A bit of science to ponder.......

Before I look what’s the gist please

It is very short - it is a very quietly-spoken and reflective talk from an American doctor and public health specialist recounting a study showing the extent of coronavirus presence in the air; and counselling that opening schools will expose pupils and teachers to catching the virus if masks are not worn.

It is a pleasure to listen to; compared with the sound-bite ranting of the politicians.

So.....do we keep schools closed forever??? Not only their education being devastated, but their mental health will cause problems from which many will never recover.

No - I do not think we keep schools closed for ever. But that is another piece of scientific evidence to feed into the planning process.

I don't know about mental health - hundreds of children are happily home-schooled - I think we are too quick to assume that school is an inherently good thing - it is a social construct that we all take for granted as the only way of doing tings. It is torture for many children.

But it is the children from disadvantaged homes who suffer most in every way from the school closures.

Given where our education system has got to - endlessly restudying a small number of subjects with exam success in mind on the basis of not learning to think but instead to reproduce set answers - most kids are probably much better off being home schooled. Not the disadvantaged of course but I'm not sure I see the education system doing much for them even when it's up and running.
The effect of people continuing to take overseas holidays has been to see virus infection numbers rise everywhere. What we don't see reported is the number of 'long haulers' as they're called, the people with serious long term side effects.
This virus can enter any cell in the body including organs and the brain causing multiple long term damage, there are enough accounts from reputable people including doctors of the potential serious effects.
It's worth considering the effect of virus load on infection rates and that medical staff are key ones who are in the front line and with the flu season ahead, we need to minimise community spread.
I despair of our idiotic u-turn beset government, the arguments around mask wearing and vaccination and the possibility of ever overcoming this virus. This is worth reading, perhaps if we could get our act together as a nation and set guidelines and social distancing in place, things might be brighter.
www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/covid-19/latest-evidence/transmission