Just how pathetic is Boris going to be allowed to be?

sharon103 I assume you know the medical history of the children whose parents didn't send them to school? There are many conditions which would make it dangerous for children to attend. My DGS has asthma and his parents certainly wouldn't have sent him.
I think the reason the public have become disillusioned and stopped taking notice of the rules is because they know what a complete shambles it all is. If you want people to fall in line you need to have an inspirational leader and a competent government they can follow.

Those criticising teachers and teaching unions should go and sit in a small classroom with 15 or more children and no PPE at all.

If one person is developing Covid then there is a good chance a few will get it and carry it home.

Nobody should be asked to risk their health or life when clearly there have been few plans made to keep everyone safe

The chair of the Independent SAGE Committee, Sir David King was interviewed today on the BBC News this morning (the one of BB2 which is longer) He was asked about the government's track and trace system and he slaughtered it. That's my words - he was polite was not rude about the government.

You may recall that the govt insists it is following the science from its SAGE committee. But their activities have been kept secret and withheld from other scientists and the public so they are not subject to scrutiny.

I hadn't heard about Independent SAGE before today but it is a group of scientific experts from a variety of disciplines. So I googled it. Sir David King is a former Government Chief Adviser and the other members are also pretty eminent. Apparently some of their recent discussion is on Youtube. I haven't had time to look at that but the website makes for interesting reading, especially for those who think the govt is doing OK.

lemongrove PS. Just seen your endorsement of Jabberwok's post. Hopefully, you can see the irony of your comment about something you haven't experienced.

Maybe you could volunteer in a school lemongrove. You might actually see what's been going on rather than repeating the populist myths.

I agree totally with Jabberwok and lemongrove.
In the schools that were open, many parents refused to send their children to school for fear of them catching the virus. I know of some in my village that refused to allow them to attend. Not all schools opened anyway.
As I read yesterday on comments on another site, there were parents keeping children off school but didn't mind taking them to a crowded beach and round the supermarkets.
As for " they should have locked down earlier" my goodness, there there was a"confession" thread on here not so long back where almost every Gran, admitted to flouting the rules and visiting family. But of course, that was excusable in their minds because " of course, we kept 2 meters apart"
If anyone's to blame, shall we go back to remembering the cover up and the lies told by the Chinese government? They should have closed the airports, instead they closed the ones to other parts of China but not worldwide.
This is a virus remember, that no scientist in the world knew nothing about and has affected every aspect of life.
So much for the country " pulling together"
There's another big outbreak in Wales Coronavirus: 51 workers get Covid-19 at KFC and M&S meat plant.
Another big outbreak in Beijing been reported in a meat market. Virus on chopping boards.
With what's been going on lately in this country I can see a second wave here. Will that be Boris's fault? No, it will be caused by ignorant people who think it's all over.

There have just been 51 confirmed cases in a Welsh meat processing plant.

Germany has never claimed that it has eradicated Covid-19, but the issue is how the authorities react to cases and whether they can contain them.

There are going to be flare ups throughout the world for many months/years to come. Just look at what's happened in New Zealand.

I bet we would be appalled at the waste of money this shambles of a government are responsible for.

It also appears that we were behind the curve on the new drug although it has been much heralded as a British discovery.
“In places like Spain, dexamethasone has already been widely used against COVID-19. Carlos Ferrando, an anesthesiologist at the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, was one of the authors on a paper published in Lancet Respiratory Medicine on 7 February that showed the steroid reduced mortality in non–COVID-19 patients with ARDS. When COVID-19 patients started to show up in Spanish hospitals, Ferrando started a randomized clinical trial to test dexamethasone, but recruitment into the placebo group was slow because most patients were given the steroid, he says. Ferrando is now analyzing data from thousands of patients in Spanish ICUs, about 80% of whom received steroids, he says. “It seems like we have a signal that those corticoids decrease mortality, but we need to finalize the analysis.”

Link to article here: www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/cheap-steroid-first-drug-shown-reduce-death-covid-19-patients

Oh dear

“The App

Huge enthusiasm for our centralised app. By mid-May
-Matt Hancock

What about privacy, data, poor take up?

It'll be ready end May
-Hancock

It'll be ready June
-Hancock

It's not a priority
-Govt

May be ready winter
-Health Minister 17 June”

Abandoned 18 June

Another day another u-turn

BBC scoop - NHS abandons centralised contact tracing app, moves to Apple/Google decentralised model.

More time wasted in our fight against covid. They were warned but of course knew best until proven wrong again!

Special schools quite often have children with severe behavioural difficulties attending. These children will not comply with social distancing, may need restraining and may present a much higher risk to adults caring for them because they spit or perform other risky acts. The teachers may simply realise they could not deal with this safely.
As far as other factors go, if parents don't like the school their children attend they can move them.

That really doesn't excuse our government lemongrove. In fact it sounds rather like the "well he did it too" you hear from children.

My grandchildren are in their second full week back to school with all their friends. In the last 24 hours one has been training with her two swimming squads and the other had basketball and football. However, I will not be able to go and visit them or they come here until our country has got this under control.

If we do not put responsibility where responsibility lies will not get that control and responsibility - not miracles, just taking responsibility - lies with governments.

Just heard that Germany tested workers from one factory there and 700 tested positive for Covid19, if this is true, then Germany isn’t doing as well as some think.

The government had a plan to get certain children back to school and during the worst of the pandemic to have key workers children ( and those with special needs)at school as much as possible.
As all our DGC fit that criteria our AC assumed the schools would go along with it....but no, they didn’t and closed their doors.At the special school one of our DGC go to, the head told parents that his teachers just wouldn’t come in.
The teachers have not covered themselves in glory over the past few months, unlike our NHS workers.

"This pandemic has been unprecedented, no one could have prepared for it..."

Hmm, well, sorry to repeat this message, but other countries seemed to have managed to prepare for it - South Korea, New Zealand, Germany, Singapore to name a few.

I think the schools themselves in some cases as well as the teachers Union have quite a bit to do with non compliance around getting schools back.

Please cite on case of the schools, teachers or unions "non compliance with the rules" laid out by Johnson and his government. They seem desperately trying to comply with social distancing, etc., without extra buildings, extra teachers or any input at all. It is for the government to make it possible not teachers or unions.

Listening to the One O'clock News on R4 there was an interview about the 1,500 paediatricians signing a letter urging the government to make opening schools a priority. They are extremely worried as you have hear here approximately 29 minutes in. The speaker said that what they are calling for is a plan. That when he speaks teachers, which is what he does daily, what they want is a plan. They don't know what's happening next week or next month. They just don't know what's going to happen as there is no coherent and sensible plan. That is not asking a government to stop the virus in it's tracks it's just asking for clarity.

You seem sadly happy lemongrove to jump on the blame merry-go-round that divides our country. How can schools, unions or anyone else be to blame when the government has no plan?

Jabberwok

It's so easy to criticise when you don't have to do it! This pandemic has been unprecedented, no one could have prepared for it and yet somehow everything had to run smoothly when it clearly couldn't. Yes Cheltenham should have been cancelled, but so should Extinction Rebellion in Bristol following on soon afterwards, why on earth did the Mayor allow it to take place?! The government have done the best they can under very difficult unforseen circumstances and I bet Labour are thanking the good lord everyday that they lost that election !

Your message needs repeating.....many just don’t get it, do they?
I think the schools themselves in some cases as well as the teachers Union have quite a bit to do with non compliance around getting schools back.Some of our own DGC have had no schooling even though they have a parent in the NHS.

It's so easy to criticise when you don't have to do it! This pandemic has been unprecedented, no one could have prepared for it and yet somehow everything had to run smoothly when it clearly couldn't.

I don't think anyone expected things to run smoothly Jabberwok and that is certainly not what I suggested in the OP. Smooth running and clarity are not the same and it is not unreasonable to as for clarity. They have made errors. At some point an investigation will be put in place and we will know a lot more of why they did what they did. They have moved forward, although not necessarily quickly and they had, to their credit, relied on the reliable. Thank heavens for the scientists and the front-line workers.

As for not knowing what would happen, Johnson obviously thought he did as he closed one of the bodies dealing with how we would deal with a pandemic just after he won the election.

I notice one of our nativist propaganda speakers has joined the thread - or is it eugenics they are suggesting? And a couple whose intelligence only reaches as far a name calling.

Reading my emails this morning an article was flagged up the seemed to ring so many bells. It started:

The thing about the Tories is that, in the end, their essential Tory-ness always shines through. They are and always will be the nasty party because they are made up of people who got in to politics to defend the interests of the rich and powerful. As Boris Johnson's Special Advisor Dominic Cummings once put it: "Tory MPs largely do not care about these poorer people. They don’t care about the NHS." They are ruthless political operators who are often able to disguise or deflect from their essence at election time, but who they are never really changes, and so it never stays hidden for long. (The limits of Tory divide and rule by Bew Wray)

We are back to "divide and rule" and "who can we move the blame on to". If they can't they may not win the next election and that is all they are interested in, not children's schooling, or the high number of deaths.

Jabberwok

I wonder if Macron is getting the same stick from the French public as Boris is for not shutting down earlier?!

www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj_6O7XsIvqAhUCSxUIHfUSDOYQFjABegQIBRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.politico.eu%2Farticle%2Fcoronavirus-frances-strange-defeat%2F&usg=AOvVaw3nKQqYqbpByXSnXeJt5gyo

I think you’ll find he is not without his critics

Can anyone really justify what Boris & co have done in dealing with this crisis. It's a catalogue of disasters.
Not locked down early enough
Not enough PPE so health workers have died
Nightingale hospitals which couldn't be staffed built
Patients with Covid discharged into care homes
Senior figures not observing lock down rules
Announcement that schools would open without any planning
Delays and confusion about wearing masks.
It's endless.
They are willing to blame anyone rather than admitt the complete balls-up they have made.

Jabberwok

Hear, hear quizqueen, but no one on here will agree!!!
I think you realise who quizqueen meant Lucca ,it was fairly obvious!!!

No. Please enlighten me.

You're a tryer, Jabberwok.

France has, to date, about half the number of cases that the UK has and about 3 quarters the death rate.

I doubt the French are complaining

I don't think anyone, apart from China, was thinking about lockdown in January. Apologies for following a red herring...