First week of school return has seen closures accelerating quickly
The SKWAWKBOX reported on Friday that Scotland and Northern Ireland, which opened their schools earlier, had seen a rapid increase in the number of schools hit by the coronavirus – and that outbreaks English schools had more than doubled overnight from five to eleven.
But that acceleration in England has been dwarfed as new outbreaks have come to light this weekend. From eleven cases on Friday, there are now 31 schools hit by outbreaks, forcing the closure of the school or a large section of it and teachers and pupils into isolation. In total, at least 140 schools are affected, up from 81 as recently as Friday – and even early last week, before English schools opened and cases in all nations shot up further, more than 22,000 children were isolating in Scotland alone.
The government’s ‘SAGE’ scientists had already admitted that they knew the reopening of schools would drive up the ‘R rate’ of transmission in the UK, but the news of the school crisis comes as the UK-wide daily case tally jumped to double the rate of the preceding days – reaching its highest in 129 days, with just under 3,000 cases.
The SKWAWKBOX also revealed that public health experts have revised the risk to children upward and have been told by the government to plan for the ‘second wave’ of the virus to arrive by the beginning of October, driven by the schools return and the reopening of indoor hospitality venues – yet the Tories and the Starmer front bench are singing from the same songsheet that schools are safe and are pushing for further measures, with no plans to reimpose lockdown when the second wave hits.
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So – will they backpedal on forcing parents to send kids to school or will they carry on and pretend there’s no problem?
Difficult choice – look weak or look stupid – but at least they’ve got a health secretary and an education secretary with exactly the right experience.
Well, I’ve finally had enough of the Lockdown Loony Left and can’t stomach this kind of rubbish any longer. Time to unsubscribe. The Skwawkbox had its place for me as a socialist (still somehow) within the Labour Party, but when it comes to the so-called left’s utterly unthinking and brainless response to coronavirus, it has to be the worst of the worst. All you wanted were *more* deaths and more doom, and now there are no deaths all you can sqwawk about are more ‘cases’ – whatever the hell that is supposed to mean… when they are now all virtually harmless infections; all the while completely ignoring the rising number of *actual* deaths, caused by the lockdown you so enthusiastically supported, through missed cancer treatments and hospital appointments, a mental health epidemic, suicides, and pure unadulterated fear. There will be an almighty reckoning when this biggest of all propaganda bubbles finally bursts, and the Lockdown Left – and particularly the Skwawkbox – will be at the very front of the queue for some much-needed retribution. What an absolute disgrace, and what a monstrous betrayal of the ordinary working people in this country you and the toothless, ever-more-clueless Labour Party purport to represent.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w
What are you saying? That the current low mortality rate is the result of steroid treatment? If so it’s nonsense. Steroids are only used when infection has got a hold, in hospitals. People currently testing positive haven’t been to hospital. Many of them have no symptoms at all. They are younger healthy people.
While I don’t advocate wholesale herd immunity, there’s too much we don’t know, it may give the virus a chance to burn itself out as happened with the original Sars virus. The thing is with you McNiven, you’re not a questioning sort of person, you’re far to rigid and partisan to ever think for yourself. You just go hunting for evidence to back your chosen dogma.
lundiel, I made no claim whatever and I was seeking nothing when I happened by chance on the article in nature.
It does, however, happen to be one of the two most highly-regarded scientific publications in the world where research is offered for peer review – nature itself rejects many submissions and publication there is something scientists strive for.
I linked to it purely because it was on topic and while I’d read suggestions of possible steroid effectiveness in CV, confirmation in nature is considered significant in scientific circles.
It’s utterly puerile to dismiss it out of hand.
Well said, Steve. Thinking the same way myself. Skwawk’s getting increasingly tabloid in its Covid coverage and the total absence of skepticism towards “the narrative” is getting embarrassing. Ironic, really. I thought the MSM wasn’t supposed to be trusted by socialists!
You seem to be trusting them.
Nevermind that the so-called ‘big-hitters’ bugger off to cower in fridges, shit-scared of any scrutiny, in case they let the cat out the bag.
Nevermind they point blank refuse to appear on a national Tv show where they MIGHT be asked a ‘tough’ question or two (And then continue to give their usual obfuscatory steve h type answer, instead of a straight one – and wonder WHY they’re ridiculed).
No. Forget all that – It’s those horridable lefties, always highlighting anomalies and incompetencies in this useless government’s approach, instead of letting cummings’ ‘herd immunity’ murderous crackpot scheme proceed unhindered and unfettered, by a generally disillusioned and proportionally wilfully ignorant public – aided by by that same mainstream media you’ve thrown your hand in with.
Well, it’s not gong to well with this latest outbreak, is it? How many more have to die before you’ll pipe down and accept that another lockdown will be inevitable because they’re bollocksing things up AGAIN?
Strange, innit, that these right wing loons happily accept, gong on for making demands for PERMANENT civil liberties rescindments after ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks, where the amont of people killed can be counted on one hand – Yet it takes the deaths of thousands PER DAY from a disease before they’ll accept anything like any TEMPORARY measures designed to prevent MORE deaths.
Oh, I forgot – ‘Lessons wil be learned’ won’t they?
FFS.
Didn’t understand all of that (was it cut & pasted?) but
“another lockdown will be inevitable because they’re bollocksing things up AGAIN”
No, if another lockdown is inevitable it’s because it’s in the script. At the moment we’re in the “phony recovery” phase. In November they’ll tell us “See, we tried to restore your liberty and your society but it’s no use. Indefinite Lockdown is the only answer”. Medical totalitarianism will have arrived. Society will unravel pretty quick after that…
…Unless the Tories move ruthlessly against Johnson & Cummings and remove them. Like, now!
That paragraph should read:
Strange, innit, that these right wing loons happily accept (going on for making demands for), PERMANENT civil liberties rescindments after ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks, where the amount of people killed can be counted on one hand
Exactly, Tim. And thanks for your support. I tried to ‘like’ your comment, but it won’t let me, for some reason. Steve.
What a ridiculous comment, when the deaths from virus comes back, none of us will be celebrating, in fact we will be depressed because it could have been foreseen.
You seem rather embittered by someone giving reasonable warning about the bug’s spread an this Govt’s incompetence and incapability…As well as there being not enough people dying now for the message to be taken seriously.
And you call skwawkbox the ‘loony left’?
As for your ‘subscription’ , I don’t know about that. What is certain is that this is the ONLY comment I remember you making in the five or six years I’ve been a visitor here…And I have a fairly good memory.
Until now, I have subscribed to the blog feed, meaning I get all of Skwawky’s posts emailed to me as articles. Is that easy enough for you to understand? And I only bother to comment when something’s important enough for me to do so. I *do* have a life, after all. I think the last time was when Skwawky tried to ham-fistedly justify Corbyn’s attempt to fudge a U-turn on Labour’s Brexit policy by arguing for a second referendum. I think we all know how that turned out. I think the nature of your comments above proves far better than I can how monumentally stupid and uninformed your position (if it can be described as such) is on this.
Steve Jack – time to unsubscribe
Will you be missed?
I doubt it. Do I care? Absolutely not.
And I have been worried right from the beginning that the conservative and unionist party would use the virus to drive a coach and horses through the working conditions and freedoms we all fought for.But I am sure that the deaths of my two brothers in care homes was planned and executed by this government,but I do not blame anyone including the Squawkbox for highlighting the risks to our children because who else will with a government of psychopaths.None of us really know whats going on till the bodys start piling up and one can then ask…whos to blame?.WE can no longer rely on the Labour party to represent the working class and the knights title says it all…A shambles so we have to rely on ourselves and not the pretend socialists that frequent these comments section to bolster the knight and the rotten to the core conservative and unionist party…..Those that pretend to be Labour and voted for the Tory government and the knights Labour party will soon reap the benefits of stupidity and anger.
Joseph – Research by the JRF has revealed that at the last GE the poor very decisively didn’t see a Corbyn led Labour party as their saviour. It is disturbing that for the first time ever a larger percentage of the poor (by a very, very significant 15 point margin) voted for the Conservatives than voted Labour.
Why despite the apparent popularity of many of its policies and 10 years of Tory imposed austerity did Labour under Corbyn’s leadership cease to be the party representing the low waged working class and hand that privilege over to Boris Johnson and the Tories.
Not too difficult to understand. Corbyn was perceived as one of the “Islington set” and not representative of the working class. He introduced to many new policies that gave ongoing ammunition to the media. Local parties were stuffed with people just like you who constantly undermined him. Although he was a good speaker, he was never a leader the working class could get behind and most importantly….he had the worst advisers it was possible to have and he didn’t have a shadow cabinet people felt inspired by. Propaganda played a big part, generated by the media and soft-left remainders. His spending plans, perceived as the delusions of a spendthrift have been totally eclipsed by Tory spending that hasn’t raised a murmer.
As you well know, Brexit did for him, that flip-flop saw many including myself, leave the party….I never intend voting again. What you are left with is a neoliberal shell that will assist the Tories to institute an economic reset and turn health care into an emergency/chronic disease service which will be increasingly supplanted with private treatment by all who can afford it. You will also support American hybrid wars across the world, just like you (new Labour) do in Syria where British special forces actively assist head-chopping terrorists to fight a proxy war for America and Israel.
Meanwhile, the working class are divided along racial, immigration lines and many have embraced the hard right leaving new Labour spinning adrift, navel gazing at identity politics and global warming while hiding terrified of coronavirus.
Sorted for you.
but when it comes to the so-called left’s utterly unthinking and brainless response to coronavirus, it has to be the worst of the worst
Really? The left’s response to the highest death total in Europe has been ‘utterly unthinking and brainless’ has it?
Ok, lad. If you say so. This government refusing to be asked ANY questions on a national Tv programme for FIVE MONTHS AND COUNTING has been a mature response, hasn’t it?
But the left are supposedly aiding the Govt propaganda machine by actually highlighting their failures and at least trying to take them to task..The looney lefty bastards.
I notice, steve jack, that you make it known you lie to travel. One might resonably suspect the underlying reason for your bitterness and ranting is that you’ve had some sort of disruption to your plans because of lockdown and are looking for an outlet for it.
Keep ranting and blaming the wrong people, and then, once you’ve finished, look the Covid’s victim’s and their families in the eye and tell them they were all exaggerating and that you’re perfectly happy to see JUST 10 people or so per day DIE of the disease.
You tell them it was ok for us to have lockdown when the rate was about the same as a titanic sinking per day. Tell them lockdown was OK when they died in their hundreds but it isn’t now unless more die, and see how long you remain conscoius for.
Prick;.
Oh dear. Well I’d rather be your version of a ‘prick’ than lacking any ability for intelligent thought, Mister Toffee. Loony Lefties like you who can’t comprehend world events beyond party politics find themselves in a compromising cognitive dissonance. They jumped on major incompetence of government with PPE and late closure of borders / restriction on travel to gleefully announce the government were murderers responsible for the deaths sensing a chance to depose them (‘sort of ‘ understandable so far). But then last few months they couldn’t handle the statistics of deaths being single figures for 2 months and therefore seized upon the bogus false positive testing (not resulting in illness or deaths) as further fuel to continue the narrative of it simply being Tory incompetence and tyranny and unable to see transnationalism / capitalism or globalism or elite powers as factors pushing a global plandemic, so somehow they conclude the tyrannous Tories must be hiding deaths under the floorboards & the pandemic is actually EVEN more lethal than declared! They then angrily use this righteous anger energy to denounce non mask wearers and demonstrators etc as murderers and actually unwittingly become Tory sheep pushing the global agenda!
You can’t make this sh1t up, can you?
I see.
Unless I take the stammer approach (Agree with de piffle until the inevitable balls up reveals itself) I’m a loony lefty?
The toerags HAVEN’T manipulated the death count?
Kids aren’t affected?
Masks DON’T work AT ALL?
False Negatives? False Positives? False Falses?
The vaccine is a great big new world order global conspiracy, championed and facilitated by bill gates and the illuminati to control our minds?
Jesus wept. The fucking state of you lot.
But mention that the toerags are (deliberately) bollocksing things up – as and when it happens with each new policy/rule change, and not a month or so down the line whent he results are in – and you’re a ‘loony’.
Mention that the virus hasn’t gone anywhere, and looks to be making a comeback of proportions that we saw at the pandemic’s height, and you’re a loony because ONLY a few people are dying NOW…As if the death rate ISN’T gonna increase come Autumn/Winter ,
And mention it casually in a manner as if those deaths don’t really matter…Well you’ll soon change your fucking tune if it happens to one (or more) of yours in the next wave…And there WILL be a next wave the way these clowns are handling it, and the way selfish, spoilt little runts like you are acting.
Do us all a favour, soft ollies…Take your ‘cognitive dissonance’ and ram it as far as it’ll go; and then tell it to give my regards to dominic cummings’ herd immunity narrative that you’ve already got crammed in there.
Prick.
“As if the death rate ISN’T gonna increase come Autumn/Winter”
Of course it will. It does every year. It ‘s not exceptional just because the MSM/Govt says so. Get a grip.
I’ve looked at all the comments, and I have to say it’s going to plan. No longer able to divide us with religion, like they once did, they divided us over Brexit and now this pandemic. Think about it, just before the referendum Mr Cameron was asking us all to stay in the EU. In the run up to that vote we’d already been under Tory rule along with austerity, for five years.
We had notification, of sorts, that they wanted to repeal the human rights act along with our workers rights. We had the Deepcut fiasco, which showed the level of corruption within our establishment and to galvanise that feeling further we had the exoneration of the Hillsborough families, who had been blamed for that disaster for 27 years and who finally were able to tell the truth, imagine living for all those years with the narrative in the MSM and press telling lies, making the rest of the UK and the world blame the fans for that tragedy. We had the Panama Papers scandal, which implicated many on the front bench in government, Cameron included. There was the change to child tax credits, if you had a third child you could no longer claim for child number three, unless you could prove you’d been raped! So poor working families earning their poverty can only be supported with two children. Rees Mogg meanwhile, has child number 6, imagine the anger and resentment to those who are affected. Treatments on the NHS are no longer available, varicose vein surgery, bone spur surgery, tonsillectomy, ganglion removal, hysterectomy for heavy menstrual cycle, grommets for glue ear, to name a few, which means you can end up suffering if things get worse, or you pay.
Now people who voted in the referendum who weren’t in the least bit politically savvy, (the biggest group) think, why should I vote the way Cameron wants, look what he’s doing to us, I’ll do the opposite. Those that are savvy know that corruption is rife in the EU, as are other establishment bodies, some want out ‘to take back control’, some want out to give the NHS £350 million a week, some want out to protect fishing rights, some want out because they don’t want to be ruled by Brussels, some want out because of those people ‘coming over here’. Some want to stay in because of the unity we’ve ‘enjoyed’, to keep the trade deals going, to keep the ‘stricter’ rules and regs on our food supply chain. All diverse reasons that people held valid but have now gone to the wall. We’ve been let down, all of us. I remember Cameron resigning after the referendum, what fakery he employed, he waltzed back into number 10 humming a little tune. Hardly the act of a man whose sole aim was to keep the UK in the EU, he got what he wanted, left office with his hands washed clean of responsibility. The people voted, it’s the people who are to blame. We were led down the path, we were played and we fell for it no matter what side you believed in.
The same thing is happening with this pandemic. I started off being afraid of the virus and I’ve ended up being more afraid of what they are doing to society. There is truth on both sides of the argument, that’s all that’s needed to divide us. They are using the pandemic with all it’s truths to cause chaos, fear, resentment and divide. Whilst we are busy throwing rocks at each other, becoming more and more polarised and blinkered, we fail to see what’s happening, the EU, with the UK, are taking back control of it’s citizens. The gilet Jeaunes were not divided, the people on the streets all over France, protesting big time every weekend for twenty months were from every political persuasion. Left, centre, right, no political allegiance, black, white, all faiths, with one common purpose, the 99% against the 1%. Left and right joining hands aloft and I saw that happening physically, a citizen who voted Le Penn holding hands aloft with another who voted Melenchon, who came fourth in 2012 elections, Macron, a neo liberal got in because Le Penn was considered far right, like here they made sure that a socialist didn’t make it to the semi final. Lot’s of French citizens didn’t vote, again they had the choice of the shinier of two turds. Happens in the US all the time, happens here too as I’m sure you’ve noticed. We were given Mr Blair because the establishment Okay’d it. So the only thing for it is to accept until we join hands nothing will ever change.
Toffee, I expect you’ll have noticed, as I have, how many new Tories and CV deniers have begun commenting here – whilst it’s a minor irritation it’s also cheering to know they’re worried enough to expend so much time and energy in futile attempts to drive away SKWAWKBOX’s readership.