COVID-19, bulletin 38: schools to remain open though official stats show ‘steeply increasing’ rates of infection in secondary schools

Many are questioning the decision to keep classrooms and universities open while England’s pubs, bars, restaurants and non-essential retail will close for four weeks from Thursday – the second national lockdown.

Australian comment in March with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews in a section of Mark Knight’s cartoon about Covid-19 school closure confusion.

Ceren Sagir reports that former chief scientific adviser Sir Mark Walport – a member of SAGE – warned today that keeping schools open could mean that infection rates stay higher for longer, compared with when nationwide restrictions were first introduced in March.

Sir Jeremy Farrar, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), agreed. He told The Andrew Marr Show that the  transmission in secondary schools is “high” (Sky News).

On the 30^th October the Office for National Statistics estimated that 1% of primary school pupils and 2% of secondary school pupils have the virus: “There has been growth in all age groups over the past two weeks; older teenagers and young adults continue to have the highest current rates while rates appear to be steeply increasing among secondary school children”.

Patrick Roach, general secretary of teachers’ union NASUWT, urged the government to provide clear evidence on why schools are being kept open.

A widely reported analysis made by the National Education Union (NEU) found that virus levels are now nine times higher among primary school pupils and 50 times higher among secondary school pupils than in September.

The NEU called for the government to close schools and colleges with the introduction of the new restrictions, saying that not doing so will render the measures less effective.

It added, however, that schools should remain open to the children of key workers and vulnerable children, as they did in the first national lockdown.

Good advice

• The NEU called for the government to meet its promise to deliver broadband and computer equipment to all pupils who do not have them at home.
• The University and College Union (UCU) said that universities, which are also exempt from lockdown restrictions, must move all non-essential in-person teaching online. General secretary Jo Grady said: “Public health directors in Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool have already moved teaching online at universities in response to rising cases of Covid”.
• Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham said that schools should be closed to push infection rates down and “to avoid a scenario where large parts of the north-west are simply put back in Tier 3 coming out of this.”
• Trades Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady said “We will not control the virus unless the government fixes the test-and-trace system and the scandal of workers asked to self-isolate without decent sick pay.”

The Telegraph’s editorial headline says that the teaching unions’ demand that schools should close ‘betrays their narrow agenda’ – but completely fails even to hint at the nature of the alleged agenda.

 

 

 

 

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Royal Mail privatisation: Government yet again rewards multinationals for failure

This link was sent by a reader with the comment “Stupefait!“

The government has announced that Goldman Sachs, which has ‘sparked a great deal of controversy over its alleged improper practices’ – especially since the 2007 and ongoing financial crisis – and UBS, fined £940m for its role in the Libor rate rigging scandal – are to be the global co-ordinators and bookrunners of the Royal Mail privatisation.

The department for business, innovation and skills (BIS), which is in charge of the sale, refused to say how much the banks will collect in fees, but they will collect 1% of the flotation value.

A BIS spokesman declined to comment on the banks’ roles in recent scandals.