The big Coronavirus thread

First.Aspect

pblakeney said:

First.Aspect said:

kingstonian said:

Had my booster jab this afternoon- there was also an enormous queue for walk-in jabs and people were happily stood in there for 2+ hours waiting to be seen.

Did you get the flu jab as well, or are you too young?

I got both on Thursday, and I felt like poo for the next 36 hours. Worse than the Covid I tell ya.

Hmmmm. I got both too and zero effects as per the previous 2 jabs.
I must be lucky as most of my contacts seem to feel sluggish at least.

I'm probably older than you. Just a headache that night and next morning. A hangover is worse.

DeVlaeminck

skyblueamateur said:

pblakeney said:

skyblueamateur said:

Do we know whether Omicron was the cause of death or whether it was someone who passed away while being infected? All reports I can see suggest it was 'with Omicron' rather then 'from Omicron'.

Unclear. As usual.
My point was that we are now entering the time window when the consequences will become clearer.

Definitely. I'm still trying to clutch at straws for better news.

Well to be fair given the rate of infection if only one person has died with it there's probably a case for arguing it reduces your chances of dying.

kingstongraham

I helped my nephew with his IT classwork over the phone while he was remotely doing it over the web this morning. If you're working, there's no way you could give your whole day to it and do your own job too.

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

I can see how this home schooling caused some irritation with people. Told at 8.30am that school was off, but kid in reception was expected to attend a 2pm zoom call (or be marked absent) and then upload his completed work at the end of the day.

🤣 Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. You genuinely have my sympathy. The obsession with unauthorised absences is a classic of the unintended consequences of management targets. The absurdity of expecting reception age children to log on to a Zoom lesson is quite something.

briantrumpet

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

I can see how this home schooling caused some irritation with people. Told at 8.30am that school was off, but kid in reception was expected to attend a 2pm zoom call (or be marked absent) and then upload his completed work at the end of the day.

🤣 Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. You genuinely have my sympathy. The obsession with unauthorised absences is a classic of the unintended consequences of management targets. The absurdity of expecting reception age children to log on to a Zoom lesson is quite something.

As I discovered through lockdown, it even evades teenagers and their parents at times...

mully79

Various South African news seem to be suggesting Omicrons peak is waning.

TheBigBean

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

I can see how this home schooling caused some irritation with people. Told at 8.30am that school was off, but kid in reception was expected to attend a 2pm zoom call (or be marked absent) and then upload his completed work at the end of the day.

🤣 Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. You genuinely have my sympathy. The obsession with unauthorised absences is a classic of the unintended consequences of management targets. The absurdity of expecting reception age children to log on to a Zoom lesson is quite something.

Just to keep us on our toes, yesterday's 2pm zoom call is 10.30am this morning (announced 8.30am) resulting in loads of cancelled plans.

In any case, I know everyone suffered with this for months, so I don't really deserve sympathy.

rick_chasey

You can deserve sympathy, just because other people also did it doesn't mean it's not worthy of that!

First.Aspect

TheBigBean said:

rjsterry said:

TheBigBean said:

I can see how this home schooling caused some irritation with people. Told at 8.30am that school was off, but kid in reception was expected to attend a 2pm zoom call (or be marked absent) and then upload his completed work at the end of the day.

🤣 Sorry, I shouldn't laugh. You genuinely have my sympathy. The obsession with unauthorised absences is a classic of the unintended consequences of management targets. The absurdity of expecting reception age children to log on to a Zoom lesson is quite something.

Just to keep us on our toes, yesterday's 2pm zoom call is 10.30am this morning (announced 8.30am) resulting in loads of cancelled plans.

In any case, I know everyone suffered with this for months, so I don't really deserve sympathy.

Did an emergency meeting come up for one of the teachers that they weren't aware of yesterday?

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

<
Just to keep us on our toes, yesterday's 2pm zoom call is 10.30am this morning (announced 8.30am) resulting in loads of cancelled plans.

On this, is explaining to the teachers that this is fairly unreasonable worth the effort?

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

<
Just to keep us on our toes, yesterday's 2pm zoom call is 10.30am this morning (announced 8.30am) resulting in loads of cancelled plans.

On this, is explaining to the teachers that this is fairly unreasonable worth the effort?

I've asked for the call times for the rest of the week which falls short of calling it unreasonable unless they read between the lines.

Ben6899

They won’t read between the lines.

briantrumpet

All the way through lockdown, I was in awe of the parents who managed to juggle childcare at home with their work, especially those who were keyworkers & medics who were also on the 'frontline'.

pblakeney

briantrumpet said:

All the way through lockdown, I was in awe of the parents who managed to juggle childcare at home with their work, especially those who were keyworkers & medics who were also on the 'frontline'.

Grand parents to the fore in my experience.
Which was necessary but struck me as contradictory when trying to protect the elderly.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

<
Just to keep us on our toes, yesterday's 2pm zoom call is 10.30am this morning (announced 8.30am) resulting in loads of cancelled plans.

On this, is explaining to the teachers that this is fairly unreasonable worth the effort?

Also, one of the things I have learnt is that if a school is highly rated, then they don't need to consider the parents at all. They will always have parents willing to send their kids there and therefore their primary focus is on teaching the kids, so they remain highly rated. This seems like a sensible focus to me, but a bit of basic consideration for everyone always goes a long way in all walks of life.

Another factor is that they are all broke, so don't have the funds to pay for the level of administration that they really need (like the NHS).

TheBigBean

briantrumpet said:

All the way through lockdown, I was in awe of the parents who managed to juggle childcare at home with their work, especially those who were keyworkers & medics who were also on the 'frontline'.

It depends though. I can cope because I have a flexible job that I can do from home and catch up through the night if necessary. It's not that easy for many parents though. For example, one parent I know can't work remotely at Waitrose whilst also doing childcare.

TheBigBean

pblakeney said:

briantrumpet said:

All the way through lockdown, I was in awe of the parents who managed to juggle childcare at home with their work, especially those who were keyworkers & medics who were also on the 'frontline'.

Grand parents to the fore in my experience.
Which was necessary but struck me as contradictory when trying to protect the elderly.

Longhaul flight or six hour drive in my case, so needs more than 15 mins warning.

rick_chasey

Yeah, I'm beginning to think about schools etc and it seems like a crazy system.

Because of where we live, the only school we are within the catchment area for is oversubscribed even within the catchment, and so if ours doesn't get in there they'll end up with a lottery for anything in Cambridge which could mean a 30-40 minute schlep each way, which seems nuts for primary school.

longy

My wife is a Primary School teacher and she was not the one responsible for organising the times of the Zoom calls. Either the Head or SLT made the decisions. Attendance was mostly patchy as you can imagine.

What my wife's school did was to fix the time - same time every day - which seems sensible for all involved.

rjsterry

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

<
Just to keep us on our toes, yesterday's 2pm zoom call is 10.30am this morning (announced 8.30am) resulting in loads of cancelled plans.

On this, is explaining to the teachers that this is fairly unreasonable worth the effort?

Also, one of the things I have learnt is that if a school is highly rated, then they don't need to consider the parents at all. They will always have parents willing to send their kids there and therefore their primary focus is on teaching the kids, so they remain highly rated. This seems like a sensible focus to me, but a bit of basic consideration for everyone always goes a long way in all walks of life.

Another factor is that they are all broke, so don't have the funds to pay for the level of administration that they really need (like the NHS).

True. Remember when looking at secondary schools, a teacher giving us the tour pointed at the school climbing wall and commented wryly that that was installed in the days when they had money.

pblakeney

TheBigBean said:

pblakeney said:

briantrumpet said:

All the way through lockdown, I was in awe of the parents who managed to juggle childcare at home with their work, especially those who were keyworkers & medics who were also on the 'frontline'.

Grand parents to the fore in my experience.
Which was necessary but struck me as contradictory when trying to protect the elderly.

Longhaul flight or six hour drive in my case, so needs more than 15 mins warning.

Yeahbut, that's not my experience. 😉 Add on friends and family to grand parents and everyone we know coped. But things were scheduled, as above.

kingstongraham

Raab clarified (as much as anything is ever clarified by Raab) on Radio 4 Today that everyone over 18 will be given the chance to HAVE the booster by the end of this month.

Jezyboy

kingstongraham said:

Raab clarified (as much as anything is ever clarified by Raab) on Radio 4 Today that everyone over 18 will be given the chance to HAVE the booster by the end of this month.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-officials-clarify-omicron-hospitalisation-figures-as-dominic-raab-gets-numbers-wrong-twice-on-morning-broadcast-round-12495367

Not sure he has the greatest handle on reality to be honest.

monkimark

briantrumpet said:

All the way through lockdown, I was in awe of the parents who managed to juggle childcare at home with their work, especially those who were keyworkers & medics who were also on the 'frontline'.

My wife took the brunt of it in our house, fortunately she only has an 'office' job 3 days a week but there were some days of homeschooling when she and my 2 daughters were all supposed to be on the computer doing work/meetings at the same time so it required 3 laptops and given my youngest was only 4 at the time and my eldest was 7, it wasn't really possible to leave them to it.

I think if nightclubs remain open and the schools close again, my wife may well storm Downing Street.

surrey_commuter

kingstongraham said:

Raab clarified (as much as anything is ever clarified by Raab) on Radio 4 Today that everyone over 18 will be given the chance to HAVE the booster by the end of this month.

why are people incapable of doing basic sums?

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

Yeah, I'm beginning to think about schools etc and it seems like a crazy system.

Because of where we live, the only school we are within the catchment area for is oversubscribed even within the catchment, and so if ours doesn't get in there they'll end up with a lottery for anything in Cambridge which could mean a 30-40 minute schlep each way, which seems nuts for primary school.

strangely around here you can apply for any school and the catchment area is set by the number of applications. ie priority is given by siblings and then distance.

If there is a bulge class added then the catchment area grows but two/three years later shrinks dramatically because of the greater number of siblings.

They also do online maps so you can calculate your chances and plan accordingly.

For those who know Maple Road School in Surbiton the head used to say if you can't see your house from the playground you won't get in.

briantrumpet

It's the Mail, but...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10306211/DR-ANGELIQUE-COETZEE-alerted-wider-world-Omicron-believe-Britain-overreacting.html

Patients typically present with muscle pain, body aches, a headache and a bit of fatigue. And their symptoms don't seem to get any worse than that. After about five days they clear up, and that's it.

In the part of South Africa where I work, there haven't been many patients admitted to hospital with Omicron, and most have been treated at home, using anti-inflammatories, such as ibuprofen, and low doses of cortisone.

Bear in mind, too, that most of those who contract Omicron here are unvaccinated (only 26 per cent of South Africans are fully vaccinated). While this is certainly not an argument against vaccination — I cannot stress the importance of that enough — it's reassuring to know that even unprotected bodies fight off this variant much more easily than Delta. Current data indicates that the majority of cases admitted to ICUs are unvaccinated people.

In the UK, where the levels of vaccination are much higher, there is even less reason to worry. A Pfizer/BioNTech booster, given after an initial round of either Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer, raises the level of protection, offering 70-75 per cent protection against symptomatic infection.

kingstongraham

kingstongraham said:

The more I think about it, the less the exemption under plan B for unvaccinated people to take a lateral flow test makes sense.

It means they are able to go places where the risk of infection is high, where there are lots of vaccinated people who don't have to do a test, so could be infectious. Then the unvaccinated are likely to be the ones who go to hospital and cause problems when they catch it.

Either everyone should have to do a test, or there should be no blanket exemption for the unvaccinated.

This was Tobias Ellwood's objection, so he's voting against, and also the Liberal Democrats' objection, so they are voting against. The Lib Dems say everyone should have to do a test.

I would tend to go the other way, especially when there's a shortage of lateral flow tests.

The covid pass measures that the government and Labour are going to pass today don't make sense.

shirley_basso

I don't think Britain is overreacting, but the above is very promising.

TheBigBean

I object to the creation of crowds to check everyone's vaccination status