No children & very few staff or parents of school age children will be vaccinated by 8th March.
Do you understand what that means? Because your repeated rantings about masks are very ignorant & dangerous.
Is that your intention? 2/
Do you feel comfortable knowing that trying to stop children wearing masks at school will directly lead to more #COVID19 in pupils, teachers, parents & family members, ESPECIALLY if they are clinically vulnerable or extremely vulnerable?
Are you ok with that? 3/
How can you sleep easy knowing that your words will lead to the avoidable hospitalisation or death of some within the school community & #LongCovid in others?
Hand washing & sitting in lines in class is simply inadequate. ⬇️ #airborne transmission means focusing ON THE AIR!
4/
After 11 months it’s getting harder to ignore those of you who’re determined to cause more suffering.
Which bit of GLOBAL PANDEMIC & SERIOUS MULTI-SYSTEM DISEASE haven’t you understood yet?
You will make this go on longer & make the job of ppl like me far harder. 5/
Your tweets are v insensitive & disrespectful to the families of those who’ve been seriously ill or lost their lives & those affected by #LongCovid, and a slap in the face for those of us doing our very best to care for #Covid & #NonCovid patients.
Whichever way you spin it, a BIG BANG return to FULL opening of ALL English schools on a single day is INSANE!
Mixing 10M children w/ all the staff that it will entail, with current disease prevalence & more transmissible variants is a sure fire way to INCREASE TRANSMISSION!1/8
As cases rise, WHICH THEY WILL, it’ll be impossible to know which age ranges are responsible quickly & change course without causing absolute havoc to the education of the children & to the lives of their working & non-working parents. 2/
And of course, that’s not even considering the effect on the individuals who may needlessly become seriously ill w/ #COVID19, get #LongCovid or sadly die.
On so many levels, a phased return is needed...NO....
IS ESSENTIAL to allow careful monitoring & a chance to change tack. 3/
Dear @susannareid100 & @piersmorgan
In advance of your program tomorrow I wonder if I could ask for your help?
If any celebrity duo can make this happen, it is you two!
The ROAD MAP is here & there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
There are many positives in the #PrimeMinister’s cautious approach but the BIG BANG opening of English schools on 8th March with very few added mitigations is reckless & irresponsible, risking everything we have collectively achieved so far.
We all know that schools & early years settings are risky places to work in. Whatever the stats tell us about teachers en masse, I feel that for individual staff, being forced to work in crowded, poorly ventilated rooms w/ many others protected by little #PPE , is a VERY BIG ASK!
I’m particularly upset today that teaching & nursery staff haven’t been prioritised for vaccination.
I really don’t care what stats have been thrown at us claiming they’re not at ⬆️ risk of serious #COVID19 outcomes as a group.
They’ve been treated with utter contempt! 1/7
We expect them to teach & care for our children, our most precious family members.
And we expect them to do it WITHOUT #PPE in conditions most of us would run away from - crowded, poorly ventilated rooms, mixing w/ MULTIPLE households every day.
2/
Imagine expecting high rise window cleaners to work without safety ropes.
Imagine builders being told “sorry chaps, no hard hats or steel capped boots today”.
I’ll say again.... think #Chernobyl, the men sent on to the roof to kick the radioactive rubble off the reactor.
3/
One of the most bizarre & troubling bits of the #ReopeningSchools saga is that @educationgovuk & @BorisJohnson have ignored every single plea from teachers, early years staff, pupils & their families to #MakeSchoolsSafe & wasted all the months they have had to do so. 1/14 🧵
2)They’ve turned their backs on plentiful advice from #SAGE, @IndependentSage & @NEU.
Even @CMO_England has made his reservations as clear as he can from a rather difficult position.
But they’ve put their collective fingers in their ears & metaphorically said “La La La La”!
3) @GavinWilliamson & @halfon4harlowMP CLAIM the motivation for a speedy full opening of all school & early years facilities is the WELFARE OF CHILDREN!
They repeatedly cite educational, emotional, social & psychological needs.
You are right....
History will not look kindly on this time at all.
No one actually thinks #Lockdowns are a good thing & certainly none of us want #schools to remain partially open for any longer than necessary @n_plowman .
Lockdowns act purely as an emergency break.....
.....to ⬇️transmission/cases & prevent healthcare systems collapsing.
We all saw what followed the Nov MOCK-DOWN during which schools remained open.
The dogged refusal of some to contemplate MITIGATION WITHIN schools has been part of the problem.
If there is a continued push for full opening WITHOUT effective MITIGATION for an #airborne virus, community transmission will ⬆️ again & another surge will follow.
Every single one of us wants to see schools to fully open again, but the plans must be SAFE & SUSTAINABLE.
This is plea to all Headteachers regarding the imminent full opening of UK schools.
If we remove from the debate HOW MUCH children transmit/spread #coronavirus WITHIN schools, we all accept that they do spread it to a greater or lesser degree.
Fact!
1/8🧵
Children do not exist in isolation!
Every day they mix with their families & friends & during the school day they mix with many teachers & staff.
Fact!
So the word BUBBLE in the school context is UTTER NONSENSE! 2/
The government & #DfE have rejected virtually every mitigation proposed by #SAGE, @IndependentSage & @neu & we’re told the @CMO_England is v uneasy about a BIG BANG reopening.
You don’t have to be a scientist or medic to understand this re risk in various settings👇🏼. 3/