With mass testing of schoolchildren happening every week – and the fact that those testing positive and their contacts are required to self-isolate – it is not surprising that more than 200,000 children were at home isolating at the end of last week, according to official estimates. MailOnline has the details.
More than nine in 10 pupils attended schools in England last week – but a growing number of children were self-isolating at home due to possible contact with COVID-19 cases, Government figures show.
Attendance in state schools last week was the highest it has been at any point during the pandemic, the Department for Education (DfE) analysis shows.
But the data suggests that 169,000 pupils were out of class and self-isolating on Thursday last week due to potential contact with a case of coronavirus.
The DfE estimates that approximately 2% of all state school pupils on roll – up to 201,000 children – did not attend school for COVID-19 related reasons on March 18th, up from 1% on March 11th.
This includes 127,000 pupils who have been self-isolating due to a potential contact with a COVID-19 case from inside the educational setting, and a further 42,000 pupils who were self-isolating due to a possible contact outside of school.
Meanwhile, 21,000 pupils were absent because they suspected they had COVID-19, 7,000 were off after testing positive for COVID-19, and 4,000 were absent as their school was closed due to Covid-19 reasons.
Secondary schools in England were given flexibility to stagger the return of their pupils between March 8th and 12th as these students were being asked to take voluntary COVID-19 tests on site as part of their return.
Overall, attendance in state schools was 91% on March 18th, up from 89% on March 11th – when some secondary schools were still phasing in the return of pupils due to the logistics of mass testing.
Around 89% of secondary school pupils were in class on March 18th – a similar proportion to the start of the second week of schools reopening in England.
But attendance in primary schools fell to 93% on Thursday last week from 95% the previous week, the figures show.
Perhaps most shocking is that 200,000+ were self-isolating last week even though just 0.067% of the millions of tests carried out came back positive. Given that this is below the estimated false positive rate of the lateral flow tests of 0.32% (the FPR can differ by age group and is thought to be lower in younger people), this suggests almost all of the positives are not real infections, or at least not contagious.
The Government’s refusal to allow confirmatory testing, either by PCR or by a second lateral flow test, prevents many of these false positives being identified and the needless harm of self-isolation being avoided.
If the Government is going to insist on continuing the pandemic-perpetuating practice of mass testing, the least it can do is allow the escape route of a second test for the victims of the imperfect tests.
The Mail report is worth reading in full.
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“Those with merit rule.”
Anyone who thought that, wasn’t paying attention to those who actually ruled… or the mediocrats ruling today.
Socialism is the quintessential ideology of mediocracy – all reduced to the lowest common denominator to ensure equality. This cancer has invaded all our institutions, which is why we are where we are.
Spot on !
Thought provoking but I think the author hasn’t fully explained how or by which attributes hierarchy is established in a mediocrity.
This is important in understanding how seemingly mediocre people come to get power and rule over us.
The article was very good I did enjoy it. But to offer a possible route for the mediocre to gain a leg up for power, I would suggest the mediocre types propensity to go to University and get a degree in a subject of equally mediocre value gives them the grounding in the essence of inflated self worth. Which because of their inflated opinion of self, deem themselves the custodians of the right opinions, to be imparted upon those less fortunate.
We are being ruled by a class (if you prefer) of people with a purported academic knowledge of subjects that bear no relationship to the material and operational functions of a living society. Everything is possible to them as they have never learnt from or experienced a failure. When the lights go out and their laptop battery runs out through lack of power, the failure their Net Zero policies will merit their greatest achievement.
University as in Blairs dumbbing down and renaming he entire FE sector universities. That guaranteed mediocrity.
Nicely put. It also seems that in increase in the Blair type Uni grad population, is equal to the regression of and non productive society we see today.
So you’re saying hierarchy in a mediocracy is established by a system of bogus credentials.
That’s probably part of it.
A significant part to me is one’s ability to create social networks. People with social networking skills have higher status and power.
And I would venture to suggest that there is a negative correlation, perhaps not a very strong but significant one, between social networking ability and actually productive skills.
It is the productive skills that promote civilisations advancement, the rest is just a noise that some of us, I am happy to say, do not listen to, but equally are aware of its power to influence those who are susceptible to it.
May I make a shout-out for the more well-known Peter Principle where people in any organisation, including government, will rise to their level of incompetence, or ineptness to use the terminology of the article.
This is particularly true of our current crop of political leaders. The jury is still out on Farage, but he has shown his mastery at PR in that the whole country is talking about him today. There is no such thing as bad publicity.
In a similar vein is C.Northcote Parkinsons definition of a ‘Spastic Organisation’ where incompetents fill departments up with people ‘just like them’. The function of the organisation moves away from its raison-d’etre, and its objectives become unclear until the structure reaches critical mass, at which point the people of genuine merit are out of there, but the organisation continues to fill up with useless people. This seems to sum up every school I come into contact with btw. It does feel as though Parliament itself has now become a spastic organisation. Parkinson suggested two solutions. First that such an organisation could be saved by people of genuine merit getting into positions by stealth, and slowly replacing mediocrity with merit. Second and more likely, it should be closed and swept away.
Interesting, but I have an alternative theory: wealth creates the opportunities that generate a lifestyle which allows the purchase of an affordable belief system. Wealth purchases not just material items, but also the moral correctness of the top tier of society that maintain the wealth. That tier continues to expand their wealth and so continue to expand their virtue. The political class sit at the elite level, either through direct wealth or the propagation of wealth, and so have all purchased or had purchased for them, an affordable belief system. That belief system is neither driven by meritocracy or mediocracy, but the comforting certainty of faith.
I am a great believer in the idea that the whole of human existence is a paradox and that the physical laws that operate at an atomic level have effects in the meta physical. However I had a lot of trouble with the phrase “successful representatives of the inept”. In theory these people can’t exist? Or maybe it’s all relative. The most adept of the inept, rule the inept?
They are less than mediocre admittedly few of them seem to show any brilliance but their attitude isn’t just a matter of a lack of understanding. Some of them understand very well but feel that they might as well do as well as they can for as long as they can in order to be in a better position when it all collapses. The British do like a game of last man standing. If by merit you mean the ability to go beyond, intellectual transcendence or the man of action – that was crippled a very long time ago and the two wars finished it off entirely. The plebian nature of society, the chavs, the weak etc are entirely a creaion of the ruling class. The plebicization of the intellectual class and the ruling class is a result of the actions of the ruling class. You found it expedient to breed pygmies and then you complain about the stature of the pygmies. Not to mention a hundred years of a scientifically crafted western propaganda model. It is a wonder that there is any nous or dissent left at all.
👍
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” Act II Scene 5 of Twelfth Night.
In the case of politicians in positions of government & power, the conditions that must be met to get elected and the working conditions that one must endure, selectively on their own, ensure only the mediocre will ever expose themselves to such a system.
Time to dust off the copy of Atlas Shrugged ?