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Karam Bales Profile picture
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31 May, 13 tweets, 5 min read
What's the bet that as B117 was falling in the community, it was in education where B1.617.2 was increasing.

And whilst they knew this, they still went ahead with removing masks and suppressing the data instead of acting.
#edutwitter #ThirdWave Image
I think the government is hoping to obscure scale of the issue in schools and gamble that hospitalisations are still low by 14th June, they will announce further loosening but keep masks in certain places so they can claim this is a sign of caution
Yet we still get voices in media claiming children are practically immune, that transmission is so low that UK schools don't need masks.

A lot of the world are shocked by the lack of measures in UK schools.
The lack of concern from most the media shows how client journalism and cosy relationships allows the UK government to maintain a ludicrous level of complacency.

B117 ramped up in schools before spreading into the community, covering up the same again
Thinking back to last winter there are plenty of parallels.

DfE guidence ignored all scientific advice, SAGE wanted social distancing and masks, we got nothing.

Warned that once transmission started to rise schools would become amplifiers.
Cases began to rip through schools at a faster rate than we expected, size and scale of transmission appeared greater than before, education made up a disproportionate number of outbreaks, particularly in South East.

This was B117 emerging, now causing havoc around the world.
Yet government covered up information and misrepresented data in hope of "saving Christmas"

Outbreaks, workers risk of infection, children being the most common index cases etc

Data said one thing, gov said this showed the opposite and the media obliged
Remember the UK government concealed concerns around the spread of B117, and they gaslighted safety in schools.

At this point media were still telling us children don't really transmit, transmission was all in the community and at the school gates.
Rather than admitting transmission was an issue in schools they even went as far to threaten Greenwich with court action to stay open for a few more days. To maintain the narrative they let transmission continue and people died unnecessarily.

If the data on B1.617.2 didn't show schools were hubs of infection the gov would have released it and made sure it got lots of headlines even of it required cherry picking a few stats from the report.

My local director of PH says over 40% of our cases are coming from schools.
Rather than ministers being pestered for suppressing vital data we get BBC radios flagship news programme having a discussion when social distancing will end!
When did it start?

Interview was pure disinformation, its dystopian.
I do worry that in a decade or more's time the greatest scandal of the pandemic will be the long term impact of long covid, with schools as a central focus.

They are allowing B1.617.2 to spread in schools, somedays it almost feels intentional.
Media know how disinformation campaigns construct hydras of organisations and inauthentic experts to give many mouths to the voice of a few

Refusal to report on political and corporate links demonstrates how rich warp our political narrative

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Karam Bales Profile picture
26 May
Cummings said the Telegraph kept swaying Johnsons mind.
This is definitely the case with school policy,
Been charting how the disinformation leads policy every month
Skeptics➡️contrarian blue ticks➡️ Telegraph&CRG➡️Johnson changes policy
#edutwitter
You can see how disinformation becomes fact in RW media and then is adopted by others like BBC.

The push to remove masks, all evidence said keep them, but in the UK media masks are controversial
Media have been most negligent about schools policy complicit in dismissing safety concerns, unfortunately schools were barely mentioned in the meeting. Id like to know what Gupta and Henegan advised on schools.

Day masks are removed PHE, ventilation?
Read 16 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
25 May
Whats bothered me for a year

March 2020 we called for schools to close
Herd immunity was the strategy and Gov spokesman said closing schools would be counter productive as it would reduce infection, transmission didn't just occur in schools it was vital
1/
 #edutwitter #r4today
2/ When 1st lockdown was announced there was a mas scramble to define keyworkers, set down guidence for remote learning etc.
No preparatory work had been done because they had intended on keeping schools open throughout but impact on transmission was too risky
3/ From April 2020 the message suddenly changed from schools as essential vectors of transmission to gain natural immunity in low risk groups, to "children don't transmit" "transmission in schools is low" "school gates..."

Bit odd isn't it?
Read 9 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
24 May
1/🧵If education was a priority as government says, then they would be doing all they can to prevent the disruption caused by outbreaks and isolation.
So why haven't they invested in ventilation? Why scrap masks in secondaries?
2/ In fact the government seems comfortable with infections in younger age groups, the argument (ignoring long covid) is that children are low risk and the government’s aim is to keep down hospitalisation and deaths ie the NHS won't collapse from outbreaks in schools
But this wasn't their own priority it was "keeping schools" open, they and their client journalists keep saying how concerned they are by lost learning.

They are investing heavily in a national tutoring programme to show how much they are concerned

Read 14 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
24 May
#r4today have Viner talking about schools

"Transmission very low because of measures like social distancing, improved ventilation, mask wearing"
Presenter: "how long do we need to keep these measures in place?"
V: "social distancing will need to remain in place for now"

LIES!
FFS Have I slipped into a parallel universe where Johnson and co actually care about safety of the school population rather than almost willfully wanted to get us infected.

Viner has been DfEs go to expert to support its policies.
Johnson has spent more on takeaways than the government has spent on ventilation in schools.
The cost of his private plane and paint job would have covered the costs of having real meaningful air filtration in schools.

Not a penny has been spent on ventilation, Viner knows this
Read 22 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
23 May
1/🧵Government, PHE and the Media
Where is the science on schools policy? (AGAIN!)

Politics is about controlling the narrative,and this weekend shows many examples of how government does this facilitated by pliant media sources

It begins with suppressing and manipulating data.
2/ We know PHE have data on B1.617.2 cases in education settings, been asking for this for weeks, before masks were removed from classrooms. It was suspicious they wouldn't provide the data before that decision.

Still waiting, release has been blocked
3/ That was the data that wasn't released, the whole weekend was a media circus with the way the days data was released.

B1.617.2 spread and infectiousness
Vaccine efficiency

Pre briefings early in the day arent as rosy as the data released at 10:30m
Read 11 tweets
Karam Bales Profile picture
23 May
1/🧵Watching this years annual teaching apprenticeship debate, its got me thinking about a major issue with our education system that gets spoken about a lot but is never properly addressed.

Apprenticeships

Going to be some half formed thoughts and impressions, be gentle
2/ Main argument against seems to be about standards and subject knowledge.

My first instrinct is this is an argument about content and structure of a course rather than the basic concept.
3/ "Cant develop the depth of subject knowledge required over a 3/4 year apprenticeship"

I'm wondering how many teachers teach a subject they don't have a degree in? As a whole ppl are fine for someone with QTS to teach other subjects if they take a knowledge enhancement course
Read 16 tweets

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