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I think there is also a big reason why no one is banning prostests.
Can you imagine how, if during this time. someone would ban a protest? That would be one of the worst things in the world and just prove their points.


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 LordofHats wrote:

Local leadership around here has flabbergasted me in the past. The politics my county can be well described as 'Good ol'boy' politics. We even have our own county Republican party, distinct from the national Republican party because the area is super insular and it's basically the people who've lived here for generations vs everyone else. Development spreading into the area from Charlottesville, VA is the #1 political drama in county elections. I leave it to the imagination how dumb all that gets. But someone manned the feth up around here, used their brain, and managed to get everyone on board with trying to not die, so kudos to them for that.

And America likes to pretend it doesnt have royalty.....

 LordofHats wrote:
The opposite actually happened around here, I think. When the pandemic first started no one wore masks or did social distancing. It's a rural area and you can't park a car without seeing a dozen pick ups with Trump/Pence stickers on the bumpers, so I expecting total disaster. Something happened though cause a bunch of businesses put up signs saying "we are responding to local leadership and requesting that all customers wear masks inside and maintain social distancing." And people freaking did it.

Given the current climate, reaching out to folks at the local level is the way to go, imo.

My parents live in a rural area too, and the strategy there was to say "Look guys, if we don't all mask it up and get our caseload under control, there will be NO FOOTBALL!"

Instant community buy-in right there

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think there is also a big reason why no one is banning prostests.
Can you imagine how, if during this time. someone would ban a protest? That would be one of the worst things in the world and just prove their points.

Oh boy I shudder at the response THAT would have had...Say something about sitting on a powder keg!

Timing for protests was rather inconvenient but what you are going to do? Tell them to wait 2+ years before protesting? That is going be taken well!

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
I think there is also a big reason why no one is banning prostests.
Can you imagine how, if during this time. someone would ban a protest? That would be one of the worst things in the world and just prove their points.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:

Local leadership around here has flabbergasted me in the past. The politics my county can be well described as 'Good ol'boy' politics. We even have our own county Republican party, distinct from the national Republican party because the area is super insular and it's basically the people who've lived here for generations vs everyone else. Development spreading into the area from Charlottesville, VA is the #1 political drama in county elections. I leave it to the imagination how dumb all that gets. But someone manned the feth up around here, used their brain, and managed to get everyone on board with trying to not die, so kudos to them for that.

And America likes to pretend it doesnt have royalty.....

You should look into the UK. They banned protests, except for those of a certain group...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sunderlandecho.com/news/crime/police-ban-counter-protests-sunderland-black-lives-matter-vigil-planned-keel-square-2895377%3famp

from what i understand (i don't have children myself, but many friends do), the local school system is hoping to reopen depending on conditions, but still give people the option of doing distance learning.
looking at this, i can't help but think, would it be possible to perhaps draw on some of the pool of substitute teachers to help with monitoring the distance learning aspect
on certain days, or parts of the day, then have the regular teacher go over things, and then switch out with the subs who could monitor, and cover general questions while being able to check in with the a teacher as needed

Not clicking that link, but seeing as it says "ban counter-protests" surrounding a vigil?

Good on them. Wish they'd have come down half as hard on these "ReOpen" nutjobs as they've been going on peaceful protesters here in the US.

Hong Kong Shuts Down Schools Again as Virus Cases Surge
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/hong-kong-shuts-down-schools-061936761.html

Hundreds of South Korea schools close again after reopening (May)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/29/asia/south-korea-coronavirus-shuts-down-again-intl/index.html

After Reopening Schools, Israel Orders Them To Shut If COVID-19 Cases Are Discovered (June)
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/03/868507524/israel-orders-schools-to-close-when-covid-19-cases-are-discovered


Dunno about you guys, but I'd prefer waiting for safer conditions than a "whipsaw" of opening and closing again. In California, certain businesses were allowed to reopen -- only to be closed two days later. That situation is certainly worse for business owners than staying closed. Obviously, school systems don't have to worry about staying in business, but all the preparations schools have to do to reopen, as well as parents rescheduling their daily lives, goes to waste if schools close down again. Following safety guidelines, including keeping children at home, obviously has an effect on "normal" school behavior, namely learning and socializing. I guess, however, it could be seen as a way for children to learn firsthand the effects of an epidemic, and raise a generation of kids to take one more seriously.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Not clicking that link, but seeing as it says "ban counter-protests" surrounding a vigil?

Good on them. Wish they'd have come down half as hard on these "ReOpen" nutjobs as they've been going on peaceful protesters here in the US.

So, protests for me, but not for thee..

Your own source explains the police did that because there'd been violence in Newcastle between BLM and counter protests earlier in the month. (Which for non UK people is near enough to be comfortably within travel distance of many of the same people.)

So this was enacted based on incredibly recent evidence that allowing gatherings could risk public safety.

It wasn't "no protests for thee" it was "no protests for thee there and then. I'm sure counter protestors would have been free to make their point at another time or place, which I'm sure if they were ideologically sincere they'd have been just as passionate to do.

All gatherings of 6 or more people are 'banned' under Corona regulations. The same ones most of you clamoured for. So what Northumberland police did, was allow BLM people have a gathering, whilst using those same laws to prevent anyone else doing so in counter. Hence, for thee(those with a 'morally just' cause) but not for me. (Those who disagree)

Not only are the police selectively applying the regulations, they're doing it on a political basis.

Yeah, no.

If the second group couldn't be bothered to find another date to have a protest, that is on them. It paints a pretty clear picture as to what was intended.

QAR is apparently struggling to differentiate law and guidelines also.

It is not illegal to gather outside, it is against the guidelines. As was the case in Bristol, the police have often chosen to remain hands off in the thinking that trying to break up the protest would actually be more disruptive than allowing it to continue.

"Selectively" applying their discretionary powers to prevent another gathering that's likely to promote violence and public order offences, as well as disrupt any attempt at sensible social distancing as a consequence, just reads like common sense.


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Show me an instance where these so-called protestors were banned from assembling when there wasn't a BLM protest happening in the immediate vicinity at the same time, which I'm guessing will be tough as they're pretty much exclusively a thinly veiled attempt to solicit a fight or an excuse to vandalise property by the National Front or one of their offspring, and I'll concede you might have a point. (Although banning extremist political groups from assembling is still something I'd endorse, police bias or no.)

See I'd be inclined to agree there, if it weren't for the fact that the group in question could unarguably be presumed of engaging in violence at their own behest...unless of course you believe that vandalising monuments, attempting to burn flags on the cenotaph, assaulting police officers, and actually pulling down a statue and dumping it in a dock, are not acts of violence... All of which took place without the presence any antagonistic groups.


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 Kanluwen wrote:
Yeah, no.

If the second group couldn't be bothered to find another date to have a protest, that is on them. It paints a pretty clear picture as to what was intended.

Regardless, the point still stands. One groups freedoms are curtailed, and another's aren't

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
See I'd be inclined to agree there, if it weren't for the fact that the group in question could unarguably be presumed of engaging in violence at their own behest...unless of course you believe that vandalising monuments, attempting to burn flags on the cenotaph, assaulting police officers, and actually pulling down a statue and dumping it in a dock, are not acts of violence...

Did any of that happen in Newcastle? (Aside from clashes with the "counter protestors" which instigated the whole thing.) Or Sunderland? Or have you just cherry picked a few instances where violence (against property in the main, which I don't condone but rank much lower than violence against a person) did occur? We had BLM protests here, I don't think as much as a paving slab got knocked out of true.

What you're trying to do is paint a situation where police likely had intelligence that known bad actors were intending on committing criminal acts using the presence of the BLM protest as an excuse, and used their existing powers to head the whole thing off at the pass as some sort of fascist act of state authority.

Nothing as grandiose as that I'm afraid, simply that the police bowed to political pressure and acted in a discriminatory fashion, in that instance, aswell as others. None of which surprises me, as our police have become something of a joke as of late, and all of this nonsense over the past few weeks has just gone to show it even more.

If it was a case of intelligence on 'a few bad actors' that still does not excuse them banning everyone not involved in the protagonist group.

And it being 'only violence against property' does not excuse the behaviour in any way. Protest peacefully all you want, as soon as you start breaking laws, you've lost my support.

Go and find your own sources, but you'll find the Newcastle BLM protest more or less went off without incident until the "counter protestors" got involved, and it was those who targeted the police.

Unless you're trying to twist it to fit an agenda, the clear cause and effect of Sunderland Police's behaviour seems fairly clear and legitimate.

But it's well established ITT that you present a weird idea of what personal liberty looks like, so I think we'll leave it there and let anyone else reading make their own mind up

Quick mod note - Let's try to get back on topic. While it's fine to talk about how protests might affect coronavirus transmission "in general", obviously, the specifics of any one protest is pretty far afield from what we're trying to discuss here...

Thanks all!

On regards to allowing schools to go back perhaps if you strip back the curriculum to the essentials, pretty much streamline it, you could reduce the amount of time needed and then stagger portions of the class? Teacher/s is/are there with a 3rd of the class, doing the same lesson in cycles. Yeah the kids will get a much less diverse set of schooling, things like arts and maybe portions of history would suffer but it's possible individual students would receive a better education in things that will more directly affect their ability to work (more one to one due to the reduced kid count)

Welp, that didn't last too long.

Less than a week after reopening our office building all employees were sent home early because there was a confirmed Covid case and they needed to close and clean everything.

I'm wondering if we'll even open tomorrow.

 RiTides wrote:
Easy E and Slipspace - You're probably right, there's no good answer

IF there is no right answer, then we need to do the one with the least amount of immediate and observable detrimental effects
We have no idea how not having school in classes for 1 1/2 years could effect this generation, we could be raising a new generation of serial killers, or a new generation of hippies who knows.
But we DO know what will happen if schools open up and there is more of a chance people can infect others.

"we shouldn't let science get in way of opening schools".

Lovely attitude us goverment has


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https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/school-hearing-dismissed-after-angry-parents-pack-room-without-masks/ar-BB16PALa?ocid=sf

Slaps head. Because of this kind of behaviour masks are needed so if you oppose masks maybe act sensibly enough until there's no need for them

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Easy E and Slipspace - You're probably right, there's no good answer

IF there is no right answer, then we need to do the one with the least amount of immediate and observable detrimental effects.

In principle I agree. Part of the problem is we can't agree on the extent of the detrimental effects of the virus when it comes to children. Initial research suggested kids were largely unaffected by CV but now there are suggestions that isn't the case and the extent to which kids could be asymptomatic but still just as infectious as an adult in the same situation is also still not well understood. Then there's the problem that at a certain point there comes a crossover where the risk from CV is outweighed by social or economic risk factors. The question is are we at that stage yet? Early on, this sort risk assessment was easy: the threat from the virus was undeniable; numbers of infections and deaths were high and rising. The problem now is we're at the stage where the virus is still a real risk but not nearly as high a risk as it was and we need to start returning to something approaching normality and thinking about how we live with the virus long-term if a vaccine isn't found fairly soon.

I don't envy anyone having to make those sorts of decisions. What I hate is seeing those decisions politicised.

stratigo wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
We’re seeing what happens when you politicise a virus playing out in front of us.

In this very thread.

By a mod no less. Which is... worrying for the website overall.

I used to worry about the people running this site...now I don’t give a feth anymore, except to say that it’s amazing that it’s survived this long without ripping itself to pieces.

As for the virus that’s rampaging through the states, when it’s still killing them left right and centre over Christmas they should really ask themselves, was the bitching about freedumbs like haircuts and masks really worth it?

Slipspace wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Easy E and Slipspace - You're probably right, there's no good answer

IF there is no right answer, then we need to do the one with the least amount of immediate and observable detrimental effects.

In principle I agree. Part of the problem is we can't agree on the extent of the detrimental effects of the virus when it comes to children. Initial research suggested kids were largely unaffected by CV but now there are suggestions that isn't the case and the extent to which kids could be asymptomatic but still just as infectious as an adult in the same situation is also still not well understood. Then there's the problem that at a certain point there comes a crossover where the risk from CV is outweighed by social or economic risk factors. The question is are we at that stage yet? Early on, this sort risk assessment was easy: the threat from the virus was undeniable; numbers of infections and deaths were high and rising. The problem now is we're at the stage where the virus is still a real risk but not nearly as high a risk as it was and we need to start returning to something approaching normality and thinking about how we live with the virus long-term if a vaccine isn't found fairly soon.

I don't envy anyone having to make those sorts of decisions. What I hate is seeing those decisions politicised.

such persons are allways making political decisions, the only difference is that countries like brazil or the US or even israel seem to be more divided and not willing to close the ranks so to speak predominatnly fighting over political power instead of actually using the through cooperation gained power to resolve the issues.

Mods doing their jobs in curtailing clearly off-topic discussion is about as unreasonable as asking people to wear masks. So it makes sense some people would have a problem with it.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
...when it’s still killing them left right and centre over Christmas they should really ask themselves, was the bitching about freedumbs like haircuts and masks really worth it?

They'll just claim it is a hoax as part of the ongoing WAR ON CHRISTMAS.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
...when it’s still killing them left right and centre over Christmas they should really ask themselves, was the bitching about freedumbs like haircuts and masks really worth it?

They'll just claim it is a hoax as part of the ongoing WAR ON CHRISTMAS.

Wait, war on the pagan sun festival that got taken over by christianity, that then took over the pagan practice of cutting down trees and pulling them into your own home`?

how excactly is that supposed to work?

Some continuing contradiction today from Boris Johnson at a press conference.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/jul/17/uk-coronavirus-live-boris-johnson-3bn-plan-nhs-battle-ready-for-winter-second-wave?page=with:block-5f1181108f083da22b9a0981#block-5f1181108f083da22b9a0981

"Hopes for return to normality, possibly by Christmas"
This is hot on the heels of a report estimating between an additional 70k-120k covid-related deaths over the colder winter period, depending on what measures are enacted.
There was a report written about the circumstances regarding a 2nd wave. Nicole Sturgeon had read it, Boris Johsnon hadn't. What kind of figures are there for Covid again?

Then after saying last week that home working staff should return to work if possible and things should go back to normal, this has now been replaced by a more cautious tone and really sounds like being left to employers to create a safe environment and decide for themselves.

Fine for me and most of my colleagues who work for companies with a very strong H&S priority, crap if you work for someone like Dyson who tried to get everyone back into the office when we were hitting 1000+ deaths a day and only backed down because of a planned staff walkout.

I think if you are working for any companies that are dismissive of H&S or employment law, now is a good time to look up joining a union.

You can see from the thoughtful posts of Slipspace, Easy E, etc that this isn't an easy decision, or a political one, for parents. We're used to putting our kids future before our own... and while in many ways it helps them to lessen the effect of the pandemic, it's also in many ways less direct since they themselves are at such low risk.

I'd love to continue the discussion of details of other country's school models that have worked well and that have failed, and what we can learn and implement regarding hybrid options, etc. But I do recognize, as pointed out by posters above, that this has become politically fraught so it will probably be very difficult to do so.

Parents are just looking for ways to help their kids... not everything needs to be so partisan (as Slipspace much more eloquently said).

 RiTides wrote:
You can see from the thoughtful posts of Slipspace, Easy E, etc that this isn't an easy decision, or a political one, for parents. We're used to putting our kids future before our own... and while in many ways it helps them to lessen the effect of the pandemic, it's also in many ways less direct since they themselves are at such low risk.

I'd love to continue the discussion of details of other country's school models that have worked well and that have failed, and what we can learn and implement regarding hybrid options, etc. But I do recognize, as pointed out by posters above, that this has become politically fraught so it will probably be very difficult to do so.

Parents are just looking for ways to help their kids... not everything needs to be so partisan (as Slipspace much more eloquently said).

I reiterate, how are they insightfull if they are wrong, or is the work for the government, a political institution, and beeing called upon as expert- technocrats to form decisions, not political.