The British Government was (and is) so sold on the idea that lockdowns work that it forced schools to close for more time than any other country in Europe but one over the past 18 months. Children here missed more than double the amount of school than their peers in 14 countries on the Continent. The Telegraph has the story.
Between January 2020 and July 2021, British children have been out of the classroom for nearly half (44%) of days, according to a House of Commons Library analysis of data from the University of Oxford Covid Government Response Tracker.
Italy is the only European country where pupils have had more time out of school during the same time frame, with children missing 48% of days.
Youngsters in the U.K. missed more than double the amount of school than their peers in 14 other countries including Hungary, France, Spain, Lithuania and Austria.
Elsewhere pupils in Sweden and Finland have not missed any school at all, while children in Belgium missed just 4% of days. …
After the U.K., children in Germany missed the most school days (41%), followed by Romania (35%) and Poland (34%), the analysis found.
Headteachers attacked the Department for Education’s leadership during the pandemic, saying ministers have “had a tendency to double down on flawed policy decisions before having to perform U-turns”.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: A new study has found that when schools were closed in Scotland, teachers were 50% less likely than the general working population to be admitted to hospital, and when they were open, the risk in both groups was roughly the same. GB News has the story.
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“The British Government was (and is) so sold on the idea that lockdowns work” Are they really? What makes anyone think that? The variations in type, timing and severity of lockdowns across the world are more to do with the requirements of domestic politics in the respective countries than any belief or otherwise in the efficacy of measures.
Totally agree. And mostly keeping up with the Jones’ type of mentality. Unions are a key part of the problem here.
The government has responsibility for this, but the unions are primarily to blame.
Yes and No and No and Yes. The issue wouldn’t be an issue if we had a half decent Government because they would have looked at the facts and never closed the schools. The Unions see the Government as weak so they exploit them. The Government caves in and changes policy. They are both playing games instead of thinking about the kids. The Government is desperate to be liked, the Unions are desperate for power. The kids are desperate for an Education but why bother about them?
I think we’re on the same page, here, really.
Very definitely
“They are both playing games instead of thinking about the kids” That’s the key phrase. Again, parties motivated by what they think they can get out of covid in terms of power or political kudos, nothing to do with any real concern for health.
It went way beyond health by about May / June 2020. For anyone with a brain it was obvious Covid was no big deal long before that. They saw the opportunity for control though and have been playing the game ever since. They will never let go no matter the cost.
It went beyond health when HMG downgraded the status of SARS COV 2 in March 2020…..something that should appear as a strap line to the Newsletter – “SARS COV 2: no longer recognised by the UK Government as highly infectious as of March 2020”
Unions, government and media – all three played a large part in this.
No, the government is primarily responsible, as they are supposedly in charge. The corrupt teaching unions seem to love lockdowns though and so some of the blame spills over on to them.
That’s why the government has responsibility.
But I don’t think there can be honest doubt that at key moments the government has wanted to keep schools open and been intimidated out of it by the unions. Again, you can criticise the government for giving in to union blackmail, but the prime movers are the blackmailers not those who give in to them.
The unions are the worst actors in this.
I hold no candle for the teaching unions who have been taken over by a load of chancers who are a shameful contradiction of their professed professional mission.
But no – the primary criminals – as in all these things – remains the government, whose pathetic mixture of evil intent and pathetic incompetence (entirely transparent and obvious characteristics) has precipitated it all.
As to the role of the electorate …..
Quote from Jess Phillips who is a Labour mp from Birmingham, after meeting Chris Grayling, then justice secretary: “I remember thinking, if he can become secretary of state then I can be queen of the F×cking world”.
Nope, the government has responsibility, as I have pointed out over and over again, but that does not excuse other bad actors.
In this case, the teaching unions have behaved appallingly and without the slightest excuse, and there’s no honest dispute that without their disgusting, shameful behaviour our schools would have been open most of the time. There has been no excuse for their ridiculous, repeated pantomimes of terror over the possibility that one of their members might catch a cold if required to do their jobs properly.
I stand by my assessment – on UK school closures, the government has responsibility but the teaching unions bear the blame.
“I hold no candle for the teaching unions“
You write that, then immediately go off trying to divert blame for their disgusting, cowardly, blackmailing behaviour.
“Leading expert and government adviser Professor Neil Ferguson says a “significant surge” in cases is expected in the UK.”
I expect it will go in the other direction. Ferguson is a twat
“What we’re now expecting is the rates to pick up and the R number to jump to about 1.7 – basically doubling in case numbers on a weekly basis.” says Dr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School
Check more people with the unreliable PCR test and case numbers will always go up. That a significant number of these results will be false positives, is ignored by these people.
Let’s hope this guy is correct: Last week, there were 236,279 so-called cases. With this doubling weekly, all of the population of the UK will have been infected within the next 9 weeks and all of the population of the world within the next 15 weeks.
The sad reality is – of course – that this guy has no clue about math, isn’t aware that he’s predicting millions of cases per day within 5 weeks and just uses doubling because Something doubling! has been a Corona-staple since last year.
There will be an surge in “cases” because that’s what the government wants. Ferguson’s role is to provide cover by forecasting a surge that will allow for the cranking up of the fake testing, which will lead inevitably to more lockdowns and other restrictions. Of course, none of this has anything to with a real virus.
Leading expert in pig ignorance Neil Ferguson or leading expert in being wrong by many orders of magnitude Neil Ferguson.
“Joe Rogan, 54, sparked controversy earlier this year after suggesting young, healthy people did not need the jab.”
they don’t – what’s so controversial about that?
It’s not on-message and is therefore (in government and big-tech speak) “misinformation”.
Ha. And a recent poll showed that 65% of Democrat voters think that the government should ban misinformation – EVEN IF IT SUPPRESSES THE TRUTH!
The MSM are in hysteria over him testing positive and taking ivermectin. The general nastiness and spite in their words against people who oppose this huge crime should never be forgotten.
The thing that mystifies me is that there is no outrage at all from the Sheeples. They take their jabs, they see their childrens lives and mental health destroyed, they see their towns and cities decimated as businesses close and they say nothing but “Baa”. Is this some form of collective insanity? I’m quite serious, what the hell is up with them when they say nothing about the fact their little Julie Lamb and Johny Lamb are forced into having dreadul Covid tests they don’t need and soon to come laboratory rat injections? Why are they not mad as hell?
It’s because they’ve all got shit-fer-brains. Go to Asda, look around, see if you can spot Einstein.
Some are stupid, most are just gullible and/or cowardly
Only in the sense that despite all the lessons from history, despite what we all know about the futility of giving in to blackmail, despite the fact that the government has spent the last 18 months over promising and under delivering, people still think that if they just do as they are told it will all get better.
In that sense, totally agree. Complete shit-fer-brains.
“Is this some form of collective insanity?“
It has to be, doesn’t it?
This is separate from the evergreen cock-up/conspiracy debate over motivation and drivers – whether it’s a cockup or a conspiracy the question remains: why have people gone along with it all so meekly?
Even pointing to the vast all-pervasive fear propaganda and sophisticated manipulation merely moves the question on to why those have been so effective.
It’s a question most of us here have been pondering for 18 months, I think.
Definitely mass hysteria, yes. Frightening.
The simple answer is: Because that’s what they always do. Believe in the news. Obey the rules. Keep your head down to avoid someone hacking it off. Get on with your live as good as you can.
I’m not overly driven to conformism. Yet, I have dutifully masked myself where asked to until early July 2021 despite this has caused me no end of physical and psychical distress. Basically, until Susan Michie gave this interview where she more-or-less openly admitted that this was never about Corona, just something she wanted introduced for general public health reasons. Next day in the supermarket, again standing masked in a moderately long queue, being in moderate pain and wondering if I’d completely freak-out this time, I possibly did :-): I thought something like Am I crazy? Why am I voluntarily hurting myself just because this wicked old hag wants that? So, I tore it off and didn’t put it back on. Only took me 11 months to come to the conclusion that This Must Stop Now[tm[ to prevent it from becoming a permanent condition.
I suppose I’m just unusually stubborn then.
I was mystified in March of 2020. Once I got over that surprise, nothing has surprised me. Quite the opposite. It has all been extremely predictable. And it’s not too hard to predict what comes next.
They believe the BBC!
One definition of insanity.
What should they do?
What do you think would happen if every parent at every school in the country wrote to their MPs and to the head teachers and school governors to stay that schools should stay open?
A society that sells its youth down the river will cease to exist.
a central “bank” that exists not to be a bank but push as much debt onto a population as possible does that as well.
Have a look at a £20 note. It says “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £20”.
That is the “debt instrument” the Bank is pushing onto us. Gilts are the same.
The Bank and HM Treasury’s “debt” is our “risk free asset”. They both “push” as much of that debt onto the population as the population wants to save rather than spend. It’s just the other side of the balance sheet. It’s what being “in credit” means – you hold the other person’s credit instrument,
Getting frightened about that is the same mind manipulation trick as getting frightened about an invisible virus. Don’t fall for it.
Maybe. But when rampant inflation strikes, can I send you a bill for the difference between what I used to pay for things and what I pay now?
By the same token , would you accept it if your mortgage payment was adjusted every year for inflation so the debt kept its “real” value….I do not think so.
Are there any children alive in Sweden?
No. It’s not talked about much but they all, sadly, died of covid.
I was watching some GB News earlier today and they were discussing the huge number of children who are being prescribed anti-depressants. Anyone who has been on these drugs will know they’re not to be taken lightly and are very difficult to come off of.
The drugs companies have made a mint out of this plandemic even before cashing in on anti-depressants to allay the psychological damage they have collaborated in dealing out.
The future is looking very bleak if the tide does not turn soon against enormous abuse being waged on children. Their bodies are still developing, including their brains – anti-depressants could have serious long term implications on their development. Add to the equation that the state will be coercing them to be jabbed with the fake vaccine.
Look up the criteria of genocide – this is it.
Also when you are very young and you are told that masked people are GOOD but unmasked people are BAD, what is that going to do with your mental health?
It’s been very hard being an arch sceptic and trying to bring up children in this. But I’m confident they will look back and be proud that they grew up in a family that didn’t comply with baseless insanity. I’ve enjoyed taking my young daughter shopping maskless throughout and laughing with her at the terrified fools around us.
Absolutely!
The maskateers who force their children to do the same are thankfully in my experience, a very small minority.
Are the UK’s COVID death stats better than countries that kept schools open? Nope.
Are the government, the teachers unions and the teachers embarrassed by this fact? Hardly. They’re talking about needing some more.
But then again, is there any outrage in the population? Nope.
We get what we deserve which is to be bossed around and bullied by mediocre bureaucrats and technocrats.
Teachers, especially primary school teachers, might be at lower risk of catching covid because they are exposed to children and their colds so frequently. Exercise for the immune system, after all.
Teachers who want lockdowns don’t fear COVID, they fear working.
It’s not teachers. It’s the union bosses who hate this govt
If you want to feel more depressed about the current situation in schools simply look at the BBC HYS on the subject.
A quick glance at the top comment shows people still scared, still wanting to effectively close schools and still wanting kids vaccinated
Obvious comment but people who comment on BBC HYS are not representative of the population as a whole.
I know I have to tell myself this. I do from time to time go toe to toe with them but it’s very much a losing battle.
How many of those comments are from the 77th Brigade, I wonder?
The government may have slightly preferred to keep schools open, and only closed them after pressure from unions, but they are super keen on mass testing. Just checked the Twitter feed of our biggest local secondary school and they are still asking everyone to test before school starts and assuming they all will, and making reference to people regularly testing themselves at home as families, which I know for a fact some do.
I see people asking for tests in Tescos and the like. I struggle not to ask them why?
They think they are doing the right thing, because they think covid was/is exceptional.
Possibly all part of ‘The Project’ planning?
In the new totalitarian world order there will be no need for too many state educated people, they will only question, analyse and intellectualise what will be going.
Having said that, appears to me state schools will be transforming into non consensual vaccination centres, so probably best to home school anyway.
I’ma secondary school teacher and this is causing me to lose sleep right now. I will not allow it to happen without a fight and am prepared to lose my career over it. On this, we are all duty bound to take action.
Please “do the right thing” – there are more people behind you than is visible because I find a lot of folks do not want to air their real views because they are struck with fear at some form of “reprisal” – Project Fear for real.
I see that Neil Fergusson is up to his old tricks in bandying about ‘possible cases in the 100k – 150k range’ as kids go back to school and ‘significant pressures’ on the NHS.
He never learns, and nor it appears do the media, who, despite his numerous failings (has he EVER got a prediction right?), laps up everything he says like a cat with a saucer of milk.
Why would he, or the media, change? Business is booming for them. Do you really think they care whether anything they come out with is accurate?
True – I suppose when someone (IMHO) makes stuff up so often, the just can’t do anything else. A few decades ago, he would’ve been laughed out of the scientific community. Things appear to have changed significantly since I was at college (doing engineering) in the early 90s.
If he was so confident in his method , he would release the database and programme code for peer review; I understand he has only issued a radically altered version but not the original.
Now, why would someone wish to keep secret something so vital – and if he is to be believed – something which affects us all?
No, I don’t get it either.
‘Coronavirus latest news: UK will see ‘significant surge’ in cases as schools return, Neil Ferguson warns’. Daily Telegraph a few minutes ago.
Hasn’t the fellow embarrassed himself enough already with failed predictions? I imagine none of us have forgotten his most recent, prior to this, where he said the ‘Freedom Day’ would undoubtedly see cases spike to 100,000 a day, and could well reach 200,000.
He is usually out in his predictions by at least one order of magnitude; if he were paid by results he’d be begging in the streets.
Take your crystal ball back to Poundland where you got it from and ask for a refund, Ferguson.
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