Should We Have “ Circut Breaker” Lockdown
-
Posts
-
Schools opened – June
Pubs, Restaurants opened outdoors – 13th July
Camping & caravanning opened – 25th July
Indoor hospitality opened – 3rd August
Indoor play areas, swimming pools, leisure centres, indoor fitness centres and gyms – 10th August
Up to 4 households will be able to join together to form a single extended household – 22nd August
Schools, colleges & universities – SeptemberMay be a combination between 4 households joining together & school staff & pupils
St Christophers & Ysgol Friars, Bangor were first schools each with a staff member testing positive followed by Coleg Cambria with a pupil.
Don’t think that tourism or hospitality can be blamed. Apart from Wetherspoons I don’t remember any other pub outbreaks.
Rowan Foods & the Maelor Hospital began the rot first.
Why 5 days? This legislation has to be implemented IMMEDIATELY, not in 5 days!
5 days for everyone to panic-buy and have their last hurrahs in Spoons before lockdown? Because that won’t be totally counterproductive, will it?
May as well give up, just take all reasonable precautions and in the meantime let herd immunity continue and natural selection take its course, this is unsustainable.The Man is a complete and utter lunatic. Just in case any small business managed to get through the last few months without bankruptcy, lets finish them off with a Firebreak, he even had to invent a stupid name. Its a LOCKDOWN and nothing else.
How does destroying livelihood’s, creating mental health issues and blighting children’s education ever count as looking after the population of Wales.
If it’s that bad how the hell does it make sense to wait 5 days to impose a lockdown, it wont work and he knows it but when nothing changes, unless of course they fiddle the figures,then they will just blame us for not following the rules.It’s just a political game for him , lying through his teeth that it wasn’t decided until this morning when everyone knows different. Most of the populated areas of Wales has been in local lockdown for weeks and made no difference. Drakeford and his cohort will never understand the damage they are doing to Wales and the really sad thing is, it won’t make a blind bit of difference to Covid.
I am sure that the fire break restrictions in Wales are worse than tier 3 restrictions in the north of England.
So the firebreak has failed due to reopening the schools before the firebreak has ended.
My children made it 1 day back in school yesterday after 3 weeks off (half term and previously having to self isolate for 2 weeks because of a school outbreak).
This morning a frantic looking headteacher advises us that 2 classes have to close for 2 weeks because there’s been 2 positive outbreaks of Covid just 1 day after half term. That’s my kids off for another 2 weeks and a risk of spread between families.
There will be other outbreaks in schools around Wrexham and Wales. Nice work Mr Drakeford.
16/10/20. “Kids are expected to see a second school year disrupted if they close the schools for longer than half term”
04/11/20. “So the firebreak has failed due to the reopening of schools before the firebreak has ended”
Both comments are from you Matt. Which one are you sticking to? Both can’t be right, can they?
Strange how some people can change their opinion when events directly impinge on them personally.
Benjamin, I’m confused as to your choice to question me based on these 2 statements standing alone rather than the full picture. I made it clear in other posts on here that prior to this in October my children had been sent home for 2 weeks leading up to half term and had to self isolate due to repeat positive Covid outbreaks in their primary school.
So clearly this situation had already affected me personally and was concerned as a responsible parent that after losing 2 weeks of school already it would be frustrating that for them to miss out on school and seeing their friends for a further week beyond half term.
Now they have to be off for a further 2 weeks anyway, so after evaluating the failure of the situation where a school is subjected to its fifth Covid outbreak at the school in a period of less than 30 days I am questioning the logic of why even bother sending the children back to school if they can’t even keep year groups in school anyway? They ended before half term with only half the classes in attendance across both infants and juniors.
Pupils from classes that had to self isolate for 2 weeks before half term have been hit again and the same pupils have to self isolate for 2 weeks after half term.
Details of the fire break were only laid out to us shortly before it started on 23rd October and logic of exactly how it would work was explained that basically stopping people from coming into close contact for 2 weeks (similar to a self isolation period) would slow down the virus spread. So by that logic sending the children back into school after 1 week where it is now apparent that spread immediately continued once they.got back into school and mixed in begs the question of the firebreak not being fully effective in achieving its goal if schools remain open.
So yes I can be frustrated about school being disrupted for another academic year, which it has done in my personal situation anyway and also be concerned about the health and welfare and impact that the schools being open has done at the same time. Especially when it seems impossible that the school in question that my children attend is not able to stay open as an education option when their entire years get sent home and their teachers get sent home repeatedly.
The only option available is distance based home schooling. So why bother to increase the risk of spread if a majority of kids have to be off and can’t attend anyway? There’s nothing stopping them from being sent home again for another 2 weeks shortly after they return.
There are other parents in a worse situation that I have spoken to as they have to take time off work and in some cases not get paid so they can be home with their children for the 2 weeks. Some people are quite agitated and anxious about this as the second 2 weeks will mean having had to take 4 weeks of unexpected time off.
Now if schools were formally closed, these individuals would effectively have legitimate employment protection or something via some of the schemes – perhaps could be furloughed to look after the children rather than lose money because of the current nature of things. Or if the schools were only open in the limited capacity they were during the first lockdown for key workers then limited children and limited staff members on site would greatly reduce the chance of on-site infections.
The real kicker is that the reason everyone got sent home today is due to unbelievable stupidity from a parent who decided to send their children in yesterday whilst waiting for results of a Covid test for them, instead of correctly requiring them to self isolate. So then informed the school this morning that they’d sent them in yesterday but then received a positive test. That level of stupidity has caused a major amount of inconvenience for the school and about 60 children and 6+ teaching staff.
I appreciate that this has turned into somewhat of a rant, but I thought I’d clear up the context.
I guess the question is, what’s better – close the schools entirely until levels go down so they can stay open for long periods of time without disruption OR limp on and see kids sent home repeatedly for 2 weeks like a lottery, depending on if their classmates get ill or not?
Sadly this period of stability in the original Covid cycle would have been during the 6 weeks of Summer holiday.
It does seem odd that children should be back in school when the rest of the country was on a firebreak lockdown. It makes no sense that parents would be taking them to school at a time when we were told to stay indoors.
It would have made more sense for them to have been in school during the summer months when the full lock down had done it’s job. If we have to have a firebreak every 3 or 4 months let it be for everyone, to allow it to do it’s job.
Matt have you given up your job to write here full time now?
Not havin ago because i enjoy your articles(and rants) but these lockdowns are making me feel like Jack in the Shining movie. I just hope it don’t snow.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
