Topic: Joris Bohnson's Great Unlocking

[idunnosomename]

Enjoying this new evidence-led Joris now that beastly Cummings has gone. Maybe he will also, as the European he is at heart, make steps to rejoin the EU. If 100k deaths is the price to pay for that, then well, it is a bargain!

[Fambo Number Mive]

What are the plans for children with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to COVID? Or for children whose parents understandably don't feel comfortable sending them back to the classroom at the moment?

Will parents be fined for not sending their children to school?

[bgmnts]

Pipe down and open your splayed anus up for the economy boy.

[idunnosomename]

boost my economy daddy

[MojoJojo]

My niece is planning to get married on the 26th of June (planned before all this kicked off). My mum's been desperately looking forward to that, and I'm a bit worried now that she's going to be stressed about the opening date being pushed back till until it actually happens.

(this isn't a comment on how suitable the 21st June date is or in fact releasing dates like that so far in the future is)

[JesusAndYourBush]

[George Oscar Bluth II]

The bit of the plan that seems unlikely to me is the last bit. No restrictions at all by the end of June? Really?

My assumption was a summer like last summer but looser rather than, er, 90,000 people at Wembley.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Yeah, the rest of it all sounds plausible (despite the idiocy of of everyone back to school on the same day), but June 21st for all restrictions gone feels like they thought "fuck it, can't be arsed thinking of any other steps".

[icehaven]

Pub garden day 12th April just happens to be my birthday. Even leaving aside (which I'm obviously not) virus concerns it's going to be fucking crawling, think I'll give it a miss.

[El Unicornio, mang]

[BlodwynPig]

Probably need to have some restrictions well into 2022, I'm afraid. If you want to be a nazi liberal about it, at least social distancing and masks.

[Durance Vile]

Yes, but when you consider that our borders will be open to countries that are miles behind us in vaccinating their populations, it's inevitable that new mutations will reach us anyway.

It's the other way round. Other countries would be mad to open their borders to the UK once everyone starts going mad and shagging in the streets for Boris. KentVid has already got everywhere. Sooner or later something even worse is going to come out.   

[idunnosomename]

there is no way i'm going to be in a mosh pit this year

i mean, despite having no money

[JesusAndYourBush]

The bit of the plan that seems unlikely to me is the last bit. No restrictions at all by the end of June? Really?

My assumption was a summer like last summer but looser rather than, er, 90,000 people at Wembley.

Well personally I'd like to see some daily stats for people who have caught covid, and people who have died of covid - broken down for age groups into decades (30-39, 40-49, 50-59, etc...) - because large amounts of the upper age groups have had the vaccine, and the stats would show how well the vaccine is working.  Anyone know if those sort of stats have been released?

[Zetetic]

ONS publish weekly figures of death registrations mentioning COVID-19 by age group:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales

Don't look at anything daily.

[thugler]

The bit of the plan that seems unlikely to me is the last bit. No restrictions at all by the end of June? Really?

Is that presuming the best case scenario happens in terms of cases etc? Hopefully they would know if the Vax is working as advertised by then and more info on variants etc.

I agree seems very unlikely. I can't see them doing much restriction into 2022 however. I think once most of them are gone it'll slip massively.

[Fambo Number Mive]

This summer school plan seems a bad idea given it will mean teachers working throughout the holidays. It'll no doubt allow the government to blame teachers and their unions for entirely reasonably not wanting and not being able to work 52 weeks a year. Given there are already some idiots on Twitter saying "teachers should not be allowed to on into shops or on buses if they refuse to work", I can imagine the public blaming teachers for this unworkable summer school plan.

[Chedney Honks]

My wife won't be working in her summer holidays. I'll just give her the salary and she can get another job when she's ready. Absolute cunts. Teachers and school staff have barely had a day off, often doing twice the work while being slagged off by all manner of cunts. She worked most of last summer getting ready for September before they did a U-turn, and all of Christmas before they did a U-turn. She won't be working this summer whatever happens. I imagine the kids need a fucking break, too.

[jobotic]

Not that working from home and lesson planning at home is easy or anything, because it certainly isn't, must an awful lot of support staff have still been going to work every day all the way through this. Apparently only teachers work at schools though.

[thugler]

How is the summer schools thing working? Are they at least getting extra pay? are they forced to do it regardless?

[Fambo Number Mive]

it looks like it is an option ministers are asking head teachers to consider (i.e. shifting the blame onto head teachers)

An extra £420m in funding has been announced, along with £300m announced for catch-up projects in January.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the money will help ensure "no child is left behind" due to the pandemic...

Schools will have the option to run summer classes for pupils who need it most, potentially starting with those who will be moving up to Year 7 at secondary school this year.

But there are concerns about teachers burning out if they have to work through the holiday.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the average primary school will receive around £6,000 extra funding, with the average secondary school getting around £22,000 extra in recovery premium payments.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, he said it was up to head teachers to decide how to use the money - it could be used, for example to pay teachers for overtime to do extra teaching...

If some schools are making teachers offer summer schools and some aren't, I don't see how this funding ensures no child is left behind. I also wonder how well a child will learn over the summer if they don't get a break. The whole thing is very badly thought out at the very least and it does feel like the government don't care how many teachers leave the state school sector, like they didn't care about the over 43,000 nurse vacancies in 2019.

https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/workforce/nhs-nurse-vacancies-in-england-rise-to-more-than-43000-08-10-2019/

Perhaps they will develop holograms of Michael Gove reading from "approved history textbooks" and try and claim they are a replacement for teachers. Or there is a secret plan to clone Toby Young and send the clones to schools across England.

[icehaven]

How is the summer schools thing working? Are they at least getting extra pay?

I'd think probably not, as presumably in normal times they still get paid over the summer anyway. It does all seem a bit unfair, and while I don't know much about how education works, I'd have thought 6 weeks of catch up lessons would hardly make that much difference overall and would just piss everyone off. When I worked in community libraries we did the Summer Reading Challenge every year to encourage kids to keep reading over the summer holidays as apparently studies show that children who don't have a lower reading age than those who do. Obviously it's good thing to do regardless but I always thought that seemed a bit simplistic and reductive and there's surely myriad other factors involved in how well a child reads, and simply reading 6 books over 6 weeks once a year is a relatively small one. I know it's about encouraging a reading habit and a love of books generally, which is helped when there's fun incentives and we aren't taking their holidays away, which seems to me a sure-fire way to instil a seething resentment of education rather than an appreciation.

[MojoJojo]

it looks like it is an option ministers are asking head teachers to consider (i.e. shifting the blame onto head teachers)

If some schools are making teachers offer summer schools and some aren't, I don't see how this funding ensures no child is left behind. I also wonder how well a child will learn over the summer if they don't get a break. The whole thing is very badly thought out at the very least and it does feel like the government don't care how many teachers leave the state school sector,

You seem to be making out a lot of stuff the government haven't done.

Teachers, experts and unions called the money a "good start" - but warned about overwhelming pupils and teachers.

I'd think probably not, as presumably in normal times they still get paid over the summer anyway.

They'd be paid overtime, as they don't normally teach during summer holidays.

It's not a plan to open the schools up fully. It's more money for schools to help pupils whose education has been badly effected by the pandemic. The schools have freedom in what money they take and some freedom in how they use the money.

[jobotic]

Lots of TAs are on term time only contracts and don't get paid for holidays.

[finnquark]

I imagine the kids need a fucking break, too.

Typical lip service to mental health from the government on this. Wailing about young people's mental health, then cramming them into summer schools whilst the restrictions are loosened, wasting the good weather and waiting for another period of learning from home next winter.

Nearly crashed the car listening to Gav Partridge on Five Live just then.

[BlodwynPig]

I'm sure their mental health will not suffer in the post-Covid Brexit wastelands our masters have in store for us.

[Vitalstatistix]

I guarantee you teachers can't and won't be forced to work during their holidays so it's not even worth discussing as a plausible possibility.

It'll be some optional summer camp bullshit staffed by a combination of volunteers, spotty teens, underpaid TAs and some teachers doing paid overtime.

And, of course, it won't make a damn bit of difference. What schools need are SMALLER CLASS SIZES and more teachers. But that requires long term investment so nah.

[Fambo Number Mive]

These areas that JVT has identified as having rising coronavirus infections are a concern, especially as we are very near the date for schools reopening.

Should the lockdown be tightened in these areas (some suggestions are in this thread: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,84532.0.html)?

It doesn't seem a good idea to reopen schools in England on March 8th in areas where cases are rising, but I'm sure the government will do it anyway.

This site shows death rates for each council in England - you can see that many of them are rising: https://www.covidmessenger.com/deaths/

[Old Thrashbarg]

I know you love a good bit of pessimism, but I don't think there's much of value to be gained from the data on that page. At least not in terms of the picture you're trying to paint. Firstly deaths lag behind infections, by at least a couple of weeks in most cases. So you'd expect deaths in the last 30 days (infections mostly late December through mid/late January, when they were at their peak) to be higher than deaths in the previous 30 days (infections mostly late November through mid/late December, when cases were rising, but nowhere near their peak). And secondly, a lot of the figures on there are so low as to be statistically meaningless, due to the way they've been broken down.

Infections may well be rising in some areas. Better weather recently has meant more people outside and therefore more household mixing (even if unintentional), so it wouldn't be a surprise. But the impacts of that on illness and death are not yet known.