FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Morning chuckle on Toady @ 7.27–

” Recently hired Contact Tracers sitting around doing nothing, “never been so bored in my life” , people asked to re-do training modules , just to fill in time ”

Contrast the initial team here in La Manche . 20 longtime health/social security employees in Saint Lô, and another centre in Cherbourg . If there’s no need, they can go back to their main job. I’d be happy giving them details of my contacts, they are pros who know how to respect privacy and have something to lose if they make mistakes …

Nothing against those hired for £10 ph or so in the UK , but I'd prefer LOCAL environmental health officers and other career people to be involved!
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The Guardian article of 6AM gives much more of the really horrible detail on this Johnson Government shambles --

'No one had any idea': Contact tracers lack knowledge about Covid-19 job

Employees told to consult YouTube for advice on how to deal with a bereaved person
UK plans for contact-tracing in doubt as app not ready until June

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... vid-19-job

Morning all.

Serco displaying their usual level of competence I see...

Coronavirus: Serco apologises for sharing contact tracers' email addresses

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52732818

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

So would we all.


Except the people making the decisions, who'd rather bung a contract to their mates than shock! horror! employ more public servants.

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One world, like it or not - John Martyn

Something for Starmer to raise in PMQs today?

https://twitter.com/FisherAndrew79/stat ... 5953700869

Good Guardian article on Dr Rosena and her 'tone',

and then the Speaker threatening to throw Hancock out for heckling SKS

who maintains his cool ...

I think I'll check the whole of that encounter later !

26°

DFH says that the PM "won" today, though. So all is right with the world again

From Andrew Sparrow's PMQs snap verdict:



So we have another arbitrary target that will potentially need to be fudged to save Johnson's face. Always about appearances rather than substance. Unlike 100,000 tests a day, though, the difference between actually achieving an effective track and trace system by the 1st June and merely appearing to is more than cosmetic. This target really matters if we're going ahead with schools re-opening in 2 weeks time.

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“Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to get one that hits back.”

And as I have said before, the "elephant in the room" here is that the government can insist schools "officially" reopen on a set date - but as long as a significant number of parents don't believe they are actually safe, a lot of kids still won't be going there......

Really interesting thread about what was happening on the ground with the NHS > care home issue

https://twitter.com/mancunianmedic/stat ... 7357365253

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

And this from Sam Freedman which is where I saw the above.



Yes, I doubt ours will differ much - it's certainly not a case of "If we don't open on 1st June then that's it until September" that seems to be the more frenzied media assumption.

I mean, what's so special about 1st June? It's just a target. Who's going to suffer if it is pushed back a week or so?

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

Good morfternoon.



and

And further to AnatolyKasparov's post, above -

I'm fairly sure that they indicated no such thing. In response to a journalist's question, I think Jonathan Van-Tam (or JVT, as he is affectionately known by Matt Hancock) said that the matter needed closer scientific\medical investigation.

I see that Bercow is trending as people realise that he wasn't actually biased against the Tories but that they always have been a bunch of petulant ill-behaved children and have to be told off by whoever is Speaker at the time.

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If I'm not here, then I'll be in the library. Or the other library.

Whilst returning to the workplace and school?

Does anyone know if many countries lifting lockdown started with schools? The few I've seen details for seem to have allowed non-essential shops to open before schools. I'm struggling to understand why the rush to re-open schools while the rest of the country is essentially in lockdown as South Korea has only just started re-opening schools despite never going into full lockdown at all. I'm trying to work out if this schools first, while the infection rate is still high, is as experimental as it seems or whether there's a precedent out there that the presumed low risk is based on.

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“Of all the trees we could've hit, we had to get one that hits back.”

I mean, "world beating" - he just can't help himself can he?

Evening all!

Nothing much to report really.

Still haven’t seen any swifts here, but I did spot a pair of cuckoos:-)

@PaulfromYorkshire

Evening!

Moving swiftly on . . .

I just walked back from drinking in the woods and it's ludicrously warm.

One thing of note was that after 9 o'clock lots of single women suddenly appeared either walking or jogging, which seemed strange.

So amongst the other drinkers with me was a friend who is a screenwriter, she's written for Coronation Street and Emmerdale before both did her head in and is currently working on a BBC kids show called 'The Demon Headmaster' and she told me the biggest problem for Film/TV/Theatre is already insurance. Any production obviously needs to be insured and she said the cost for hers had more than doubled and dwarfed the expenses caused by the social distancing requirements.

I had to admit I hadn't thought of that.

Her prediction was that this could be the death of the TV licence because the costs of production have become so prohibitive that only Netflix/Amazon/HBO will be able to absorb them.

And she hasn't been paid by the BBC for a more than a month.

Apparently good old Auntie Beeb keeps telling her the cheque is in the post.

I woke smelling the pollution we had a respite from for several weeks.
The noisy projects were back on.

I've only now taken a look at the news today

Not July of next year, is it

Excellent article

Well quite.

Any notion that this hiatus would result in any positive 'progressive' difference has always made me laugh.

As if those who rip us off, pollute us, make a mockery of our democracy and press give a fuck.

The Daily Mail is demonising teachers unions while in the real world England has the worst excess mortality and morbitity rates in all of Europe. Other realities are available if you're paid thousands of pounds to ignore all that.

And that's what it's all about. Money. As it always has been.

Hi

Switzerland reopened non-essential shops and primary schools on the same day, the 11th. Also restaurants. Rest die back mid-June

The implementation is decided by each individual canton - here in Vaud the classes are half sized and in on alternative days

Cases currently running at 50 or lower per day across the country (1500 a day at the peak).

Where the UK is different is easing things whilst cases are still high - as far as I can tell it is only country in Europe to heave done this. The only other similar is Sweden but they are following a different path and different assumptions.

To check the relative situation in each country you can do a lot worse than looking at EUROMOMO figures

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

England is an outlier

One of my colleagues was in yesterday, on rota. It's our school's turn to look after all of the children attending as vulnerable or from key workers families for the three local secondaries in our trust - there were 12 members of staff to oversee them, and for the three schools with a total of about 2500 children, around 500 of whom I think are entitled to attend, there were..... six.

And this is why I'm being told I have to go back in, come what may, and it's my fault I've got a problem because I choose not to drive. And this is why I'm leaving as soon as I can.

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Brightness falls from the air

My nephew and niece are at your school (and my sis works at the big hospital across the road)........the impression I got is my niece wasn't back before September - not sure where that has come from

The school have decided that 'some contact time for years 10 and 12' means half day every day timetables for half of each year group every other week. I have seen nothing to suggest that anything like this level of return was being anticipated. I get the impression that the school are just saying 'either you have a shielding letter or you attend, or you take four weeks unpaid leave and then you attend, or else'. In a seven week half term.

Sadly I started that by writing 'We' and then deleted it and changed it to 'the school'. I know I might not be able to leave straight away but I feel better for knowing that I'm going when I can.

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Brightness falls from the air

She was one of ours.

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Brightness falls from the air

To be honest it makes no sense to rush back to school but the whole attitude of UKG makes no sense.

I would have thought that instead of loosening shutdown they should have gone harder for next few weeks and drive down the numbers of cases to as low as possible whilst setting up the infrastructure to loosen. If done properly then it would be at most a month to do based on what we have seen elsewhere.

The quarantine for returning travellers also makes no sense whilst loosening especially when the UK is the outlier in Europe for cases.

I would have thought a few agreed and well monitored pilots in schools would be useful at some point but with the focus on September rather than this year - perhaps some schools do something in July as a test but nothing more than that

I went to the school down the road with the maroon uniform! Used to stand out like a sore thumb!

All morning on into the afternoon, we heard loud machinery of some wort carrying out domestic maintenance work. I've become less sensitive to that sort of noise and figured work needed doing and carried on. It bothered Mr citizen more than me. Just now prior going to bed, Mr citizen told me the noisy operation lasting the better part of the day was for removing life forms from a tarmacked driveway.

I also fear that the NASUWT rep who is a good friend (and who taught at the school down the road with the purple uniform for years before he came to us) is being taken for a ride by the head. But we don't have an NEU rep,and I'm certainly not doing it now I'm afraid, and anyway NEU policy is not to engage with reopening.

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Brightness falls from the air

It got better for a lot of regular people following the Second World War.

Can't spot this up the page, and it's fallen down the Guardian's page very quickly

Police watchdog to announce decision on Johnson-Arcuri inquiry



These things can be a terrible anticlimax (election law...) but it would be nice if this is being buried today because there might be more to it tomorrow...

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Brightness falls from the air

Let me introduce you to Zamrock.

Which is a quite wonderful thing. Zambian psychedelia.

Goodnight, everyone.
love,
cJA

Heh heh, parp, look at the dog's ears.