The Coronavirus plan, Stan

[midnight_rendezvous]

i take it you supported the current policy of keeping them open for children of working parents. has there been an alternative proposal for children of key workers?

Not in the slightest. I don’t see why teachers health and well-being should be totally disregarded whilst the rest of the country is told to avoid social contact or stay away from large gatherings. We are not a babysitting service and our health matters just as much as anyone else’s.

 

[beorhthelm]

Not in the slightest. I don’t see why teachers health and well-being should be totally disregarded whilst the rest of the country is told to avoid social contact or stay away from large gatherings. We are not a babysitting service and our health matters just as much as anyone else’s.

thats fair enough, there is still the tricky question of who can look after those children. its not as if we have an auxilary child care service, vetted, checked on standby for a national emergency.

i dont think you are being disregarded at all, more entrusted in light of very difficult situation.

 

[midnight_rendezvous]

thats fair enough, there is still the tricky question of who can look after those children. its not as if we have an auxilary child care service, vetted, checked on standby for a national emergency.

My prediction is, where possible, children from local areas will be pooled into school and volunteers will be asked to take care of those children on a rota system. That’s just a guess mind you and whilst I’d happily go in work to look after the children, I find the ambiguity and lack of leadership incredibly frustrating.

 

[Nixonator]

That is your right to call me out on that and I hope I am wrong but plotting infection rate on this website seems to show the same curve as Italy. In cricket terms, the runs per over rate is very similar.

Italy 2,502 cases 71 deaths (March 3rd)
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....f-schools-and-universities-due-to-coronavirus

UK 2,626 cases 104 deaths (March 18th)
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...tly-saying-350bn-loangrant-package-not-enough

Take a look at the stats on here and by all means, reassure me that we are not tracking Italy almost exactly? When will the curve flatten?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

All countries adopting a similar protocol are going to get these rates of infection until circa 2 weeks after they implement mitigation and suppression measures.

The key difference is preparedness.

Are we going to have Italy's confirmed case numbers? Yes.

Are we going to find ourselves in some of the dire situations Italy has been in regarding healthcare? Hopefully not.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Oh look! What a surprise. Schools shut down of their own accord. Up steps Bozo to say schools should shut.

Look where the crowd is running, get in front and shout follow me.

Oh for some leadership. Never mind eh, the gullible still think that's acceptable leadership. What a screwed up world/country

Spot on - and this has been the approach of the Tories from the start

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

My prediction is, where possible, children from local areas will be pooled into school and volunteers will be asked to take care of those children on a rota system. That’s just a guess mind you and whilst I’d happily go in work to look after the children, I find the ambiguity and lack of leadership incredibly frustrating.

Crucial for any such system would be the preservation of - social distancing - constant cleaning procedures adopted - and, crucially, the testing and re-testing of all children and volunteers in this situation (including thermal testing) and the isolation of anyone suspected of being infected.

I don't know what is happening in the UK, but in Ireland all schools are closed, but all teachers are expected to carry on teaching - providing notes, videos, setting assignments and interacting with students online. I spent over 6 hours yesterday interacting with students online, answering questions, setting and correcting work etc. - and we have instructions to notify school management of any student not engaging with online learning so that their parents/guardians can be notified.

 

[Wozza]

All countries adopting a similar protocol are going to get these rates of infection until circa 2 weeks after they implement mitigation and suppression measures.

The key difference is preparedness.

Are we going to have Italy's confirmed case numbers? Yes.

Are we going to find ourselves in some of the dire situations Italy has been in regarding healthcare? Hopefully not.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/18/does-germany-have-low-coronavirus-death-rate/

At the outbreak of the crisis, Germany had 29.2 intensive care beds per 100,000 people. Italy had 12.5. The UK had just 6.6.

(But, of course, many other factors come into play - age of population; intensity of outbreak etc etc)

 

[midnight_rendezvous]

Crucial for any such system would be the preservation of - social distancing - constant cleaning procedures adopted - and, crucially, the testing and re-testing of all children and volunteers in this situation (including thermal testing) and the isolation of anyone suspected of being infected.

I don't know what is happening in the UK, but in Ireland all schools are closed, but all teachers are expected to carry on teaching - providing notes, videos, setting assignments and interacting with students online. I spent over 6 hours yesterday interacting with students online, answering questions, setting and correcting work etc. - and we have instructions to notify school management of any student not engaging with online learning so that their parents/guardians can be notified.

Whilst I agree that social distancing procedures should be adhered to, I just don't see how that is possible in a school setting -especially primary or special schools. I work in a primary school, specifically EYFS, and whilst we have set 'tasks' and sent ideas home for parents to adapt and use as and when they can, I just don't see video teaching working with 4/5 year olds

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/18/does-germany-have-low-coronavirus-death-rate/

At the outbreak of the crisis, Germany had 29.2 intensive care beds per 100,000 people. Italy had 12.5. The UK had just 6.6.

(But, of course, many other factors come into play - age of population; intensity of outbreak etc etc)

Ireland has 5.5

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Whilst I agree that social distancing procedures should be adhered to, I just don't see how that is possible in a school setting -especially primary or special schools. I work in a primary school, specifically EYFS, and whilst we have set 'tasks' and sent ideas home for parents to adapt and use as and when they can, I just don't see video teaching working with 4/5 year olds

Of course video teaching won't work with 4/5 year olds - there is relatively little that primary school teachers can do, particularly with younger classes. But to be honest - children of that age will be fine.

For second level it can be more effective - and I am not talking about doing live classes video video link - I am talking about teachers making instructional videos and uploading them for students - wouldn't work for every subject, but in Maths, the sciences it could be effective.

Like yesterday - today I spent about 6 hours online - correcting assignments, answering questions, revising projects, advising students, setting assignments etc - and so far about 2/3 of the students are engaging - school management will address the remaining 1/3. From my perspective it is a positive - helping students and keeping myself busy so that I don't go stir crazy from 'social distancing'.

 

[Horses Arse]

read the graph. the model predicts all those countries doing something meaningful will get to do so all over again. incidently, most those meaningful things have only been for a week, sometime days.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/uk-government-coronavirus-science-who-advice

Interesting read. No surprise to some

 

[beorhthelm]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/15/uk-government-coronavirus-science-who-advice

Interesting read. No surprise to some

its worth revisiting that graph. the brown line is now a good practical path with the increased ICU capacity. its also worth reflecting most cases, all those in the past week to 10 days have contracted virus a week to 10 days after the lock down.

 

[golddene]

I think this is worth a thread of its own, such is the fast-moving nature of the main discussion thread.

This is the paper that the Imperial College team, who are advising UK government, released tonight and held a press conference for.

It is incredibly fascinating, and the level of detail of the modelling quite something.

It is well worth a read if you can spare a bit of time.

https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...tPDo9ngRtorb2GKDUNO4S-jGvWuTLCUk06aOfeoQIyddo

These graphs are key (the lower is an exploded version of the upper).

View attachment 121099

The red line is, essentially, NHS capacity.
The black line is the "do nothing and let it rip" approach.
The orange line is all the measures announced today.
The green line is all the measures announce today PLUS school closing.

From this you can see why school closures have not been implemented yet, but at the point the orange line keeps climbing towards NHS capacity, closing schools will then curb transmission and keep demands on the NHS below breaking point.

From there you can see things are "in control" for want of a better description, until such time a schools return then a second wave comes along and it all goes crazy.

The paper discusses using hospital admissions as an on and off switch for some measures, relaxing slightly when the NHS is going OK and reimposing again when things start to rise. How practical this could be is the problem, I guess but, presumably, from a society perspective it may be better than a lockdown that could run for a year or more.

By the way this is going it looks like STAN (Bozza) were on the ball with their predictions, sadly.