Feest Isolation Days – 16 May
The debate rages about whether kids should be able to go back to school on the first of June. The head of an academy responsible for thirty-five primary schools says opposition to schools opening is “rather middle class”. Forty-five per cent of the kids in his school are eligible for school meals. He suggests that the view of middle class parents is lopsided and children need to get back to school for a variety of reasons. Kids stuck in gardenless, deviceless homes need school.
Anne Longfield the Children’s Commissioner for England said that the government and teachers’ unions should “stop squabbling and agree a plan” to reopen schools safely. She is concerned that many disadvantaged children were losing out because of schools being closed for so long. For a variety of reasons, she says not every household is able to home school.
The Unions, led by the National Education Union, have drawn up five tests which, it says the government should meet before schools reopen. These include regular testing, protection for vulnerable staff, and a national plan for social distancing. The union’s primary demand is that there is a “full rollout” of the government’s test, trace and isolate policy, with targets for testing being consistently met and the numbers of new cases of Covid-19 falling. While testing targets have indeed risen and been more than met over the past few days, and new cases are probably falling, it seems that the Unions are still not happy. There are also concerns that teachers will have to clean their school rooms in order to keep them safe, and the unions don’t think this is a good idea. I have to say, I haven’t seen one word about students in the Union’s demands. The science does not seem to be leading the way on this.
The science is available to assess more of our risks than anyone seems to be discussing. My husband, who spent a great deal of his working life using statistics, is surprised that we aren’t getting more analysis and interpretation from the scientists and the government of the simple statistics recently released, which could give us so much more information about death rates and numbers in the population who have had the disease and when they had it, and who is most or least at risk. He thinks the journalists should be clamouring for this. My view is the journalists don’t know how to ask the appropriate questions and not many are statisticians. Perhaps Terry will play with some of the figures and give us all a few more insights soon. Or if the fishing lakes open in England, he may not!
Sensible intelligent leadership has certainly worked in New Zealand! We are so happy for our friends there. They have now moved into the next stage of reopening the country and at level two, life is beginning to cautiously begin post lockdown. People are going to be able to get their hair cut (and coloured!)* amongst other things that we all long to do. Friends write to tell us they celebrated by having a meal at a restaurant! The rest of us can only serve up the next meal and wonder when we, too might be able to say that! Jacinda has proven that she belongs at the head of government and I hope the people of New Zealand agree she deserves to stay in office. We shall see what happens when the electorate cast their votes later this year.
Here it is the weekend again, and that means last night the wine flowed and with our new found Zoom weekend dinner parties, the conversation flowed as well. Zoom has been such a boost to everyone. Getting out of the house to someone else’s place for a meal or having them come here will truly be the sign that something approaching normality has returned. We are not there yet.
The baby plants in the garden survived the cold snap and I think you’ll agree the white border is looking rather special! Have a Happy Saturday! See you tomorrow!
With Love,
Kathy x
* I will dye my hair rainbow colours! Ed.