Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Alert Mongoose]

4 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Can't talk for Edinburgh but the issue fir secondaries here in Dundee is lack of capacity to fit all the pupils in the classes.

That's entirely down to the 2m social distancing rules.
 

The galling thing is when you think of all the empty warehouses strewn across our cities.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

2 minutes ago, Alert Mongoose said:

You do wonder if all these additional cleaning measures are storing up problems in the future.  Exposure to bugs in small doses are part of how our body naturally builds up immunity over time.  The younger generation may struggle in years to come.

Possible, but I'm fairly sure kids will be getting out and eating mud and digging up worms as soon as they can. Overuse of antibiotics is going to cause a lot more issues going forward.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

1 minute ago, Alert Mongoose said:

The galling thing is when you think of all the empty warehouses strewn across our cities.

Serious point here - what size classroom will it take to fit 30 kids in with SD maintained? Because without (much) larger classrooms, then you're either going to need

1. (Many) more classrooms

2. (Many) more teachers to occupy those classrooms, or

3. Rationing of education.

Only one of these options costs no money.

[Todd_is_God]

9 minutes ago, Paco said:

The virus will come back. I think that’s something that everyone, whether you want all measures abandoned right now or would prefer to be locked in the house until it’s all over, needs to come to terms with. It isn’t gone and it won’t be gone, until something major changes - a vaccine, some super treatment, natural fizzling out or herd immunity. There’s no reason given what we know now for it to return as strongly, but it will ‘surge’ again. No ifs or buts.

 

I think a gradual approach to the loosening of measures is reasonable. As important as it is that Germany, Austria, Czechia, Slovakia etc have shown little to no bump in cases by easing lockdown, none of them had the level of transmission that we had here. South Korea and China contained the virus significantly better than us, have far more authoritarian governments taking harsher measures than here and yet they’re still having localised spikes and lockdowns.

 

It’s frustrating at the moment because our data is probably better than could’ve been expected at this stage, it’s clear even the Scottish Government are taken aback by it. But if we jumped straight to Phase 3, for example, on Thursday it’d be very difficult to establish what had caused a rise in cases if it arrived, and you’d probably have to row back all the way to Phase 1 to let things settle down. The USA opened up too quickly and it’s going the wrong way. Nothing to be gained by doing that.

 

Talk of schools in blended models for the full academic year seems completely ridiculous but only really in the current climate where there’s a handful of cases/deaths every day. We don’t know what will change in the coming months. Four months ago yesterday I had a great Friday night out at Firhill and the pubs of Glasgow, and the virus was all a big laughing matter in this country. Four months from now is October - anything could really be happening by then.

 

Tl;dr - calm the f**k down. Things probably are a bit slow but we’ll get there. And it’ll come back anyway.

The only flaw in your post is this. You don't / can't know that isn't what's happening already.

No one is seriously asking for Phase 3 on Thursday. Only Phase 2 in full.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Todd_is_God]

17 minutes ago, Thereisalight.. said:

No deaths recorded yesterday, albeit it’s the weekend, but 3 zero death days in a week is good news

A 9 day week is quite the bit of spin

[bendan]

29 minutes ago, EdinburghPar1975 said:

Not sure how true this is but my wife is just off a work call and it was said the Edinburgh Council have announced that they are looking at kids only being in school one day a week when they go back in August, I certainly hope that will ramp up very quickly if it is the case.

Not read it from our school yet, although their comms have been awful in general. They seem to be happy to send out a learning grid each week, tell you to do what you want from it and let them know if there's a problem....no contact from the teachers to the pupils other than an online chat room a few minutes a day unless they're teaching at the essential workers hub then they get no contact at all that day. That's for the 9 year old, my P2 son hasn't heard a peep from his teacher at all since they were sent to wfh other than a grid popped on to the school website...

From what my daughter's school said, it sounded like it would be one or two days a week, but usually one - overall capacity would be about one third, and they would run classes Mon to Thu. 

[Todd_is_God]

My niggling worry is that keeping restrictions in place until Autumn then leads to them being kept in place longer to mitigate the impact of normal winter respiratory viruses because we "may as well" or to ensure capacity "just in case"

 

Edited June 15, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Thereisalight..]

8 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

A 9 day week is quite the bit of spin

I was sure the first zero death was announced last Monday but it seems to have been last weekend. My bad! 

[Paco]

The only flaw in your post is this. You don't / can't know that isn't what's happening already.

I don’t think there’s much solid evidence of that. Viral load may play a part in seriousness of cases in which case social distancing/face masks are doing their job.

Hopefully it is right enough.

[madwullie]

17 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Serious point here - what size classroom will it take to fit 30 kids in with SD maintained? Because without (much) larger classrooms, then you're either going to need

1. (Many) more classrooms

2. (Many) more teachers to occupy those classrooms, or

3. Rationing of education.

Only one of these options costs no money.

Interesting to think that teachers have been calling for (and been promised at times) smaller class sizes, better it provision amongst other stuff, that had it happened would have us in much better shape to deal with what is going on now. 

Saw an interesting chat as well the other day, that the clamour at the moment is to try to make whatever form education takes in the next few months look as much like "normal" as possible using the techbogy we have, when in fact it would be better for all concerned to try to make the best provision possible with the resources we have - which probably looks nothing like what our traditional idea of school is. 

[Am Featha Taigh Nan Clach]

I have to confess I haven't watched much news recently so not sure how much a potential vaccine is being reported. Had a read about it yesterday and it seems there are a couple which are looking good and currently in wide scale trials with hundreds of millions/billions of does for the public before the end of the year.

[Bairnardo]

I have to confess I haven't watched much news recently so not sure how much a potential vaccine is being reported. Had a read about it yesterday and it seems there are a couple which are looking good and currently in wide scale trials with hundreds of millions/billions of does for the public before the end of the year.

Have to agree that in terms of mainstream coverage it has gone pretty quiet.

[Wee Willie]

On 14/06/2020 at 10:20, Jacksgranda said:

 

Of course, but that's not the way you worded it in your post that I quoted. Governments have a responsibility for their citizens, but they can't have a responsibility - when elected - for something that hadn't even happened.

Gies a break - I'm aulder than you.

19 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

Need to wait and see how it goes first mind

But that's what I've been saying for yonks. The SG is taking things cautiously and you were saying it's time they speeded up getting out of this lockdown. Make your mind up!

4 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

We're just applying the precautionary principle. We don't really know much about this virus because it's only been on our radar for 6 months. You either recognise this way of doing things or you don't.

Precisely! Ca' Canny is the watchword.

28 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

My niggling worry is that keeping restrictions in place until Autumn then leads to them being kept in place longer to mitigate the impact of normal winter respiratory viruses because we "may as well" or to ensure capacity "just in case"

 

You should change your name to Todd_is_Cassandra.

A lot of your posts are forecasting things that might/might no happen in the future.

 

[welshbairn]

8 minutes ago, Am Featha *****h Nan Clach said:

I have to confess I haven't watched much news recently so not sure how much a potential vaccine is being reported. Had a read about it yesterday and it seems there are a couple which are looking good and currently in wide scale trials with hundreds of millions/billions of does for the public before the end of the year.

They're testing the Oxford University one in Brazil which should speed things up a bit with Covid rampant. 

[EdinburghPar1975]

As thankful as I would be for some good news on the vaccine front I would really like to hear some positive news on a greater understanding of the treatments that could be used to help those who do get infected and have a serious case that involves ICU. 

[bendan]

40 minutes ago, madwullie said:

 

Saw an interesting chat as well the other day, that the clamour at the moment is to try to make whatever form education takes in the next few months look as much like "normal" as possible using the techbogy we have, when in fact it would be better for all concerned to try to make the best provision possible with the resources we have - which probably looks nothing like what our traditional idea of school is. 

I totally agree with this. Why would we be desperate to mimic something that wasn't very good? I'm hoping having a bit more time before August might allow a bit more imagination to go into planning for the year ahead.

[Todd_is_God]

16 minutes ago, Wee Willie said:

But that's what I've been saying for yonks. The SG is taking things cautiously and you were saying it's time they speeded up getting out of this lockdown. Make your mind up!

I thought it was obvious I was being sarcastic

[WhiteRoseKillie]

50 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Interesting to think that teachers have been calling for (and been promised at times) smaller class sizes, better it provision amongst other stuff, that had it happened would have us in much better shape to deal with what is going on now. 

Saw an interesting chat as well the other day, that the clamour at the moment is to try to make whatever form education takes in the next few months look as much like "normal" as possible using the techbogy we have, when in fact it would be better for all concerned to try to make the best provision possible with the resources we have - which probably looks nothing like what our traditional idea of school is. 

I get the feeling that your traditional idea of school, and mine, focuses on the education of our youth. The more modern interpretation is that it's somewhere that looks after your kids while both parents are out working to earn enough to support a family - the kind of thing a semi-skilled factory worker could do on a single wage when we were kids.

[Wee Bully]

Very much this. "I've the flu." "No you haven't, you're not even in bed."

If Covid has shown anything, it’s shown that you can catch something with varying levels of severity. Maybe all those tikes I’ve told myself I just had a bad cold, I actually did have flu!

[101]

1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:

My niggling worry is that keeping restrictions in place until Autumn then leads to them being kept in place longer to mitigate the impact of normal winter respiratory viruses because we "may as well" or to ensure capacity "just in case"

 

Might need the capacity in maternity ward's tbh.