OT. Schools...normality and Coronavirus.

[ramAnag]

Do they not call them, "Teacher Training Days" anymore?

Doing much in the way of guitar lessons at the moment, Adi? Have you had to go online?

[Trickytreesreds]

Tricky, very little, the odd voice here and there but in the main Dutch teachers and Dutch Unions are happy with the "safety" measures being used. I do wonder, however, what UK Teacher's Union man Roach has to do with my comment on what was happening here in the Netherlands.



Very little, the odd voice here and there but in the main Dutch teachers and Dutch Unions are happy with the "safety" measures being used.

Because he comes across as hostile to the very idea of going back and seems perplexed when put to him, that across the channel, they already have.
I'd have thought sensible discussion to make it happen would be the order of the day.

[AdiSalisbury]

Doing much in the way of guitar lessons at the moment, Adi? Have you had to go online?

Na, knocked it on the head. Doubt I'll resume anything regular, it's been nice getting my evenings back. Not commuting at the moment either so I'm getting both travel time and cost back. I'm all set up for online lessons and have done it before, but other than the odd one I'm enjoying the break. I think I'll stick with the now and again approach rather than anything regular. The trouble with skype / zoom is usually the other end, people like to get away from the kids for an hour so it's not the same experience for many.

The good thing about it in general though, is that it's given the examing boards a kick up the backside to drag themselves into the 21st century, with online exams. They're still kicking and screaming, but have at least opened up for submitted exam recordings. I used to have to send people to random examiner homes / shops in the middle of nowhere. Still lots more they need to do though.

My friends who teach full time are adjusting, some have had a boom as more people want a hobby, and they're more accesible to remote students. Others, who teach in schools, are really struggling.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Do they not call them, "Teacher Training Days" anymore?

I think the T of INSET stands for training

[ramAnag]

I think the T of INSET stands for training

IN-SErvice Training to be exact.

[swaledale]

Interesting. Very similar to Germany then.

The ‘accident’ scenario is something I haven’t heard of but I can only imagine it would lead to some very long and uncomfortable waits where certain parents are concerned.

The ‘Childline’ comment is, as you say, seemingly universal and just depressing in its predictability. The extent to which domestic abuse of all kinds has risen during the lockdown is a truly damning indictment of a group in society who will, very sadly, be predominantly male.

We do, imo, have to acknowledge both that the UK has experienced a much higher infection/mortality rate than Holland and Germany and that there shouldn’t be a ‘one size fits all’ response as far as various areas of the UK are concerned.

The trouble is since the government panicked and scared the population witless over Covid-19 its going to be very difficult to get people to grasp the actual risk. The lock down was successful in that it has prevented an overwhelming of the NHS, but now we are seeing that there are upwards of 20,000 deaths as a result of the lockdown not due to Covid-19.

They tested 11,000 across the population randomly and 400 tested positive, so as a snapshot in time it shows the virus isn't that prevalent.

But the reality is we are going to be 18 months before there is a vaccine available, therefore what do we do? The actual risk is going to be there, life is risky people need to understand that and whilst taking sensible precautions life has to resume otherwise the economy will be ****ed and if the economy is ****ed then so are we.

There is no absolute guarantee that returning to school is "safe" but its at least as safe as flying and safer than driving a car, so we need to just get on with it!

[ramAnag]

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with that last sentence Swale, but how do you know?
Personally I can draw no comfort from your comparison with flying as I’d put that activity alongside sitting in a crowded cinema or pub for two or three hours as high amongst the list of seriously unwise things to do in terms of Covid related safety.

My question is...if schools are obviously so safe why were they closed, across the World, in the first place?

My supplementary might be...if classrooms and schools (i.e. crowded confined and interior spaces) are so safe why are our Parliamentary ‘masters’ so reluctant to return to the House of Commons?

Not sure if you have children or grandchildren but it does alter one’s perspective.

[Ram59]

The trouble is since the government panicked and scared the population witless over Covid-19 its going to be very difficult to get people to grasp the actual risk. The lock down was successful in that it has prevented an overwhelming of the NHS, but now we are seeing that there are upwards of 20,000 deaths as a result of the lockdown not due to Covid-19.

They tested 11,000 across the population randomly and 400 tested positive, so as a snapshot in time it shows the virus isn't that prevalent.

But the reality is we are going to be 18 months before there is a vaccine available, therefore what do we do? The actual risk is going to be there, life is risky people need to understand that and whilst taking sensible precautions life has to resume otherwise the economy will be ****ed and if the economy is ****ed then so are we.

There is no absolute guarantee that returning to school is "safe" but its at least as safe as flying and safer than driving a car, so we need to just get on with it!

Agree with much of what you've said Swale, but if the government hadn't had scared us witless, how many more people would have ignored the lock down?

We saw what happened when they went softly, softly with the exercise advice in the first place and even now.

Take Durdle Door at the weekend, only accessable via narrow steps, so why go there? Again, I'll question the wisdom of the media, they interviewed people on the beach, which they themselves had to access via the path. Wouldn't it have been more practical and safer to interview people in the car park above, asking them why they were going there and not any other easily accessable beach?

I've been out today, doing important shopping, it's impossible to keep social distancing in the supermarket, but very few staff and customers are following the current advice of wearing a face mask.

[ramAnag]

Agree with much of what you've said Swale, but if the government hadn't had scared us witless, how many more people would have ignored the lock down?

We saw what happened when they went softly, softly with the exercise advice in the first place and even now.

Take Durdle Door at the weekend, only accessable via narrow steps, so why go there? Again, I'll question the wisdom of the media, they interviewed people on the beach, which they themselves had to access via the path. Wouldn't it have been more practical and safer to interview people in the car park above, asking them why they were going there and not any other easily accessable beach?

I've been out today, doing important shopping, it's impossible to keep social distancing in the supermarket, but very few staff and customers are following the current advice of wearing a face mask.

For me your last sentence illustrates the problem, Ram.

I have to disagree about it being ‘impossible’ to social distance in the supermarket. Generally speaking the supermarkets have been ahead of the game imo. However I haven’t heard any ‘advice’ regarding the need to wear a face mask in the supermarket.

The advice I’m aware of is that face masks should be worn on public transport, although even then they’re not mandatory.

Until the advice is clearer and less contradictory then we will have a problem and frankly, as far as the schools are concerned, I would have zilch confidence in Gove’s advice from yesterday, especially when one considers what they advised in relation to Care Homes a couple of months ago.

[MadAmster]

I am still of the opinion that there will never be a reliable vaccine for CV-19. It seems more resilient than its forbears but will blow itself out well before we find a reasonable cure.

There was a Dutch GP on a talk show last night who had lost about 20 patients to CV-19 because they failed to respond to paracetamol, the proscribed drug at the time. He then tried a cocktail of whatevercoquine (Trump's favourite), zinc and one other ingredient on 10 patients, all of whom fully recovered within 5 days of starting the treatment. None of them had shown serious problems and were in the early days of infection. He told the necessary authorities and he was informed in the strongest of terms that he had to stop immediately. That cocktail had been tried and tested by the authorities and, although some patients had indeed recovered, many more developed complications due to the contents of the cocktail and died.

If I'm wrong, I hope whoever develops it doesn't patent it for no other than to make billions out of it. Patent it by all means but only to prevent unscrupulous Big Pharma from making a killing.