UK Covid death toll

[Birdman1811]

Game changer…

Still to have a single recorded death from this variant.

We can't stop the virus totally at the point, we just need to work to get to a position it doesn't overwhelm health services.

Generally viruses become weaker in their lethality as they become more transmissible. Let's hope that's the route the variants take.

[baggy1]

And that is one scenario, not a definitive. Hospitalisations are still steady despite this variant being around for a few weeks now. We have to be cautious but at the same time wait for some evidence that this will cause issues with the hospitals before we local down further.

[Birdman1811]

And that is one scenario, not a definitive. Hospitalisations are still steady despite this variant being around for a few weeks now. We have to be cautious but at the same time wait for some evidence that this will cause issues with the hospitals before we local down further.

Exactly.

Yes if we hit worst case scenario it will need to be looked at.

[Derek Hardballs]

Yes of course it’s hypothetical modelling but given the first duty of a government is to keep the nation safe, the general rule should be to plan for the worst and hope for the best. When you have Hardman Steve Baker rebelling against Covid safety measures and is more concerned with his party and his selfish libertarian’values’ than public health, I’d rather not be on his side of any argument.

I know, no one has said we should or mentioned Baker before other than me, but the alternative to what we have now won’t be better public health it will Libertarians prepared to throw people under the bus for their valueless ideology.

[baggy1]

There are many variables that need to be taken into account on the omnicrom variant and we seem to be using South Africa as a guide to how to react. The problem with that is that SA has a much younger population, a much reduced number of people vaccinated (about 25% I believe), larger groupings of deprivation and it is the middle of their summer over there. To use it as a guide as to what is happening here is night and day at the moment.

We can look at what is happening over here after a couple of weeks of identifying this variant here and that is the hospitalisations are steady, as they have been for 4 months now. I fully expect them to go up as we head into party season and then a full winter (this is mild at the moment) but there is nothing to say that we need to react now. The focus should fully be on rolling out the booster jabs and ramping that up and getting ready to react. I would be watching a week at a time and getting all of the required machinations in place - mask wearing, wfh, hand-washing and caution are the main messages at this point. Get ready for more if needed.

[richbaggie]

The other thing SA faces is 1 in 5 of population have HIV which affects immune systems.

Despite that, the news coming out is still pretty positive.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/healt...74206.html

[baggiebuckster]

"I can confirm to you this morning there are cases in hospital with Omicron." says Zahawi today.

[JOK]

There have been some on here who insisted that schools should have been shut down earlier and should have remained closed for a lot longer than they were last year, (Because they are ‘incubators’ { which is true , to an extent}) well, having just spent the last two weeks back in school I can tell you from first-hand experience and from the testimonies of every single one of my old colleagues I speak to, that the standard of behaviour and concentration of all years and sets of pupils, since their return to the classroom, has been horrendous. (Not to mention the fact that the engagement rate on web lessons was abysmal)
 
Before the lockdowns there would be two or three site-wide emails to say little Kyle hadn’t turned up for his maths lesson or had anyone got little Chloe as she’s not arrived for English or ‘if you see Brittany and Milo who have just walked out of their lesson send them this way’. Now there are upwards of fifteen a day of these ‘safeguarding’ type emails. (Avg. 13 per day last week. School role 1400) Low level poor behaviour and disrespect is endemic with very little understanding or compliance of classroom discipline, especially amongst year 7s ( although, to be fair, many new to secondary school seem struggle with not being able to get up and wander around at will)
 
There has been a sharp increase in CP concerns reported by staff and the pastoral departments have been inundated with visits from pupils.
 
So, anyone who calls for schools to be shut down again, as a knee jerk reaction, instead of waiting for actual, quantifiable statistics, need to get a grip on real world consequences and not pander to sensationalist, theorising and scaremongering newspaper headlines.
 
Just let’s encourage everyone to continue with the sensible safeguards until we know more.

[Derek Hardballs]

There have been some on here who insisted that schools should have been shut down earlier and should have remained closed for a lot longer than they were last year, (Because they are ‘incubators’ { which is true , to an extent}) well, having just spent the last two weeks back in school I can tell you from first-hand experience and from the testimonies of every single one of my old colleagues I speak to, that the standard of behaviour and concentration of all years and sets of pupils, since their return to the classroom, has been horrendous. (Not to mention the fact that the engagement rate on web lessons was abysmal)
 
Before the lockdowns there would be two or three site-wide emails to say little Kyle hadn’t turned up for his maths lesson or had anyone got little Chloe as she’s not arrived for English or ‘if you see Brittany and Milo who have just walked out of their lesson send them this way’. Now there are upwards of fifteen a day of these ‘safeguarding’ type emails. (Avg. 13 per day last week. School role 1400) Low level poor behaviour and disrespect is endemic with very little understanding or compliance of classroom discipline, especially amongst year 7s ( although, to be fair, many new to secondary school seem struggle with not being able to get up and wander around at will)
 
There has been a sharp increase in CP concerns reported by staff and the pastoral departments have been inundated with visits from pupils.
 
So, anyone who calls for schools to be shut down again, as a knee jerk reaction, instead of waiting for actual, quantifiable statistics, need to get a grip on real world consequences and not pander to sensationalist, theorising and scaremongering newspaper headlines.
 
Just let’s encourage everyone to continue with the sensible safeguards until we know more.

I was listening to a representative of all schools in England and forgive me that I cannot remember the actual group he represents but it can found on yesterdays LBC interview with Andrew Castle. 

Andrew Castle was putting the argument that schools are absolutely sacrosanct in regards to they should stay open no matter what. The gentleman agreed that it was very important to try and keep schools open but those wishes have to be practical and safe. He mentioned a number of schools across the country who have seen tens of dozens of staff off ill with Covid and over 100k children in October alone. They can’t find enough supply teachers to help with this, as those teachers would rather do one to one catch-up work with children as it’s safer and I imagine easier for the same if not more money. That is with the Delta variant not the more virulent Omicron variant, we simply don’t know what infection rate is going to be within schools by January with the new dominant variant and how can you run a school with twenty, thirty members for example of staff off safely? How can classes run properly with thousands of children off school? 

At present we have barely any safeguards in place at Primary and at senior school we have finally started vaccinations and bizarrely enforcing mask wearing in corridors and communal spaces but not in classrooms (virus doesn’t like lessons apparently). There haven’t been any ventilation systems put in place when we had months to do so last summer. There is very little that makes any sense health wise with regards to keeping children safe from the virus.  

I certainly don’t want my children off school, I want them to have the best education they can have but I also realise that just saying kids should be at school regardless of the spread of the virus is not necessarily practical, safe or realistic if the virus is just allowed to rip through the schools over the next few months.

[baggy1]

Closing schools early in the pandemic and up until we had the vaccination program in place was key to reducing spread and keeping hospitalisation numbers down. That also gave the government time to roll out measures for schools including ventilation systems, protection for teachers and other staff and testing systems in place to allow schools to reopen whilst protecting the staff. What surprises me, when tbh I’m surprised that I am surprised, is that the DFE hasn’t rolled out improved ventilation systems (not just opening a window) to all schools. I would have thought this would have been the minimum.