Return to Education

[sjpowermac]

I reckon it's not a bad bet to say the schools will end up being closed until the first half term, and quite possibly for the whole spring term.

I completely agree with the majority view on here that this is the wrong thing to happen.

It’s not just the ‘majority view on here’ it’s definitely the majority view of staff who work in schools.

Be in no doubt, school closures have absolutely nothing to do with teaching unions.

That said, many of the alterations to working practices that school staff have gone along with would have almost certainly seen industrial action on the railways.

 

[bramling]

It’s not just the ‘majority view on here’ it’s definitely the majority view of staff who work in schools.

Be in no doubt, school closures have absolutely nothing to do with teaching unions.

That said, many of the alterations to working practices that school staff have gone along with would have almost certainly seen industrial action on the railways.

I'm not sure the latter point is necessarily true - there's been surprisingly little fuss by railway staff, the vast majority have simply got on with things, especially at time has gone on. Quite honestly, at my place at least, a lot of the measures taken are "for show" - behind the scenes notwithstanding things like a ban on two people in a cab, perspex screens at booking-on points, and mess rooms having been spaced out a bit, it's rather business as usual. The big issue is staff availability, which is a combination of non-attendance, shielding and - something which is going to be an increasing issue as time goes on - vacancies. The on-train passenger experience in metro and suburban areas is pretty unremoved from normality, apart from the low passenger numbers of course.

Completely agree with the middle point, social media round my way is full of "it's lethal for my child to be in school" type posts. It's always rather revealing to further delve into the posting history of people making such comments, as it tends to become quite apparent there will be posts elsewhere extolling the virtues of all the extra family leisure time Covid has brought them.

 

[sjpowermac]

I'm not sure the latter point is necessarily true - there's been surprisingly little fuss by railway staff, the vast majority have simply got on with things, especially at time has gone on. Quite honestly, at my place at least, a lot of the measures taken are "for show" - behind the scenes notwithstanding things like a ban on two people in a cab, perspex screens at booking-on points, and mess rooms having been spaced out a bit, it's rather business as usual. The big issue is staff availability, which is a combination of non-attendance, shielding and - something which is going to be an increasing issue as time goes on - vacancies. The on-train passenger experience in metro and suburban areas is pretty unremoved from normality.

Completely agree with the middle point, social media round my way is full of "it's lethal for my child to be in school" type posts. It's always rather revealing to further delve into the posting history of people making such comments, as it tends to become quite apparent there will be posts elsewhere extolling the virtues of all the extra family leisure time this has all brought them.

I’m not talking about measures to stop the spread of the virus, your work seems to be about as much for show as mine.

When I spoke about working practices I’ll give you two examples.

Firstly I note that many TOCs have employed additional cleaners. Guess who has to wipe down classrooms if kids move between their zones? Yes, that would be me. Can you imagine how ASLEF would (rightly) react if they asked train drivers to do a bit of train presentation work in between driving turns? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t feel that cleaning is ‘beneath me’, but compare and contrast.

Secondly, remote learning. When kids are off self isolating there’s an expectation to provide ‘live’ remote learning. The options here are to ‘live stream’ the lesson by video or to set work in advance and respond to live chat during the lesson. Now clearly teaching isn’t the same safety critical activity that train driving is but to have a lot of additional distractions whilst managing a class in school is quite a major change and again, one I’m certain that ASLEF (again rightly) would have been all over.

Please don’t get me wrong, I have enormous respect for your profession and I actually admire the way the railway unions stand up for their members. None of what I’ve written is intended as a dig at you or indeed any railway staff. It’s a mistake though to think other unions hold the same sway as the rail unions.

As an aside, please don’t take the pictures you see of schools on the BBC as representative of the situation on the ground. Kids don’t spend half the day washing their hands and then sitting 2 metres apart. The public ‘outrage’ of the scenes at St. Pancras when Tier 4 was announced really amused me, what on earth do people think schools have been like since September?

As before, for the avoidance of doubt, I fully support keeping the schools open.

 

[Ianno87]

It’s not just the ‘majority view on here’ it’s definitely the majority view of staff who work in schools.

That's certainly the impression I get from my kids' schools. Most teachers simply want to get on with their jobs, taking sensible, pragmatic precautions. Because they do their jobs motivated by the best interests of the kids they teach. The satisfaction of doing this face to face must be enormous.

 

[hwl]

Many thanks for the reply. My word, some of those examples that you quoted are absolutely bonkers!

I really don’t know though how much notice the government take of the lunatic fringes of social media.

I do worry though that schools won’t reopen much before the February half term or even until after then.

I think the government have been blindsided by the new strain of the virus and have not really got a proper handle on things. It’s difficult to see how the situation that’s currently playing out with the hospitals in London won’t be all over the country within a couple of weeks.

Regarding the lateral flow testing in schools, I think that might prove harder to set up than many suppose, despite the government saying DBS checks can be waived. I’d guess if schools were to use additional staff, the most likely people would be exam invigilators, but given their age profile (my school might not be representative) I’m not sure it’s such an attractive offer for them.

It will be interesting to see what help the army offer, I suspect this might be a project that they regret getting involved with!

Just on a technical point, how accurate are the tests and do they pick up the new strain of the virus? I ask this not out of any personal concern for health, but if the answers are ‘not very’ and/or ‘dunno’ then the mass testing wouldn’t see like the moonshot it’s being portrayed as.

None of the above is me arguing against schools re-opening, I’ll be absolutely gutted if they don’t, but I’m just trying to look at things that might contribute to that decision.

All four main manufacturer PCR tests will pick up the new strain. A positive PCR test result actually comes from 3 separate positives from individual tests for unique features of the virus (this is something the anti-PCR test lobby can't get their head around as the false positive maths then look very bad for their view point). However for the new strain the ThermoFisher's Taqpath test kit will only only return 2 out of 3 positives for the separate individual tests as a key mutation for the new strains now results in a negative individual test for that area. Hence you can tests for the relative share of the new strain by doing a ThermoFisher and another manufacturer test and comparing the results i.e. 3 +ve (thermofisher) 3+ve (other manufacturer) --> older strains; 2 +ve, "S" -ve (thermofisher) 3+ve (other manufacturer) --> new strain
The Lighthouse labs at Milton Keynes, Alderley Park (Cheshire) and Glasgow have PCR equipment from both ThermoFisher and other manufacturers so the tests sent there are run through both ThermoFisher and another manufacturer in order to gauge spread of the new strain.

There is a huge (but they haven't fessed up yet) problem in that before they realised this: test swabs with the new strain only being tested with Thermofisher equipment resulted in people being given negative results. This has now been rectified with more capacity coming on stream with everything going through non Thermofisher equipment as minimum. This then leads to a huge surge in positives as previously undetected levels of the new strain were now being detected. The Copeland DC area (Cumbria) is a good example of this change with a sudden explosion in case rates.

Lateral flow device tests:
The initial results from Porton Down and Oxford Uni on the effectiveness of the LFD tests are due next week. Hence the need to delay the return especially in area with high proportion of new strain.
An audit of LFD testing by Birmingham Uni on some of their students returning home showed very low positive rates with LFD compared to non-Thermofisher PCR testing which may or may not be relevant /interesting in this regard...

The latest LSTMH analysis published yesterday but previously available to the governments suggest that Tier 4 and the new strain has R >1 which is bad news in general.

What is obvious is that the vaccination strategy may need to be rethought to re-focus on key workers before the majority of the lower risk end of phase 1 (50-65 with no underlying issues).

 

[yorkie]

I can confirm what @sjpowermac says is absolutely true regarding how much extra work school staff are having to do; I agree the rail unions wouldn't put up with it.

I also agree that the majority of school staff do want to keep schools open.

The overwhelming majority of parents want to keep schools open.

As for students, while students will often say they prefer to have extra time off school, the reality is that most students don't want prolonged periods of remote learning / school closures.

Those people who erroneously think that online learning is a substitute for children being in school have no idea what really goes on in schools.

 

[island]

@yorkie Unless I’ve missed something, it looks like schools will be shut in Tier 4 areas.

Here is the section in the Statutory Instrument regarding education:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/1611/pdfs/uksi_20201611_en.pdf

No mention there of schools.

Clarification can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tier-4-stay-at-home


The hysterical brigade will, no doubt, renew their efforts to close schools. Their demands should be resisted.

This was an omission in error (no doubt due to rushed drafting); SI 2020/1646 inserted school as a permitted type of gathering in tier 4.

 

[sjpowermac]

I can confirm what @sjpowermac says is absolutely true regarding how much extra work school staff are having to do; I agree the rail unions wouldn't put up with it.

I also agree that the majority of school staff do want to keep schools open.

The overwhelming majority of parents want to keep schools open.

As for students, while students will often say they prefer to have extra time off school, the reality is that most students don't want prolonged periods of remote learning / school closures.

Those people who erroneously think that online learning is a substitute for children being in school have no idea what really goes on in schools.

I forgot to mention students

Speaking to my form group at the start of the year very few made any complaint about being back. Whilst that changed a bit during the term, I completely agree that deep down inside they know school is the best place to be.

One thing I would mention is that some in Year 11 were literally in tears when they had to go home to self isolate. I think the gaps in knowledge for those moving on to further study is already quite wide. I fear that if school is delayed beyond the current timetable I can sadly see the exams being cancelled

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jan 2021 ==

All four main manufacturer PCR tests will pick up the new strain. A positive PCR test result actually comes from 3 separate positives from individual tests for unique features of the virus (this is something the anti-PCR test lobby can't get their head around as the false positive maths then look very bad for their view point). However for the new strain the ThermoFisher's Taqpath test kit will only only return 2 out of 3 positives for the separate individual tests as a key mutation for the new strains now results in a negative individual test for that area. Hence you can tests for the relative share of the new strain by doing a ThermoFisher and another manufacturer test and comparing the results i.e. 3 +ve (thermofisher) 3+ve (other manufacturer) --> older strains; 2 +ve, "S" -ve (thermofisher) 3+ve (other manufacturer) --> new strain
The Lighthouse labs at Milton Keynes, Alderley Park (Cheshire) and Glasgow have PCR equipment from both ThermoFisher and other manufacturers so the tests sent there are run through both ThermoFisher and another manufacturer in order to gauge spread of the new strain.

There is a huge (but they haven't fessed up yet) problem in that before they realised this: test swabs with the new strain only being tested with Thermofisher equipment resulted in people being given negative results. This has now been rectified with more capacity coming on stream with everything going through non Thermofisher equipment as minimum. This then leads to a huge surge in positives as previously undetected levels of the new strain were now being detected. The Copeland DC area (Cumbria) is a good example of this change with a sudden explosion in case rates.

Lateral flow device tests:
The initial results from Porton Down and Oxford Uni on the effectiveness of the LFD tests are due next week. Hence the need to delay the return especially in area with high proportion of new strain.
An audit of LFD testing by Birmingham Uni on some of their students returning home showed very low positive rates with LFD compared to non-Thermofisher PCR testing which may or may not be relevant /interesting in this regard...

The latest LSTMH analysis published yesterday but previously available to the governments suggest that Tier 4 and the new strain has R >1 which is bad news in general.

What is obvious is that the vaccination strategy may need to be rethought to re-focus on key workers before the majority of the lower risk end of phase 1 (50-65 with no underlying issues).

Many thanks indeed for both the technical and strategic background. It makes extremely sobering reading, especially Tier 4 putting R>1. Good point too about the vaccination strategy.

I do wonder if there might at least be something that could be done to keep exam classes with some in person teaching, perhaps along the lines of what happened from June onwards last year?

Many thanks again for answering my questions from earlier posts, greatly appreciated

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jan 2021 ==

This was an omission in error (no doubt due to rushed drafting); SI 2020/1646 inserted school as a permitted type of gathering in tier 4.

Thank you for that, I was sure that I’d read the originals carefully. Sincere thanks for confirming that I hadn’t completely lost the plot!

 

[Richard Scott]

I forgot to mention students

Speaking to my form group at the start of the year very few made any complaint about being back. Whilst that changed a bit during the term, I completely agree that deep down inside they know school is the best place to be.

One thing I would mention is that some in Year 11 were literally in tears when they had to go home to self isolate. I think the gaps in knowledge for those moving on to further study is already quite wide.

Agree with you on this. Don't think people realise that current exam classes, years 11 & 13, have now missed around 25% of contact time with their teachers and it's having a significant effect on quite a number in terms of their mental well-being. I'm fed up with selfish adults who say they'll get over it. I'd like to know how.

 

[hwl]

Many thanks indeed for both the technical and strategic background. It makes extremely sobering reading, especially Tier 4 putting R>1. Good point too about the vaccination strategy.

I do wonder if there might at least be something that could be done to keep exam classes with some in person teaching, perhaps along the lines of what happened from June onwards last year?

Many thanks again for answering my questions from earlier posts, greatly appreciated

The latest analysis from Imperial suggest that November pseudo lockdown wasn't effective either (No surprise given latest PHE data sets and JVT's slides the other day).

Only the Pfizer vaccine is licensed for 16-18 age group, all the others are currently 18+, but the US government has funded a 12-18 age group trial (similar to the Oxford - AZ extra older people US trial) for the Moderna vaccine so that might provide an option for the UK after April when the Moderna vaccine is available.

The only real keep the schools open option is to vaccinate staff* and accept it will spread like wild fire in schools, which should be lowish risk overall. *(You'd need to vaccinate bus drivers too). Lots of potential issues with key worker or shielding parents. (Ditto Universities)

 

[Richard Scott]

The only real keep the schools open option is to vaccinate staff* and accept it will spread like wild fire in schools, which should be lowish risk overall. *(You'd need to vaccinate bus drivers too). Lots of potential issues with key worker or shielding parents. (Ditto Universities)

If it was going to spread like wildfire in schools would have thought it'd done that already. Somewhat overhyped, I think.

 

[hwl]

If it was going to spread like wildfire in schools would have thought it'd done that already. Somewhat overhyped, I think.

The new strain has been spreading far better in young people than the older strains.

The understanding on the new strain so far is that it requires a smaller viral load for effective transmission but also typically has higher viral loads in those infected compared to the old strain (both bad news as regards transmissibility).

With Covid in under 18s with the older strains the viral load tended to be lower than adults and often below levels that could effectively be passed on to others (this was good news), with the new strain the situation as changed.

 

[yorkie]

The new strain has been spreading far better in young people than the older strains.

Is Public Health England incorrect in the following statement?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55507012

An analysis by Public Health England released this week showed there was no evidence it was more able to infect children than other variants.

But that does not mean infection rates have not been rising among children.

As with all age groups, the proportion of school children testing positive increased during December - with more virus around, there was more transmission.

Primary school children however still remain one of the age groups with the lowest infection rates, according to Public Health England analysis of people who test positive

 

[PeterC]

We seem to be getting some confusion between "primary school children" and "young people" here. When one person is referring to 17 year olds and the other to 7 year olds we are definitely comparing apples with oranges.

 

[Richard Scott]

The new strain has been spreading far better in young people than the older strains.

The understanding on the new strain so far is that it requires a smaller viral load for effective transmission but also typically has higher viral loads in those infected compared to the old strain (both bad news as regards transmissibility).

With Covid in under 18s with the older strains the viral load tended to be lower than adults and often below levels that could effectively be passed on to others (this was good news), with the new strain the situation as changed.

In all my 23 years working in education I've never seen anything go like wildfire through a school from stomach bugs to flu, it doesn't happen so willing to bet this won't either.

 

[hwl]

Is Public Health England incorrect in the following statement?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55507012

The BBC article has now been edited and the text you quoted is no longer there.

The latest PHE work was done pre Christmas but published post Christmas. The latest Imperial and LSTMH work is more recent.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jan 2021 ==

We seem to be getting some confusion between "primary school children" and "young people" here. When one person is referring to 17 year olds and the other to 7 year olds we are definitely comparing apples with oranges.

Agree young people are more than just primary school age.
The increases were seen in secondary age groups.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jan 2021 ==

In all my 23 years working in education I've never seen anything go like wildfire through a school from stomach bugs to flu, it doesn't happen so willing to bet this won't either.

Ok so like wild fire compared to the older strains?

 

[bramling]

Is Public Health England incorrect in the following statement?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55507012

I thought it was the case that the new version spreads more easily in older children? That’s not incompatible with what PHE are alleging.

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I can see both sides to the schools debate.

I totally agree that education is important and many children can be severely affected by closures and that learning from home is not a sensible substitute. It is far better for the children to be in school.

But, having said that, if the scientists are saying that November lockdown / Tier 4 is insufficient to contain the new version of the virus and additional measures are needed to protect adults (who may catch it from their children who in turn catch it unknowingly at school from asymptomatic carriers) then what other measures can be introduced that will have any effect?

 

[Ianno87]

I can see both sides to the schools debate.

I totally agree that education is important and many children can be severely affected by closures and that learning from home is not a sensible substitute. It is far better for the children to be in school.

But, having said that, if the scientists are saying that November lockdown / Tier 4 is insufficient to contain the new version of the virus and additional measures are needed to protect adults (who may catch it from their children who in turn catch it unknowingly at school from asymptomatic carriers) then what other measures can be introduced that will have any effect?

I, for one, would be happy to accept isolating my son outside of school so that he can attend in person. So if he did pick Covid up, we would be able to "contain" it and not pass it further.

 

[RomeoCharlie71]

All London primary schools to remain closed for start of term in government U-turn

It is the latest in a string of U-turns performed by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson's department.

news.sky.com

All London primary schools will now be closed at the start of terms for most pupils, mayor Sadiq Khan has confirmed.

It comes two days after the government said only those in 22 of London's 32 boroughs would be affected by closures.

Earlier, the leaders of eight London boroughs called on the government to make a U-turn as they were "struggling to understand the rationale" behind the move.

 

[Jamiescott1]

3 days of zoom meetings during school holidays wasted this week due to 2 huge u turns

 

[Richard Scott]

Ok so like wild fire compared to the older strains?

No, wildfire implies almost unsuppressed transmission with majority getting it, which this new strain won't do. Would suggest a term that exaggerates less would be helpful?

 

[sjpowermac]

No, wildfire implies almost unsuppressed transmission with majority getting it, which this new strain won't do. Would suggest a term that exaggerates less would be helpful?

I wouldn’t worry about it too much, from what you’ve said your local school seems impervious to infections of any sort

All ways round I do hope that at least something can be done for schools.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jan 2021 ==

I can see both sides to the schools debate.

I totally agree that education is important and many children can be severely affected by closures and that learning from home is not a sensible substitute. It is far better for the children to be in school.

But, having said that, if the scientists are saying that November lockdown / Tier 4 is insufficient to contain the new version of the virus and additional measures are needed to protect adults (who may catch it from their children who in turn catch it unknowingly at school from asymptomatic carriers) then what other measures can be introduced that will have any effect?

I agree with what you’ve put, there don’t seem to be any ‘cake and eat it’ options available.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I do hope that schools can re-open fully or as a minimum for exam classes. I certainly don’t envy those in government making the decisions.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Jan 2021 ==

I thought it was the case that the new version spreads more easily in older children? That’s not incompatible with what PHE are alleging.

You are completely correct. I suspect the ‘here’s some hand sanitizer and hope for the best’ approach to opening schools in September isn’t necessarily going to work this time.

As always, I would much prefer the schools to be open, if at all possible.

Early results indicated that the virus was spreading more quickly among under-20s, particularly among secondary school age children.
But the very latest data indicates that it was spreading quickly across all age groups, according to Prof Gandy who was a member of the research team.

Covid-19: New variant 'raises R number by up to 0.7'

A study finds the new coronavirus variant is responsible for pushing the R rate above the crucial 1.0 mark.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[johntea]

3 days of zoom meetings during school holidays wasted this week due to 2 huge u turns

These last minute U Turns are ridiculous, I’m sure teachers and senior management of these schools have had to give up part of their Christmas break planing for the return based on guidance only to have it all ripped up again on a Friday afternoon...

The NHS were in a similar situation earlier in the year where guidance was issued around 5pm on a Friday that patients and staff must follow social distancing, wear masks and the like with immediate effect from the following Monday, PPE Teams weren’t too happy at the short notice!

Also I worked in education for 9 years in a support staff role so keep in touch with several colleagues, apparently in a lot of cases support staff are expected to be on site whilst the teachers work from home!

 

[Scotrail12]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at all of these people (many of whom don't have children) demanding that schools should be shut. Easier said than done, I'm assuming they don't have to sort out childcare.

 

[philosopher]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at all of these people (many of whom don't have children) demanding that schools should be shut. Easier said than done, I'm assuming they don't have to sort out childcare.

Do all those who advocate school closures have a plan to ensure school pupils, particularly the poorer school kids that often do not learn well from home are able to catch up educationally to where they should be at their age. If they do, I have not heard of one.

 

[sjpowermac]

Do all those who advocate school closures have a plan to ensure school pupils, particularly the poorer school kids that often do not learn well from home are able to catch up educationally to where they should be at their age. If they do, I have not heard of one.

Would you care to clarify who you are addressing this to?

The headline in today’s Telegraph of ‘Teachers Demand all Schools Stay Closed’ is deliberately misleading. We have previously debunked the idea many times on various threads that the teaching unions have any power, the government always ignore them.

There hasn’t been a ballot (or even a survey) of what teachers think. All the ones I know want schools open but doubtless if you dredge Facebook or Twitter you will find some who don’t.

I forgot to include you in my round up of revisiting posts from the summer.

We had this post:

Another thread on here was based on a study, that said that if a vaccine could not be found, half of the population would be willing to see home schooling become the norm for the very long term. That sort of figure is utterly terrifying - people would be willing to throw away the ability for children to socialise with others, have a quality learning environment, and in many cases their one escape from a toxic home life, all over this virus.

To which I replied that wasn’t my experience at all. I predicted that most children would return to school in September, which is actually what happened.

We have already discussed on the thread that attendance in September was 88% v the more usual 95%, lower perhaps due to some quarantining when coming back from holiday or being required to self isolate.

Here is what you had to say about my reply to the poll at the time:

Your experience does sound different from this poll, however I do not think the results of a poll can just be dismissed as flimsy.

Would you care to comment?

 

[farleigh]

I forgot to include you in my round up of revisiting posts from the summer.

We had this post:

To which I replied that wasn’t my experience at all. I predicted that most children would return to school in September, which is actually what happened.

We have already discussed on the thread that attendance in September was 88% v the more usual 95%, lower perhaps due to some quarantining when coming back from holiday or being required to self isolate.

Here is what you had to say about my reply to the poll at the time:


Would you care to comment?

As we are doing the round up of posts from the past, here is one of yours.


"How successful do you believe the lockdown would have been if the schools had remained fully open?

Are you disputing the Imperial College figure of 400 000 dead had we continued with the government’s initial strategy of herd immunity and doing little to ‘flatten the curve’?

As I’ve mentioned previously, I would be astonished if this doesn’t turn out to be an extended Easter break with schools returning in early May."

I think we all make posts that prove to be incorrect as things change and evolve no?

 

[sjpowermac]

As we are doing the round up of posts from the past, here is one of yours.


"How successful do you believe the lockdown would have been if the schools had remained fully open?

Are you disputing the Imperial College figure of 400 000 dead had we continued with the government’s initial strategy of herd immunity and doing little to ‘flatten the curve’?

As I’ve mentioned previously, I would be astonished if this doesn’t turn out to be an extended Easter break with schools returning in early May."

I think we all make posts that prove to be incorrect as things change and evolve no?

Yes, I congratulate you on your finds.

I think the key difference is that I’m prepared to put my hand up and admit that I’ve been wrong. I’m also prepared to admit when I’ve changed my mind. That’s something that you and many others on these threads seem singularly unwilling to do.

As Keynes once said “when the facts change, I change my mind, what do you do, Sir?” It seems that on these threads admitting to being wrong is seen as a weakness, but is that really so?

You clearly didn’t check my posts carefully enough to see this more recent one:

For the avoidance of doubt, is it permitted to ask people if they still hold the same views as they did earlier in the year?

It’s a genuine question because my own views have changed and I’m happy to admit that I got some things wrong.

Back in April I was minded that reopening schools would not be safe, but I realise now that was complete nonsense and I’m more than happy to admit that, I now believe it was a huge mistake to close the schools.

I’ve also learned a great deal from some of the threads that has either changed my mind about a topic, or made me more understanding.

I think it’s regrettable that many seem to shrink from admitting they got something wrong...

Seemingly much better, in your blinkered view, to plough on regardless, twist/turn/shrink, rather than saying ‘yes, I got that wrong’. Don’t worry though, you are not alone, there are plenty of others doing the same...

 

[Ianno87]

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at all of these people (many of whom don't have children) demanding that schools should be shut. Easier said than done, I'm assuming they don't have to sort out childcare.

It's the usual "I support restrictions, provided it's the kind where other people have to deal with the consequences and have no impact on me".

One person I follow on Twitter advocating school closures was previously up in arms when travel corridor restrictions affected their planned holiday...