly on this ranking compared to other pupils in her class, even though she did better than them in the mocks - because of the first two factors in the list above, which up to now didn`t have any bearing on the final results. These two factors have deliberately been brought into the mix due to concerns that bright pupils were lazy in the mocks (I know this - teachers have told me this - without bringing these factors in they simply do not have sufficient evidence to back up the grades that they want to award to those particular children).
We are clinging to the hope that she gets grades for each subject at least at the level of the mock in that subject. If she doesn`t I`m going to have to go through the painful experience and worry of an appeal.
I feel so sorry for these children.
So my observations are that we are going to be fine. But I could easily be one of those frogs sitting in my Bromeliad leaves in the Brazilian rain forest with the logging machines just a few yards away and getting closer.
Intellectually it seems to me that if our previous economic theories had any real world relevance at all then we must be fecked.
What difference has this phenomenon made?
Which laws and policies are enacted because of their influence?
Why is it remarkable that self regarding leftists develop a right wing regard for media and political careers as they grow up?
Why is the Guardian full of clickbait articles of this sort?
I know it’s not an ideal option, but it might still be an option.
Had this virus had 90% infection and 75% mortality then yes, we'd be well over the cliff with the rocks closing in at speed.
Otherwise, no. It will be unpleasant for all, potentially life-changing for many (both positive and negative) but the end of civilisation, hardly.
We will adapt - human ingenuity is wondrous. Look at the strands of incredible work being done to understand the virus and produce a vaccine - unthinkable thirty or forty years ago.
Life will change - it always has - and it will continue.
Daily NHS England deaths under 10 per day - down from a peak of 900
Daily known new infections 700-900 - down from a peak of 4000+
Great news.
"Do you think that we`re heading for the rocks with coronavirus" sounds to me like CHB is almost rooting for this outcome??
My brother still has the virus and for all it has not developed into anything more serious, it has caused him long term emotional and medical damage.
The "cost" of this is measured in so many different ways.
What makes this problematic is how very infectious it is and how many curious side effects it seems to have. AIDS, for example, is contagious but its transmission can be reduced. Spanish flu was brutal due to the unfortunate timing, but would be fairly straightforward to manage now and would have been much less lethal even at the time had the chaos left by World War I not made control so difficult. If coronavirus had hit then, the consequences are damn near unimaginable.
But at this moment, we are only part way through.
"if there is no second support package at least as good as the first - it will be for good this time."
I really hope Rishi reads PB, because he needs to hear this message.
But Monday for a number 2. The opportunity might not be around for long.
In April we have the papers claiming the WHO saying transmission from children has not happened
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8271703/Experts-single-child-10-passed-coronavirus-adult.html
We then almost immediately (the next day) get some clarification from Fullfact who look at this more critically.
https://fullfact.org/health/children-transmitting-coronavirus/
Then in June in Australia we get claims transmission rate is very low amongst children
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-schools-evidence-kids-coronavirus.html
Then at the beginning of July we get this from the BMJ saying there is no danger from schools reopening.
https://adc.bmj.com/content/105/7/618*
Short answer on balance seems to be risks from children are low but maybe not non existent.
*Incidentally when did the BMJ become such a commercial concern? I genuinely thought I had stumbled on a drugs company/medical supplies website when I was directed to them for this article.
For any data I've seen unless the virus has been essentially contained completely the numbers within countries with out of control outbreaks all have seen hits vary by population density.