PMs message

Commonsense - as someone said a few pages back, the trouble is that commonsense is not common.

I don't need to be told to wear a mask and I don't need to be told to keep my distance and self-isolate.

I use my commonsense and do what is right for me personally, due to my health problems. That doesn't mean I like doing it, but I know it's necessary at the moment.

Obviously his statement is very confusing judging by the comments on here. Many contradiction, ..and many loop holes. Mat Lucas on YouTube is worth a look for a laugh! The virus is here for a long long while,?there will not be a vaccine for at least a year, we cannot stay at home for ever, we need to learn how to live with it I'm afraid. Unfortunately, many more people will die and the rate of infections will increase. I was wearing a mask in a shop yesterday and heard a middle-aged couple standing far too close to me making a derisive comment about me wearing a mask. Too many people are too nonchalant about this virus, so I fully anticipate a rise in infections and consequently deaths.

And on and on it goes, the eternal questions......
Please everyone, think for yourselves, read up online about the finer details and most of all, use your common sense.

Do people honestly have to ask if they can hug their grandchildren? !Just think about it and you should be able to come to the correct answer.

I am neither blue nor red but watched the parliament discussion with interest. Those of any colour but blue asked sensible questions which were not properly answered and the blues simply brownnosed the PM.
I am sure Rishi Sunak will sound impressive when he speaks tomorrow. As many GNs know these are just words and far from reality.

You could all have signed up for updates, if you were interested, on www.gov.uk where you will find ....

Coronavirus outbreak FAQs: what you can and can’t do

Please enlighten us GabriellaG as to how parents should have ‘ made plans for childcare’. They could send to a childminder, oops , not allowed. A nursery then ? Oops again! Grandparents or other relatives, oh yes, that’s not allowed either! Am looking forward to you posting your solution with bated breath.

dragana1
Is it safe to hug our grandchildren now? I am in a medium risk group and have been self-isolating
No, no, and no.
What part of social distancing do you still not get?

We’re still in the middle of a pandemic. Nothing has changed. In one/two weeks time infection rates will have increased and in 4 weeks the death rate will go up again. I’m still not seeing my grandchildren and, if I did certainly wouldn’t hug them. But that’s just me.

Absolutely Firecracker

Absolutely nobody has been told they can hug their grandchildren, unless you live in the same house as your grandchildren live in.
Why do people keep asking about hugging grandchildren? No, no, no, you can’t! You have to maintain social distancing with everyone outside your household.

Surely any sensible person would be communicating with their employers re going back to work. Only an idiot would just turn up on the off chance they would be starting back at work.

Indeed Firecracker.
Bars and coffee shops are not to open, they may open later in the summer, if the infection rate is under R and falling. It’s not confusing, but you do have to listen and remember, and then apply to your own situation. Absolutely nothing is in tablets of stone, because the infection rate has to be tracked. If you’re confused, download the document and read and absorb.

Well he may plan to open schools but he might have to do it without staff www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/08/plan-to-open-schools-on-1-june-in-doubt-as-unions-say-safety-in-doubt
It's very rarely that all the teaching unions agree.

Is it safe to hug our grandchildren now? I am in a medium risk group and have been self-isolating. My daughter, her partner and their two children (4 and 6) have been doing the same. She has been working from home and her partner has been looking after the kids. I just found out that they had two sets of visitors the other day i.e a young couple with two children and later a family friend of my age. My daughter thinks it would be OK to hug the kids if I were to visit and that it is all a matter of risk assessment.Visiting them and sitting in a big garden the way they did with their visitors would be very hard for me. Would I be able to just sit and not hug the kids? Not sure. Also that fact that they had visitors who just sat in the garden apparently makes me more anxious. Any thoughts???

I'm with Pittcity ! While I'm not a huge fan of Keir Starmer, he pointed out a whole series of discrepancies. Particularly, the fact that specific "Guidance" was to be issued later - with no firm timetable. The PM did say "as soon as possible", but that isn't much help to employers who may have personnel turning up on Wednesday, expecting all to be in order for their safety. I'm DEFINITELY NOT a fan of having anyone who chooses, driving as far as they wish, for as long as they wish, on any given day of the week (including travelling from England to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland)!

I don't think it's confusing, go to the Government website and you can download the 50 page report.

Firecracker123 what happens to parents who are supposed to return to work but still have a child who isn't in school? Is it OK to have a yr 2 child being home educated and missing out on the socialising but not a reception child? Really it's not even joined up thinking. Did they put the year groups in a hat and pick out which should go back?

really ? very confusing . you can get in a car travel to the beach and sunbathe and swim .BUT you not allowed to travel to see (my brother) at the seaside. or you can use any other means of getting to work by car/bike/walk /......bars/coffee shops open.so confusing and kids back to school .are they going to disinfect the whole school .kids included .how can you tell a child to keep 2 metres apart frrom your best friend. ?totalling confusing .i think boris not going to be able to stop people going to parks etc .will we get get a 2nd lot of the virus .you bet we will .i say lockdown till end of may ...

If you don't send your children to school you won't be fined for not doing so now but obviously your child might miss out on their school work and socialising with their peers. So it's up to the parents to make that choice.

Still waiting for Johnson to answer a single question....

I'm no lover of this government but I thought he started well, obviously been studying Churchill speeches, but he should have stopped after 3 minutes as he started to ramble, I think some people then mentally switched off and then they missed things like 'starting on Wednesday', even his own ministers were giving advice and then having to amend it as they'd got it wrong. The advice is Wales is more clear. As for schools going back I think the person who said 'I'm not sending mine in, I want to see the social distancing measures that are in place because the school can't even stop the spread of nits. As someone else said when kids are sent back to Eton they'll be happier for theirs to go back to school too.

The message is clear enough, it's the reasoning behind it that seems muddled. And I thought it as deliberately scary as speeches in Feb/early March were deliberately gung-ho.
This talk about R bypasses some important questions:
- what is the current rate of increase in infection among the general public (those not involved in or visiting health or care services) and what % risk do members of the general people face of catching it (compared, say, with crossing the road? Knowing that would help us a lot.
- is the evidence that children can transmit this infection strong enough to justify keeping them away from school for the whole term (assuming that parents don't enter classrooms & drop off and pick up times are staggered)? [For whose sake are we doing this?]
- are our health & care services better prepared than they were in March to knock signs of a second peak on the head? (If not why not?)

Johnson didn’t answer a single question posed by Starmer!!

No one is any the wiser.

This is just awful.

It was democracy in action, over a million people voted for Brexit ‘over’ the amount who voted to remain.
Who alleged it was a universal principal? It wouldn’t be the case in China, after all!
It was a phrase bandied about at the time to show that it was a democratic vote that should be honoured.Which of course it should ( and in the end, was.)

I’ve just seen Keir Starmer asking, in Parliament, if the guidelines will be ready for Wednesday when people go back to work.