COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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I posted this the other day and appreciate it's quite a long cast (but the Covid19 discussion is at the hand).
Have a lot of time for Peter Kolchinsky from the early days of the pandemic.

This discussion goes into CRISPR at one stage but also how the world may have to change to prevent future pandemics happening so rapidly. This, of course, touches on meat eating and how the conditions these 'animals for food' are kept in won't be helping given our close proximity in an ever increasing globalised planet.
There are already a few advances in producing 'chicken' in labs with decent results. Along with plant based diets becoming more prevalent (and perhaps sophisticated if trying to replicate meat) this will all help.

The bit I wasn't sure about was the stopping of shaking hands. This is occurring again in many aspects of life (you'll see in sporting events).
Are we really going to start being less touchy/feely?
Huge cultural implications there, but won't this cause more issues with our bacterial immunity if we end up becoming more sterile (and that's often been an argument)?
Maybe arm/shoulder tapping and air kissing will be the norm...

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aH...2ahUKEwiSrvzd6eDsAhXueDABHTBjDfsQkfYCegQIARAG
 
Blue Smarties said:
The schools are a breeding ground. It is futile to ask the country to go into lockdown whilst they remain open.

I can’t go to my local gym, however little Jimmy and his mates can congregate before and after school in the name of education. They pile onto the school buses without their masks or distancing.

The kids don’t care. Many of them in the school my girlfriend teaches in are using it as an excuse to skip PE because they “don’t feel comfortable changing there with coronavirus”.

Not only that, but the system simply doesn’t work.

Kids are put into their year bubbles so they don’t mix, but they still do so before and after school. If one year group has a case, they can’t come in. But if they have a sibling in another year, that sibling can still come and go. Do they believe the siblings are isolating and staying clear of each other at home?

It’s a hot mess, and quite frankly not closing the schools will do more damage than closing them for a period and moving lessons online.
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Certainly looks like it’s the schools.......

3EAF3944-8F62-48DE-9CA9-080E685A8E68.jpeg
 
BlueAnorak said:
Although Primary schools can stay open, High schools do need to close or the case levels will just NOT fall.
You can disagree all you want but over half of cases at home are triggered from high school kids going home and spreading it. That's over 50% of cases.
All lock down has done has lowered the R rate to 1 1-1.2 that is still increasing.
Now if high school kids were following the rules we might stand a chance. But they aren't. And that is the opinion of 4 high school teachers of my acquaintance in 3 different high schools.
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So positive tests today are less than they were on October 19th and you think the mythical R rate is over 1?
 
Churchlawtonblue said:
i dissagree, several age groups have higher positive cases than school children age groups in that graph
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school/uni, and taking it home to their parents in the middle aged groups. Thankfully the low case numbers in the elderly population shows that many of still separating themselves off which is unfortunate but sensible.
 
Think it was fairly obvious that re-opening schools would inevitably lead to a rise in cases. It’s probably a bit disingenuous to suggest that the Government didn’t know that this would happen though. This isn’t a shock to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got absolutely no time for this administration as they’ve continually fucked up on most of the big calls they’ve had to make, but I do sympathise a bit on this.

As a parent, I’ve seen the huge psychological benefit it has had on my children going back to school. Don’t think you can under-estimate the importance of social interaction at that age. Easy to say “just close the schools” if you don’t have kids.

At the same time I’m having to keep them away from my own parents, who would love to see them, because of the risk involved. Painful and upsetting for both.

Difficult to say what the right call is tbh. Don’t really envy those making these decisions.
 
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Ric said:
Think it was fairly obvious that re-opening schools would inevitably lead to a rise in cases. It’s probably a bit disingenuous to suggest that the Government didn’t know that this would happen though. This isn’t a shock to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got absolutely no time for this administration as they’ve continually fucked up on most of the big calls they’ve had to make, but I do sympathise a bit on this.

As a parent, I’ve seen the huge psychological benefit it has had on my children going back to school. Don’t think you can under-estimate the importance of social interaction at that age. Easy to say “just close the schools” if you don’t have kids.

At the same time I’m having to keep them away from my own parents, who would love to see them, because of the risk involved. Painful and upsetting for both.

Difficult to say what the right call is tbh. Don’t really envy those making these decisions.
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wise words
 
Churchlawtonblue said:
i dissagree, several age groups have higher positive cases than school children age groups in that graph
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It was an ironic post as you now know but I think the chart is misleading as 4-6 weeks ago it was clearly different and far more widespread amongst younger age groups, and a lot of those infections have seeped into the higher age groups that we’re seeing now. Like others, I don’t know what the answer is as I don’t think we can close schools indefinitely.
 
M18CTID said:
It was an ironic post as you now know but I think the chart is misleading as 4-6 weeks ago it was clearly different and far more widespread amongst younger age groups, and a lot of those infections have seeped into the higher age groups that we’re seeing now. Like others, I don’t know what the answer is as I don’t think we can close schools indefinitely.
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  • The highest positivity rates are seen in secondary school-aged children, older teenagers and young adults; rates continue to increase in those aged 35 years and above, and rates are now decreasing in older teenagers and young adults, with rates appearing to have levelled off among younger children, teenagers and those aged 25 to 34 years.
This is from the ONS Covid site, 13th November. Sounds like it’s levelling off. But there’s no doubt it’s an issue.
 
Ric said:
Think it was fairly obvious that re-opening schools would inevitably lead to a rise in cases. It’s probably a bit disingenuous to suggest that the Government didn’t know that this would happen though. This isn’t a shock to them.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got absolutely no time for this administration as they’ve continually fucked up on most of the big calls they’ve had to make, but I do sympathise a bit on this.

As a parent, I’ve seen the huge psychological benefit it has had on my children going back to school. Don’t think you can under-estimate the importance of social interaction at that age. Easy to say “just close the schools” if you don’t have kids.

At the same time I’m having to keep them away from my own parents, who would love to see them, because of the risk involved. Painful and upsetting for both.

Difficult to say what the right call is tbh. Don’t really envy those making these decisions.
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It's an impossible decision really. Back in August anyone would say yeah let's open the schools and get back to normal but one month later the same people would probably be saying the opposite. It's fine to point out the obvious infection rates within schools but we just can't do anything about it.

One of the lads on our team has 2 young kids and his wife works crazy hours in an ICU so he's at his limit. We have all worked from home since March and the company introduced full flexibility (do your 37 hours whenever you want) back at the first lockdown but what else can be done?

If the schools closed then basically he would need to split time between working, home schooling and doing the usual home stuff which must be really difficult. I bet many parents did it for a while but then just left their kids to their own devices because they had no choice or else they'd need to cut their work hours (and pay) down.

I think we know that the virus is spreading amongst kids and young families but the link to deaths only occurs when grandparents get involved. That's where people need to be responsible in their actions by following the rules around self-isolation etc. If that happens then for the most part the schools don't need to close.
 
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