Monday 29th November 2021

[refitman]

Morning all.

[frog222]

Morning RFM
It appears that Peter Brookes is not an admirer of the King of the World ?



Splendid isolation --

[frog222]

Had to switch off Radio4 as some teachers’ union person whispered her case politely instead of telling them forthrightly that pretending a very few minutes in corridors was more infectious than hours in closed classrooms was utter fucking bollocks.

Only one in five rail passengers in England were still wearing masks at train stations back in September. Since then, I’ve taken the London Underground to and from work daily, where masks have been mandatory for months. At a rough guess, 1 in 4 of us wear masks in the morning, 1 in 3 in the afternoon. I’ve never seen anyone from Transport For London intervene to enforce the mandate; there is neither the staff resource, nor any protection in place for those staff should things turn nasty – which they would. How do I know? Although staff do not intervene, other passengers occasionally do. Their gentle request that others please wear a mask is invariably met with a torrent of abuse.

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/the-governm ... ur-1323609

[gilsey]

Good morning.


If this is all the snow we have this winter that's fine by me. Seen it, enough already.
This from yesterday, we've had a bit more overnight.

[gilsey]

Had to switch off Radio4 as some teachers’ union person whispered her case politely instead of telling them forthrightly that pretending a very few minutes in corridors was more infectious than hours in closed classrooms was utter fucking bollocks.

It might have had some relevance when they had class 'bubbles', but since that went out the window months ago it is, as you say, bollocks.

Just think, in the summer holidays we could have started vaccinating older children, worked on ventilation, supplied CO2 monitors and air filters if the windows don't open....

[gilsey]

Re masks, out here in the sticks I'd say probably 30-40% still wearing them in the shops, in town hardly any, except in M&S.
Don't use the buses but people at stops usually seem to have them.

[frog222]

I don't know about the really big cities but here in the provinces masks in shops are virtually** 100% .

Outdoor terraces of cafés look a little crowded to me, and I believe controls now are limited to Covid Passes, which is somewhat theoretical as I havent heard of any gendarmerie inspections. The threat of massive € fines is always there, though.

**For the first time since Covid began I saw a very old lady without one in the big Leclerc supermarket last week, and that's it.

[frog222]

Re masks, out here in the sticks I'd say probably 30-40% still wearing them in the shops, in town hardly any, except in M&S. Don't use the buses but people at stops usually seem to have them.

What's with M&S? Are they braving the threatening mob ?

[frog222]

[Willow904]

Had to switch off Radio4 as some teachers’ union person whispered her case politely instead of telling them forthrightly that pretending a very few minutes in corridors was more infectious than hours in closed classrooms was utter fucking bollocks.

It might have had some relevance when they had class 'bubbles', but since that went out the window months ago it is, as you say, bollocks.

Just think, in the summer holidays we could have started vaccinating older children, worked on ventilation, supplied CO2 monitors and air filters if the windows don't open....

It's way too late now. Students and teachers have been massively exposed. So many teachers are off long term sick I'm seeing reports of TAs taking classes in some schools because there aren't enough supply teachers available to fill all the gaps. And while my daughter didn't have much in the way of symptoms while she was isolating with covid, it looks like it may have aggravated her cfs/me. She hasn't felt quite right since and passed out at school last week, so is now resting and waiting for blood tests and an ecg just to be on the safe side. She may have been overdoing it anyway, what with mocks and a teen social life, but fighting off covid probably hasn't helped. It's the lack of even trying to protect children in schools that makes me angry. They ditched bubbles and actively encouraged the resumption of all school assemblies and dropped mask use before vaccinations even started. Why?

[gilsey]

What's with M&S? Are they braving the threatening mob ?

Different class of customers.

[gilsey]

They ditched bubbles and actively encouraged the resumption of all school assemblies and dropped mask use before vaccinations even started. Why?

Herd immunity. What other explanation could there be?

[gilsey]

Good to see that Cat Smith letter includes a plea for PR.

[AnatolyKasparov]

She is generally quite sound, and a likeable person.

[gilsey]

No 10 rejected the call from the Scottish and Welsh governments for eight-day isolation for all arrivals to the UK. (See 11.06am.) Asked about the proposal, the PM’s spokesman said this would have a “detrimental effect” on the travel industry.

On the other hand, fewer people might die, but who cares?

[frog222]

It's way too late now. Students and teachers have been massively exposed. So many teachers are off long term sick I'm seeing reports of TAs taking classes in some schools because there aren't enough supply teachers available to fill all the gaps. And while my daughter didn't have much in the way of symptoms while she was isolating with covid, it looks like it may have aggravated her cfs/me. She hasn't felt quite right since and passed out at school last week, so is now resting and waiting for blood tests and an ecg just to be on thenagement safe side. She may have been overdoing it anyway, what with mocks and a teen social life, but fighting off covid probably hasn't helped. It's the lack of even trying to protect children in schools that makes me angry. They ditched bubbles and actively encouraged the resumption of all school assemblies and dropped mask use before vaccinations even started. Why?

Highly likely that even apparently mild covid could interact with me/cfs , and resting is strongly recommended ! My daughter had MS for four years before getting Covid last December . She was improving when a vaccination in April knocked her right back, and now the pneumo specialist is attempting everything to help her. No news for a week now ... because she doesn't contact me when she's suffering .
Sky's recounting of his brother's dreadful experience shows how inhumane the Ofsted and general education management is: getting bums on seats even if the kids are actually still ill is very much like an army using humans as cannon-fodder . They are warm bodies, that's all.
Losing a year's school is nothing compared to buggering up one's health, and the Tory and other MP's, and Education Management rabbiting on about how attendance is all-important are plain wrong. -.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Thornberry to shadow Patel is actually a decent move if confirmed. NTS is a nice guy but really was the "Invisible Man".

[PorFavor]

Rosena Allin-Khan, a shadow health minister, responded for Labour. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, is isolating after testing positive last week. She was largely critical of the government, saying that masks should never have been made voluntary on public transport in the first place, that sick pay is still inadequate, and that there should be compulsory pre-departure Covid tests for people flying into the UK. She also criticised Boris Johnson for his record on mask wearing, saying he had put people at risk in a hospital.

Javid told her, in response, that her partisan reply had misjudged the mood of the house. He joked that she might have been auditioning for the reshuffle. (Politics Live, Guardian)

They really, really don't like her tone, do they? I wonder why that could be.

[Willow904]

They ditched bubbles and actively encouraged the resumption of all school assemblies and dropped mask use before vaccinations even started. Why?

Herd immunity. What other explanation could there be?

Herd immunity instead of vaccines might have made some kind of cynical sense but having already committed the money for a vaccination programme for 12-15 yr olds, allowing covid to spread unchecked at the exact same time as it rolled out has been particularly chaotic. Lots of jabs have had to be rescheduled as kids tested right before their vaccine was due while others were wasted as kids unknowingly already had covid when jabbed so they probably didn't work properly. We're spending money on LFT tests, then telling people to ignore them and spending money on tracing people only to tell close contacts they need do nothing. And while it's great the NHS has been rolling out third primary doses to vulnerable people its existence and the difference from the booster programme hasn't really been communicated by the government at all. I'm still hoping we'll get lucky and we won't see any major surges this winter but if we do I really hope people will look at the choices the government have made a bit more critically than previously because there really is a lot more that could have been done, especially the long term measures to improve ventilation in schools, hospitals and offices which don't require any restrictions on people's freedom but could make a big difference.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good afternoon.

So instead of giving the cash to schools to let them sort out what individual pupils needed to catch up, we have this...

[Willow904]

@frog222
I'm sorry to hear your daughter's MS was made worse by covid and the vaccine. Neurological illnesses can be so unpredictable, it's hard to know what will cause a relapse, making choices around vaccinating or shielding quite difficult for some people to know what to do for the best.

[frog222]

@WilllowHer doc even wanted to vaxx her before, but she held out another month, now several weeks bedridden at a time since .
But the major problem is not those already vulnerable but the large numbers of children with Long Covid even after apparently mild infections .
But Javid is more concerned with the travel industry and CP landlords.