We are in an earlier stage of fucking up here, but we are definitely fucking up. Highest daily case count since the first week of May, and deaths are going to follow (again). The virus has once again got into multiple long term care homes.
It is intensely frustrating to see government after government ignore one of the clear lessons - early and decisive measures are unpopular in the short term, but reduce the duration of the disruption. Frankly, we should lock down again, or at least increase restrictions. Just two weeks would have a significant effect. Instead, kids are starting school this week. A week from now, we are going to face a much greater problem, and need to go to even more significant or longer measures.
We don’t really know how effectively children spread it. On the one hand, it seems there are fairly few cases - but the population is incredibly skewed, because children have been isolated in so many places. As a counterpoint, there were several studies this summer that confirmed the viral load in children, even asymptomatic ones, is at least as high as in adults - which suggests they would be effective spreaders.
I have been fascinated to see how Denmark is managing return to schools - they probably should be the case study for everyone. But most of us chose to focus on opening the pubs in July instead of the schools in September.
You know when you get that feeling that something feels very very wrong?
I’m right back there now. We had sort of come to peace that we could send the little one back to school and manage things on a day to day basis. Within the space of a week he’s caught something and UK infections are rising at the rate of a 300 per day.
From the coal face… 3 school in my area have closed. Kids sent home in the school I’m in today. Facebook full of worried parents with kids who have various symptoms. The horse has bolted folks.
We have had a lot of soul searching about return to school, and in particular I have been less than thrilled at the likelihood that remote is going to be the shitshow that it was this Spring - and cut down my obligations accordingly. Becoming a school teacher was not what I had in mind…however, as the reality of what this Fall is likely to look like becomes clear, I have fewer regrets.
Here in France follow the holiday traffic and the link with Covid transmission is evident. The schools opening hasn’t registered yet. For example over the holidays r factor in the Bouche de Rhone went up to 1.8 it’s now dropping about 1.4. The schools going back imo will see r going back up to 1.8 and above within 4 weeks.
In places like Holland I would expect the returning to home tourists to have the biggest effect so r factor rising now schools going back will probably not be seen in these places as it will just keep rising.
Two attitudes that have characterized almost everywhere
The refusal to do enough, early enough and commit to it for long enough. Instead taking half measures in the hope we dont have to do more, and as a result constantly being behind the curve with an every increasing set of restrictions.
A lack of joined up thinking. If we accept that being able to get kids back to school is one of the most vital milestones for us as an economy and society, what do we have to do in EVERY other area to create a situation in which that is possible. All to often we’ve looked at too many elements of our society in isolation.
Here in Switzerland, we had all children return to school in June - without any problems regarding Covid-19. Now, they are at school again after the summer holidays, since at least three weeks, in some areas since six weeks. We have an increase in cases, but a slow one, not the kind of dramatic curve we see in other countries.
My take is that at least in our country, the increase is not due to schools reopening, but to holiday travels, opening frontiers too much and too quickly, and young folks enjoying themselves a bit too much and not taking regulations that seriously. We’ll see whether schools reopening will impact on it a bit later, but in the cantons where the kids are there since six weeks, nothing special has happened.
The death rate here is still at two or three people every day, and the hospitalisation rate very low (and we are one of the countries who are recording less dead people overall so far, compared to a standard year, despite of our 30k deads due to Covid-19).
In the UK our schools have only been back for a week (and in fact some start as late as today), so will be absolutely too early to know if that has resulted in an uptick in cases, but like you say I’m sure summer holidays plus in the UK the laissez-faire attitude many are taking to sensible precautions, particularly in pubs and on beaches etc, is causing the current increase… but give it another couple of weeks and I’m sure the reopening of schools will be the catalyst for a sharp surge.
One of the other repeated fallacies is that any situation is judged in a very short time frame - no more than about two weeks. We won’t really see the effect of a mistake until the exponential growth effect has had a couple of iterations.
In a similar vein I dont think the schools are the driving mechanism behind the UK’s dramatic rise as of yet and that’s the problem. Not yet anyway. The cases look set to rise dramatically at exactly the same time as you open up a major conduit for further spreading of the infection.
Yeah, it’s obviously not ideal… you are an island and as such, should have less problems than us, where a lot of people travel through to get from one country to another, and anyway, we have been a holiday destination for a lot of people this summer.
In theory, we should have much more cases than you, and yet, it’s roughly the same rate of new cases per capita. Go figure…
Don’t forget, Scottish kids have been back at school for a lot longer than the rest of the UK, a month ago I believe? My family up there are back into lockdown (Lanarkshire).
There is really no balance with this situation. Either too much control or not enough. I don’t buy into this take it to the extremes measures, e.g. no school, no outdoor events, no travel, etc, or no restrictions, e.g. no mask, indoor gatherings, etc.
You are mistaken if you think this is the last pandemic that will hit communities, this will happen again, so the solution has to be a combination of what is currently working, and it needs to be balanced not with only the current issue, it has to be looked at on a whole, so the economy, social effects, secondary issues that the pandemic will cause or make worse. I would not be surprised if the direct cost of the pandemic, will be dwarfed by the secondary costs.
I prefer at least a modest amount of freedom rather than state controlled governments. Sure, your China’s can shut you down 99%, but do you really want that? So balance is needed, and will be needed next time.