Schools Fully Open 8th March

[Bentley Bullet]

BST. Every time we have been in lockdown the public has demanded that the government announce exit plans, including actual dates of when we're coming out of lockdown. Boris Johnson, along with the chief medical officer and chief scientific officer announced exit plans, and couldn't have stressed any more the point that the plans will only progress on those dates if the data permits it. Anyone who hasn't understood that are either a bit thick or are like you, gonna call the plan a failure if those dates don't work out.

The economy is only one aspect that suffers in lockdown. There is also children's education, General public health and mental health that suffers also. The loss of businesses and the loss of jobs is only a part of the consequences of lockdown.

But then you know all that, but your reluctance to give this government and anybody who works alongside it ANY credit or support whatsoever remain as it has all through the pandemic, simply because of your political agenda.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Grow up BB. Stop being such a petulant kid. I've given the Govt credit for a number of things. You said you reckoned it was part of a plan to make other criticisms look more believable, which is perhaps THE most batshit stupid thing I've ever seen on here, not to mention a disgusting thing to accuse someone of on this of all topics.

You need to get some perspective.

[Bentley Bullet]

Thanks for that bit of grown-up advice BST. Any credit you've given the government has been a token one to cover your obsessive hatred, and there was always a 'but' not long after.

It's not you who I'm getting at in all honesty, it's those who might be swayed to believe your views. You're an intelligent bloke, but with intelligence comes responsibility.

 I think you're a lost cause and your hatred for the Tory government has reached a point of no reasoning. You have become a pound shop Piers Morgan.

[SydneyRover]

Anyone reading the comments on this forum are hardly going to listen to you over anyone are they bb?

[Bentley Bullet]

Skippy, do you feel more important since you become a pound shop Susanna Reid?

[SydneyRover]

just answer the question with a bit of honesty for a change

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thanks for that bit of grown-up advice BST. Any credit you've given the government has been a token one to cover your obsessive hatred, and there was always a 'but' not long after.

It's not you who I'm getting at in all honesty, it's those who might be swayed to believe your views. You're an intelligent bloke, but with intelligence comes responsibility.

 I think you're a lost cause and your hatred for the Tory government has reached a point of no reasoning. You have become a pound shop Piers Morgan.

And there you go again. Accusing me not only of having a political agenda, but deliberately trying to hide it by lying. On THE most important issue we have, with tens of thousands of people dead.

I know you find it impossible to get any sense of perspective when you start ranting at me, but just stop for a moment and ask yourself if you truly believe that accusation.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST. It's obvious now that you're not going to properly answer my post prior to the one where you told me to grow up, so let's do the usual thing where I just answer your posts.

I have accused you of having a political agenda because I absolutely believe that to be true. Ask yourself this. If we had a Labour party running the show would you attack it day after day, often repeating old attacks when you couldn't find anything new to attack it with? Or, would you defend it as much as you possibly could and accuse anyone who attacked it day after day, often repeating themselves, of being political in a pandemic that has caused thousands of deaths?

I say with confidence that your answer would be no for the first scenario and yes for the second one.

Regarding your lying, I haven't said that, and don't know what you mean by it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.
You think I'd be uncritically supporting ANY Government that had taken us late into lockdown originally, brought fringe scientists in to advise the PM not to lockdown in September when things were getting out of control, refused to lockdown in December when things got totally out of control, presided over one of the worst death rates in the world and the worst economic hit of any major country as a result, given contracts to party donors then run up massive legal costs trying to prevent judicial oversight of the process?

Really? You reckon I am THAT politically partisan?

As for accusing me of lying, of course you have. You have said just a few posts up that I have given credit to this Govt as cover for what you consider to be my real agenda. So clearly you don't believe that I am being honest in giving that credit.

I've pointed out time after time that the criticisms AND the credit have ALWAYS been based on what I understand of the available facts. That's the bit that you won't accept because it don't chime with your insistence that I have an agenda.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST.
I think you would defend the Labour party as much as you possibly could. For instance, You might not have dismissed the fact that we are the third most densely populated island in the world or the hub of world trade with more than our share of foreign visitors. Or that we have a high volume of older people. They are examples that you might have used to defend our high number of casualties, all of which you won't give the time of day in real life under the Tories.

I stand by my point that you have tended to take back your praises of the government. I refute your allegation of me calling you a liar.

[BillyStubbsTears]

How the hell can you refute it when you have said it yourself just up the page here?

When have I taken back my praise of the vaccination programme?

When have I taken back my praise of Sunak's original furlough scheme?

When have I taken back my comments on how effective this current lockdown  has been?

As for the population density, that is a red herring. The first wave demonstrated everywhere around the world that cases doubled every three-four days without action being taken and halved every fortnight when lockdowns were imposed. That happened in the UK, in Denmark, in Italy, in Spain, in China, in Germany... We had the worst first wave in Europe because we locked down much later than every other country in Europe. Absolutely no question about that.

YOU are searching for excuses that do not stand up to scrutiny. Hong Kong and Singapore have similar population densities to GB and, per capita, have far more people travelling through them. But they locked down quickly and hard and have had a tiny fraction of the infection rates we have had. The population density issue is utterly irrelevant but you repeat it without any evidence and you accuse ME of being biased.

[BillyStubbsTears]

One more thing I will give the Govt credit for. The decision to prioritise getting first shots of the vaccine into as many arms as possible, rather than doubling up on the most vulnerable. That is looking more and more like an excellent decision.

[Bentley Bullet]

You haven't taken back your praise of the vaccine programme, yet, though I never saw you go as far as to correct your cronies on here who said the vaccine programme wasn't down to the government, it was down to the NHS.

Other than that, I wait in anticipation to see what your reaction is at the first hint of a vaccine output decrease.

Regarding Sunak. Following your initial praise of him, you said: Sunak is deliberately choosing to mislead people.
You also said: "I was full of praise for Sunak's furlough scheme. Back in March, I also had some vigorous disagreements with people on here who are probably to the left of me, who were criticising Govt policy on dealing with COVID when I thought they should have been cutting them some slack."

"What I've done since then is to change my opinions when the facts demonstrated that they were right and I was wrong."

You've also since your praise of him said "Sunak seems determined to go back to the failed plan of saving our way out of the recovery from this crisis."

Regarding the current lockdown, where have you praised the government on the current effectiveness of the lockdown?

AS for the final two paragraphs of your post. That is precisely what I'm saying! There are far cleverer people than me who suggest the density, population size, obesity rate, and age of the population were  factors in the high number of casualties. Wouldn't you have shared their opinion more eagerly if we had a Labour party in charge?

Even if you would never concede that they were cleverer than you, EVEN if like now you didn't agree with it, I think you would use it to defend a Labour government in the current predicament

Anyway, if this debate has done nothing it has at least encouraged you to come out in praise of the government more.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.

I've got a very busy couple of days, but let me just address the Sunak point for now. Because this is typical of interacting with you.

You don't seem to be able to process the fact that I can praise Sunak for one thing (the furlough) and criticise him for another (deliberately or ignorantly misleading the public on the issue of dealing with public debt). You take the latter as proof that I am being dishonest on the former. I think that goes to the heart of the problem. You have difficulty with nuance.

[Bentley Bullet]

I have never said you were being dishonest! I said that for every praise you have given the government you have tended to castigate them sooner or later as if to maintain an unlevel playing field of criticism.

Anyway, I respect you're busy, and besides, the thread has gone way off in the wrong direction so I'll say no more on this subject.

[BillyStubbsTears]

BB.

Like I say, I praise when I think praise is due. I criticise when I think they are wrong. What exactly would you want me to do otherwise?

As for accusing me of being dishonest, how else is this supposed to be interpreted? "Any credit you've given the government has been a token one to cover your obsessive hatred."

That is an explicit accusation of me behaving dishonestly. If you are now saying that you retract that, then good.

[Bentley Bullet]

BST.
That's a brilliant attribute when done without bias.

[auckleyflyer]

Going back ten or so posts, yes 50mil yet to be vaccinated. So yes opening schools on the 8th will raise the R rate.
The question is Billy how many will be vaccinated between now and 24days on from march 8??
Could be almost at 50% population by then and a very different outcome.
It's a calculated gamble, as every decision is. I feel like they are the right side (just) of caution this time rather than optimism? and hopeful of a much better outcome.
I really am banking on it for sure, working in aviation!

[belton rover]

Impressive that you work in aviation.
I assumed you delivered leaflets 

[BillyStubbsTears]

Auckley.

I take your point, but a couple of things worry me.

1) You need to wait two-three weeks before those vaccinated reach immunity. So as late as early-mid April you still have more than half the population vulnerable. Probably not to dying because most of the really vulnerable will be covered by then, but certainly to hospitalisation.

2) Then the other thing is the sudden massive slowdown in the rate at which positive cases have been coming down. It is looking already as though R is back up to something not very far short of 1. Opening schools seems bound to push it back above 1, which means we will see cases start to rise again from an already high base.

I truly hope I'm being overly pessimistic, but it feels like a hell of a gamble, and we haven't got a good record of getting these calls right over the past 12 months.

[albie]

Waiting until after Easter would be a much more secure position from which to open up.

The gamble Bozo is taking is that immunisation will outpace and counteract the trend to increased overall rates of transmission from relaxing lockdown.

The further down the road with vaccination, the higher the prospect of success.
The point being that it is a gamble you do not need to take...a simple deferment moves the odds significantly in your favour.

[auckleyflyer]

We're also heading into the summer months which will help.
Compare this coming summer with last year's freedom (+eat out to help out), with 0 vaccinated,
This year looks more measured, we are better prepared and trained?! (Masks now standard, screens fitted to retail and transport) and with 30+million most at risk protected
It's got to be better??

[BillyStubbsTears]

Waiting until after Easter would be a much more secure position from which to open up.

The gamble Bozo is taking is that immunisation will outpace and counteract the trend to increased overall rates of transmission from relaxing lockdown.

The further down the road with vaccination, the higher the prospect of success.
The point being that it is a gamble you do not need to take...a simple deferment moves the odds significantly in your favour.

Bang on. Here's a sobering thought. We are still having about 10,000 new positive tests per day, even after nearly 8 weeks of lockdown because we started from such frighteningly high numbers in early Jan.

But it was clear from early December that things were getting out of control. Had we locked down, say on 10 Dec at which point we were having about 21,000 new cases a day and rising exponentially, we would have got down to where we are now by Xmas Day. Had we even locked down on Boxing Day by which time the cases were up to 43,000 per day, we'd have been where we are now more than a month ago. That what has been the consequence of delaying the lockdown and hoping for the best. None of this was hard to predict. But we gambled and we lost massively. For the third time. It does feel like a gamble again this time and I hope to God we don't screw it up once again.

[i_ateallthepies]

I don't think they're gambling, BST.  It's entirely consistent with their running it hot policy.

[albie]

New data emerging which shows the early opening of schools may well be a mistake;
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1367744596504158208

Just not a risk we need to take.
Give the kids extra face time in school in the summer, not now.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

New data emerging which shows the early opening of schools may well be a mistake;
https://twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1367744596504158208

Just not a risk we need to take.
Give the kids extra face time in school in the summer, not now.

6 months to a child is a huge amount of time. These kids are already suffering, they need to be in school.

[albie]

BFYP,

I agree in the abstract, but in the particular the data is indicating a high risk of rising infections.

So the question is how best to manage competing claims, where bringing kids back early runs the risk of preventable deaths, long Covid for some, and possible further need for lockdown.

When new information comes to light, you amend responses to take into account that data. You do not carry on regardless, without consideration of revision.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

BFYP,

I agree in the abstract, but in the particular the data is indicating a high risk of rising infections.

So the question is how best to manage competing claims, where bringing kids back early runs the risk of preventable deaths, long Covid for some, and possible further need for lockdown.

When new information comes to light, you amend responses to take into account that data. You do not carry on regardless, without consideration of revision.

I don't disagree, but I also don't think you disregard the mental health and development of millions of people and young ones at that.

[Bentley Bullet]

It's not like they are just turning up for school as they usually did. They are being covid tested twice a week. My granddaughter goes in this afternoon solely for a covid test and all households with children of school age can get 2 rapid COVID-19 tests per person per week.

[belton rover]

That is true Bentley. Hopefully, the extra precautions will prove to be enough to keep it at bay.