That really would b*gger up education if schools lose 2 terms. Especially for any subjects with practical exams that have to be rehearsed and done in the shortest term of the year.
It's going to be really hard on the children, especially Dragonlet 2, if they can't visit their grandparents and meet up with their cousin this year. I'd really like to get to my parents in Kent as that would be the closest thing we'll have to a holiday this year. (We were supposed to be away in Holy week.)
I'm already expecting that the great funfair in the autumn, which is near us, won't happen, so Dragonlet 1's birthday weekend will be much quieter than usual!
I still think it would be better if they just said that this academic year will have to be repeated, by everybody.
That way it takes the pressure off, and everybody has a comprehensible explanation on their cv. Also then those going into school cos key work or vulnerability, could do interest based projects of DofE style skills work - and there would be somewhat less reproduction and exaggeration of educational inequalities.
We can avoid a second wave. Starting with everyone abiding with the scientific advice and staying home, except for: essential trips (shopping for food, collecting medicines or medical appointments); work if you can't work from home and are in a key service (health, food chain); exercise from your home. Don't go to work if you can avoid it, don't send your children back to school, don't gather in the park or on the beach. Ignore the UK government's stupid advice and keep with the old "stay home" rules. If we do that and spend the rest of the time under lockdown to implement a locally based test and protect strategy and we can avoid a second wave. At present the government seems to have let people think it's over, and we'll have a second wave and be back where we were a month or two back ... possibly in as little as a couple of months kicking any option to open schools in the new term, but maybe early enough that there'll be some relaxation before Christmas.
I think Alan is right, but the govt seem to be adopting a laissez faire attitude, so there is a sense of the lockdown ending. For example, big crowds at Ruislip Lido. Let's hope we are not overtaken again.
List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,706,226 (1,141,751 / 464,670 / 99,805)
Brazil - 376,669 (199,314 / 153,833 / 23,522)
Russia - 353,427 (230,996 / 118,798 / 3,633)
Spain - 282,480 (58,685 / 196,958 / 26,837) 12.0%
United Kingdom - 261,184 (223,926 / 344 / 36,914)
Italy - 230,158 (55,300 / 141,981 / 32,877) 18.8%
France - 182,942 (89,311 / 65,199 / 28,432)
Germany - 180,789 (11,161 / 161,200 / 8,428) 5.0%
Turkey - 157,814 (33,430 / 120,015 / 4,369) 3.5%
India - 145,456 (80,578 / 60,706 / 4,172)
Iran - 137,724 (22,560 / 107,713 / 7,451) 6.5%
Peru - 123,979 (69,401 / 50,949 / 3,629)
Canada - 85,711 (34,528 / 44,638 / 6,545)
China - 82,992 (81 / 78,277 / 4,634) 5.6%
Saudi Arabia - 74,795 (28,728 / 45,668 / 399)
Chile - 73,997 (43,934 / 29,302 / 761)
Mexico - 71,105 (13,582 / 49,890 / 7,633) 13.3%
Pakistan - 57,705 (38,194 / 18,314 / 1,197)
Belgium - 57,342 (32,733 / 15,297 / 9,312)
Qatar - 45,465 (35,076 / 10,363 / 26)
Netherlands - 45,445 (39,365 / 250 / 5,830)
Ecuador - 37,355 (16,149 / 18,003 / 3,203)
Belarus - 37,144 (22,491 / 14,449 / 204)
Bangladesh - 35,585 (27,750 / 7,334 / 501)
Sweden - 33,843 (24,843 / 4,971 / 4,029)
Singapore - 31,960 (16,199 / 15,738 / 23)
Portugal - 30,788 (11,636 / 17,822 / 1,330)
Switzerland - 30,746 (633 / 28,200 / 1,913) 6.4%
United Arab Emirates - 30,307 (14,402 / 15,657 / 248)
Ireland - 24,698 (2,032 / 21,060 / 1,606) 7.1%
South Africa - 23,615 (11,217 / 11,917 / 481)
Indonesia - 22,750 (15,717 / 5,642 / 1,391)
Colombia - 21,981 (15,966 / 5,265 / 750)
Kuwait - 21,967 (15,181 / 6,621 / 165)
Poland - 21,631 (11,348 / 9,276 / 1,007)
Ukraine - 21,245 (13,388 / 7,234 / 623)
Romania - 18,283 (5,448 / 11,630 / 1,205) 9.4%
Egypt - 17,967 (12,284 / 4,900 / 783)
Israel - 16,734 (2,146 / 14,307 / 281) 1.9%
Japan - 16,581 (2,139 / 13,612 / 830) 5.7%
Austria - 16,539 (760 / 15,138 / 641) 4.1%
Dominican Republic - 15,073 (6,328 / 8,285 / 460)
Philippines - 14,319 (10,123 / 3,323 / 873)
Argentina - 12,628 (8,162 / 3,999 / 467)
Denmark - 11,387 (860 / 9,964 / 563) 5.3%
South Korea - 11,225 (681 / 10,275 / 269) 2.6%
Serbia - 11,193 (5,034 / 5,920 / 239)
Panama - 11,183 (4,594 / 6,279 / 310)
Afghanistan - 11,173 (9,857 / 1,097 / 219)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and India. There is some indication that certain states, particularly Florida, have been cooking their books to minimize the number of official COVID-19 deaths.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
That seems to be the plan of the UK government. Just abandon any rules on social distancing and self-isolation for those who are sick. Welcome to the second wave, and the third that follows that. The schools may be technically open, but the teachers will be sick and dying. How many years do you steal from children while you wait for 1000s of new teachers to be trained and build up the years of experience that makes a good teacher?
I don't think one needs to go to the worst-case which Alan lays out, to say your post isn't right, Marvin. The virus is the thing doing the stealing - we are stuck with that. It just remains to us to try to work out how best to roll with it. The more we try to roll, while telling ourselves we are not rolling - the more we tie our hands behind our backs, and the less creative and effective our mitigation (I was going to say solution - look, even I'm at it) can be.
I still think it would be better if they just said that this academic year will have to be repeated, by everybody.
That way it takes the pressure off, and everybody has a comprehensible explanation on their cv. Also then those going into school cos key work or vulnerability, could do interest based projects of DofE style skills work - and there would be somewhat less reproduction and exaggeration of educational inequalities.
My 16 year old son has found it tough enough having all his exams cancelled and being in limbo when he should be revising. He certainly would not accept having to do another year of school before moving on to college and gaining the independence he craves, and being able to concentrate on the subjects he wants to study.
On a positive note, the local sixth form has just issued a firm offer of a place based on his predicted grades, so we can breathe a sigh of relief there.
It seems to me the best the government could do is allow all children currently of school age to have an extra funded year of education - so they can continue to take A-levels and the like for free up until their 20th birthday instead of their 19th. Ideally they should also negotiate with universities to treat a batch of A-levels taken that year as equivalent to those taken a year earlier. No compulsion for students, just the option if they need it to take an extra year to get where they need to be rather than being forced onto the qualification treadmill at a certain pace. Easier in Scotland, of course, where the emphasis is already (outside a handful of top universities) on what you've got by the time you leave education rather than tying a particular qualification level to a particular age.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
I'm not sure it does. Not everyone will take advantage of it, and a surge in applicants will likely be met by a surge in gap years. There would be some increase, but distributed over a number of years rather than double in a single year.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
I think Arethosemyfeet is right - it's my impression (with PT HE provider hat on) that under-capacity in HE is not the problem we are immediately faced with!!
The risks of a second wave may become clearer over the next month. One puzzling factor from the US statistics is that although the numbers of new cases appear to be plateauing overall at about 20K a day, the daily total of those dying does seem to be declining. I'm not sure how available remdesivir has become, nor the effect of some criticisms of counting methods.
And certainly in Europe, the trends are down on both of those counts. Relaxing controls has been happening at different times and with different degrees in both the US States and the European countries. So it may be that the worst is over for a while. But Shipmates; caution is understandable. Unless there is further news from the laboratories, the virus today is the same as it was before the lockdown; same infection rate, same capacity to kill or produce serious debilitating illness. So the risks remain.
AIUI they can mutate to less harmful forms. I note a new BBC turn of phrase 'hospitalised with a serious form of Covid-19", not sure if this is propaganda.
At the same time people are not, for the most part, and despite flouting of rules/guidelines, going about their business as they were a few months ago, so a decrease in transmission compared to before is also to be expected.
Yes, I'm puzzled by people who say it will burn out, or peter out. Maybe viruses can do this, but I don't understand how. Anybody know?
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
There is zero evidence of this happening so far with SARS-CoV2 and given that it has a slow mutation rate, it would be surprising although not impossible.
I must go back to people talking about burn out. One is Michael Levitt, who I think has argued that growth has not been exponential, another is Karol Sikora, although he was banned from youtube for disinformation, I think.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
No offense, but your answer to everything lately is "do what Germany does, because Germany is awesome". Makes me wonder why you haven't moved there yet.
Yes, I'm puzzled by people who say it will burn out, or peter out. Maybe viruses can do this, but I don't understand how. Anybody know?
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
As it is it appears we are back in mid-March, except this time with a higher number of existing cases (and not much more natural immunity than then).
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
Having everyone repeat a year would. Allowing people an extra funded year post-16 would not. If it means some folk take their GCSE maths or English aged 17 rather than 16 what's the big deal? Better than the likely alternative where GCSE maths resit classes in 15 months timed are rammed full with kids trying to make sure they get their A-Levels done at the same time. An extra funded year gives them a bit of breathing space and flexibility.
No offense, but your answer to everything lately is "do what Germany does, because Germany is awesome". Makes me wonder why you haven't moved there yet.
Well, actually, @Boogie is correct, indeed in quite a few countries, including the currently much-lauded Denmark, 6 or 7 is the norm and much pedagogy demonstrates, not only that this does not disadvantage children, but has definite benefits (I taught Child Education till retirement). For transparency, my eldest son and his family live in eastern Belgium, he works and my grandchildren go to school just over the border in Germany. I know where I’d rather be at the moment!
May I ask who looks after the child until that age? Because the impression I get is that the most children go to kindergarten, which doesn’t seem much different to me. Presumably less testing though (and more expensive for parents if it is not state provided. If it is state provided it seems even more like reception).
Yes, I'm puzzled by people who say it will burn out, or peter out. Maybe viruses can do this, but I don't understand how. Anybody know?
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
There are two means by which a disease can "burn out". One is that it mutates into a form that has significantly less severe effects, is more contagious and gives a significant level of immunity against the more severe pre-mutation form. If it has (nearly) equally severe effects then we can justifiably ask if the mutation is any benefit to us, if it doesn't give immunity against the pre-mutation form you get sick twice (once with a strain that may not get you as ill), if it's not more contagious then it won't spread through the population fast enough to give the benefit of any immunity that it might give.
The other way a disease burns out is that it runs out of people it can infect (effectively R is significantly less than one). Often that would be because people get symptomatic before peak infection and readily self-isolate (who needs an excuse to stay in bed when you're sick?). Which is what happened with the previous recent coronavirus epidemics, this one differs because peak infection potential appears to be before symptoms develop and seems to be more readily spread which is a very bad combination for us.
As it happens, I worked there when I was a House Officer. It's a pretty small hospital really but this does imply a massive upward trend in local numbers. If this is an anomaly, that's one thing; if it's the first gusts of the on-coming storm, that's definitely another.
AFZ
Yes, I don’t live that far from Weston Super Mare and local people are angry and frightened because of the massive crowds of tourists flocking there over the past 10 days or so, especially the two weekends. They’re also flagging up the VE Day celebrations as an issue. Funnily enough, I’d been talking to a friend (on the phone) about it a few days ago and remarked that the other major public health issue I was concerned about was the fact that there were no toilets open and people were spending all day in the area - well, I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out! Sure enough, there’s been a lot in the local news since of resident’ gardens, back lanes, etc being used and beach buckets of excrement being left around.
May I ask who looks after the child until that age? Because the impression I get is that the most children go to kindergarten, which doesn’t seem much different to me. Presumably less testing though (and more expensive for parents if it is not state provided. If it is state provided it seems even more like reception).
Well, if our experience living in France when our two were small is anything to go by, although compulsory education beginning from rising 5-6years (according to where your birth date falls in the calendar year), is the official norm, in practice, most children are in some kind of collective education by age 2 at latest. Be that halte-garderie (creche), kindergarten, nursery school, or in our case- a bilingual kindergarten, which although professing to be run on Montessori principles, nevertheless sent pupils home with copybooks. They were certainly learning to read, write and count long before proper school age.
We’re talking an 8 am start for most pupils and a 4/4.30; pm finish, with maybe after school care taking you up to 6 pm. So childcare likely wouldn’t have been a problem. I doubt the system has changed much in the ensuing 25 years. Basically, there was wraparound care, plus plenty of Grannies around willing to cover any of the gaps so that mum could hurry back to work.
No offense, but your answer to everything lately is "do what Germany does, because Germany is awesome". Makes me wonder why you haven't moved there yet.
Well, actually, @Boogie is correct, indeed in quite a few countries, including the currently much-lauded Denmark, 6 or 7 is the norm and much pedagogy demonstrates, not only that this does not disadvantage children, but has definite benefits (I taught Child Education till retirement). For transparency, my eldest son and his family live in eastern Belgium, he works and my grandchildren go to school just over the border in Germany. I know where I’d rather be at the moment!
Note, my post above refers only to France and a very high-flying part of France academically at that. I know little about the other European education systems; from what you’ve referenced, @Doone, I wish we’d had similar. The pressure we experienced didn’t suit every child, but I guess I’m going off thread here!
No offense, but your answer to everything lately is "do what Germany does, because Germany is awesome". Makes me wonder why you haven't moved there yet.
IIRC, @Boogie has expressed her intention of doing precisely that as soon as was convenient.
No offense, but your answer to everything lately is "do what Germany does, because Germany is awesome". Makes me wonder why you haven't moved there yet.
Very true.
But, in this case, it’s true. Putting children under pressure to succeed academically at a young age is counter productive. Learning through play is the key. Then, when formal learning starts at seven they are keen and really well motivated.
May I ask who looks after the child until that age? Because the impression I get is that the most children go to kindergarten, which doesn’t seem much different to me. Presumably less testing though (and more expensive for parents if it is not state provided. If it is state provided it seems even more like reception).
Kindergarten involves lots of play, especially outdoor play.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
Having everyone repeat a year would. Allowing people an extra funded year post-16 would not. If it means some folk take their GCSE maths or English aged 17 rather than 16 what's the big deal? Better than the likely alternative where GCSE maths resit classes in 15 months timed are rammed full with kids trying to make sure they get their A-Levels done at the same time. An extra funded year gives them a bit of breathing space and flexibility.
Wouldn't that still create a bottleneck somewhere though?
E.g. either: next year's Y11 would consist of this year's Y10, plus some of this year's Y11 who wanted to re-sit;
or: sixth-forms suddenly become three-forms: Y12, Y13, and pupils who were Y11 last year but don't feel confident starting A-Levels.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
As it is it appears we are back in mid-March, except this time with a higher number of existing cases (and not much more natural immunity than then).
The mechanisms are complex and interacting. Epidemics burn out when they stop spreading reliably... I.e. too many immune people around so an infected individual doesn't meet enough people who are susceptible to pass it on to. Or people's behaviour changes so contact levels fall so far or changes in the weather make it harder to successfully jump from one person to the next (such as increased sunlight and UV radiation as a consequence).
The problem is that there is no evidence that SARS-CoV2 is becoming less infectious or that increasing UV light in the Northern hemisphere will have a meaningful effect.
As to the circulating levels of the virus in the community; we are guessing. As people are probably bored of me saying now, the only data I trust for comparisons over time is the In-hospital death rate.
We don't have good enough prevalence data to make any proper judgments. Although the ONS data is getting there. However one could make a guess working backwards... The NHS England data puts the death rate (for 24th May) where it was on 18th March. There are ways that this data could be awry but it's likely to be solid. The death rate corresponds to the infection rate some number of days before this. 14 days is a good guess for this (but this number needs to be more precise as small variations here make a big difference*). So thus it is very likely that the prevalence of the disease on 10th May equates to the 29th February. Given that the infection rate was increasing at that point and is clearly on a downward trajectory (or at least, was) then one can estimate when the prevalence level has got to from the mortality figures. And thus, in theory, at least, we could be down to a level whereby track and trace can work. There are lots of problems with this method but it's probably good enough. I.e. I think we are close to a point where it is safe to begin relaxing measures. I've no doubt that the epidemiology experts have modelled this really well with various assumptions to work out the risks. (i.e. changing the time of death from infection etc.). Allowing for the fact that the rate of infection might not follow quite the same curve as the mortality figures.
Anyway, caveats aside; lockdown has worked and we're at a point where some relaxation is possible. There are three problems with this.
1. The government has already started some relaxation and that week or two could be very costly.
2. Our Track/trace and isolate program is not in place yet. Without that, you need to lockdown for a lot longer.
Two weeks ago the ONS estimate of prevalence was too high to make Track/trace and isolate practicable. I suspect (although we're waiting for the data) that we are probably there now. But the key to this is that you have to get it right. Because if you lose control then it takes only a matter of days to explode again, making lockdown the only option.
3. We don't know (because we were never testing enough and we don't know how many people were asymptomatic with infection, nor how many were symptomatic but not hospitalised).
As the ONS estimates continue it should be possible to overlay these two data sets which should give us a good idea of real-time prevalence and the true mortality. The paradox here is that the lower the true-mortality, the worse it is in terms of containing the virus.
What I mean by this, is I do think the true mortality is probably 1% (because of how many asymptomatic infections there seem to be) but it could be as high as 5%. Obviously the lower the better but for this kind of modelling and the decision-making, the only question that matters is how many cases in the community (assuming we can test well enough to pick them up) vs what resources do we have available to tracking and tracing.
This is based just on the England in-hospital numbers because I can't be bothered to combine all the relevant data but the principle still holds. Again I am assuming an average of 14 days from infection to death. The peak in English hospitals was the 9th April with 900 deaths.
So if the mortality is 1% (and the time factor is 14 days) then that implies that 90,000 people were infected on 26th March. If the mortality is 5% then the infected number on 26th March would be 18,000. Either number is far too high for tracking and tracing. Especially when you remember this is the number of newly infected cases on that day - there will already be many thousands infected and when you're starting tracing, you need to capture (virtually) all of them. Once the program is running then only the new cases matter. So, The death rate for 24th May (which is only provisional) looks like around 80. It might go up a bit, but we'll use 80 for the calculation: Hence the 1% mortality would equate to 8,000 new infections on 10th May (and 1,600 if it's 5%). I am assuming that based on current levels of activity the number of people needed to be traced is and tested is probably ten times that number. So on 10th May we would have needed something like 80,000 extra tests (as well as all the shoe-leather work to find them in the first place - ok, mobile phone dialling probably...). So that's way too high. So you can model this further and get an estimate of current prevalence rates (and add in the other nations of the union and the best estimates of care-home deaths). There remain some problems with this approach but there's probably enough data (especially if cross-referenced with the ONS surveys) to go from the death rates (which is essentially realtime) to a current prevalence rather than one that's inevitably two weeks out of date.
We could (could) be down to something really low like 10 new infections a day. I doubt it's that low but it's possible. (Remember that's only new infections and not the whole story). One can modify the model with lots of different assumptions but we are probably at a point where track and trace can work. That statement has one HUGE caveat.** So we can begin safe relaxation if we have 1) testing capacity and 2) track and trace capacity and 3) effective isolation for those traced and testing positive (or waiting to be tested).
My worry here is that we don't actually have any of those three. Let's do a thought experiment; let's say that we are back to late February, in terms of prevalence numbers but that we won't have a tracing program ready for another two weeks... If we do relax too fast then we're talking about the same thing we saw in early March where it takes weeks and a lockdown to gain control.
AFZ
*This is an average. There are certainly cases of people getting very ill within a very short time from being exposed as well as some who have Covid-19 for a couple of weeks before needing hospital admission. The extremes don't matter here as the average should show the relationship between death-rate and prevalence. If it's longer than 14 days, that means that the equivalent prevalence rate now extends even further back, which would be a good thing.
** The assumption used here is that we are still on a downward trajectory. I am not sure this is true because of the half-relaxation and inconsistency over the past few weeks. There are some big alarm bells here - including the spike in admission at Weston General Hospital. If this pattern is repeated we'll see an up-tick in the mortality in 2 weeks' time.
Yes, I'm puzzled by people who say it will burn out, or peter out. Maybe viruses can do this, but I don't understand how. Anybody know?
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
There are two means by which a disease can "burn out".
Yes, I understand that, my point was that neither of the scenarios you lay out is likely to apply, so we are essentially back to the situation in mid-March albeit with a higher base level of cases, and the government planning on loosening the lockdown.
Yes, I'm puzzled by people who say it will burn out, or peter out. Maybe viruses can do this, but I don't understand how. Anybody know?
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
There are two means by which a disease can "burn out".
Yes, I understand that, my point was that neither of the scenarios you lay out is likely to apply, so we are essentially back to the situation in mid-March albeit with a higher base level of cases, and the government planning on loosening the lockdown.
See above. We are not back to mid-March. We are probably back to late Feb. (Probably).
It seems to me the best the government could do is allow all children currently of school age to have an extra funded year of education - so they can continue to take A-levels and the like for free up until their 20th birthday instead of their 19th. Ideally they should also negotiate with universities to treat a batch of A-levels taken that year as equivalent to those taken a year earlier. No compulsion for students, just the option if they need it to take an extra year to get where they need to be rather than being forced onto the qualification treadmill at a certain pace. Easier in Scotland, of course, where the emphasis is already (outside a handful of top universities) on what you've got by the time you leave education rather than tying a particular qualification level to a particular age.
It would not surprise me at all if there are quite a few people who try by some means or other, whether supported or independent study, to bump up their grades, especially Maths and English as they had a bit of a shock in their mocks about coasting and their predicted, and therefore actual grades this year, are going to show them seriously under-achieving. This will be most true for those aspiring to higher end unis or 'accredited courses'. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of lee-way on direct entry exam fees next year if that is a big issue.
Potentially universities will give more lee-way on who they will automatically accept once they see the marks coming through from UCAS later this year. The problem is courses like 4-year Engineering and I believe Medicine, where the standards are set by the industry governing bodies as your degree qualifies you to work in those professions without further entry-level exams.
The nearest we got to water yesterday was the paddling pool I bought last year but didn't get out.
I notice our trust has gone under 100 confirmed inpatient cases, and the death rate has really slowed. We're not an area that attracts tourists, although Eid may have encouraged a bit more mingling over the weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if a second wave starts as hot spots in areas like coastal resorts, especially those with more limited hospital facilities, that start to join up and get spread about.
At work we're trying to plan resumption of community screening clinics, but it's a very mixed bag in terms of venues saying yes atm. If we lose many more months, we won't be able to fit everyone in who is due this (financial) year, especially with the need to lengthen appointments for the extra cleaning required. The lock-down hokey cokey would be worse though, with all the cancelling and restarting clinics that would entail.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
Some twenty years ago, the government of Ontario abolished the final year of high school, meaning a double cohort of students all qualified for university/college/whatever at the same time. The system coped. It wan't all that pretty, but so far as I remember, there were not floods of complaints about people unable to get into university, or universities having to turn away qualified students. While it would not be pretty, it can be done.
Yes, I'm puzzled by people who say it will burn out, or peter out. Maybe viruses can do this, but I don't understand how. Anybody know?
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
There are two means by which a disease can "burn out".
Yes, I understand that, my point was that neither of the scenarios you lay out is likely to apply, so we are essentially back to the situation in mid-March albeit with a higher base level of cases, and the government planning on loosening the lockdown.
See above. We are not back to mid-March. We are probably back to late Feb. (Probably).
AFZ
Thanks, I missed your post due to the way the forum scrolls - and it was more an reply to Alan than anything else. I agree with your reasoning and have much the same worries.
Worldometer shows that the total numbers of the US deaths attributable to COVID-19 have just risen above 100 thousand. It's only a number of course and doesn't really tell us anything about the current progress of the disease across the USA.
I suspect it may dominate the news cycle (at least when the Johns Hopkins figure confirms the count). But a series of second spikes in several States would be a much more significant development so far as the overall management (or lack of it) is concerned.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
Having everyone repeat a year would. Allowing people an extra funded year post-16 would not. If it means some folk take their GCSE maths or English aged 17 rather than 16 what's the big deal? Better than the likely alternative where GCSE maths resit classes in 15 months timed are rammed full with kids trying to make sure they get their A-Levels done at the same time. An extra funded year gives them a bit of breathing space and flexibility.
Wouldn't that still create a bottleneck somewhere though?
E.g. either: next year's Y11 would consist of this year's Y10, plus some of this year's Y11 who wanted to re-sit;
or: sixth-forms suddenly become three-forms: Y12, Y13, and pupils who were Y11 last year but don't feel confident starting A-Levels.
Most 6th forms and colleges can cope with increased numbers, whether on level 2 or level 3 courses. Some class sizes will increase a bit, but a lot of classes run below max capacity normally.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
Some twenty years ago, the government of Ontario abolished the final year of high school, meaning a double cohort of students all qualified for university/college/whatever at the same time. The system coped. It wan't all that pretty, but so far as I remember, there were not floods of complaints about people unable to get into university, or universities having to turn away qualified students. While it would not be pretty, it can be done.
Though as I recall it wasn’t all at once in one year. It was possible to “fast-track” for several years in advance, and many people did, which meant that when it became obligatory rather than optional to finish high school in 4 years, it wasn’t happening all at once for everyone.
I don't know if cancelling the academic year is the way to go but it deserves consideration and it's actually very doable.
Think about it; what would happen is this: 2020-21 1/3 less undergraduates. (No first year) 21-22 normal no. of undergrads. Double the first year and no second year. Need some planning and possibly doubling up on the timetable in places but no major issues. 22-23 as 21-22 except the double year is now the 2nd year. 23-24 1/3 above normal numbers of undergrads with normal first and 2nd years and double 3rd year. That would need some work but if the decision is made now then there's 3 years to prepare.
There are financial implications for the universities but nothing the government couldn't smooth out easily if they chose to.
Similar contingencies for schools.
It's clearly not perfect and has problems but that's the wrong question. The right question is is it better or worse than the alternatives?
Ideally we maintain the lockdown long enough that we don't risk a second wave, and we can get most children back in school (to some extent, even if that's only part time for those able to do some study at home) after the summer. That, of course, means that we're very careful about relaxing the current lockdown conditions, and that anyone who suspects that they have contracted the disease maintain a very strict self-isolation at home. It also needs a functioning test and protect capability. Maybe, if lucky, we can go to the beach or sit around the park in July, anything earlier than that introduces a significant risk of a second wave that will either prevent a school restart after the summer or leads to a reintroduction of school shut downs sometime in the autumn.
While I can see the logic for this it does effectively, at some point, double the numbers of applicants for university places - without doubling the capacity of universities to accept them.
I think Arethosemyfeet is right - it's my impression (with PT HE provider hat on) that under-capacity in HE is not the problem we are immediately faced with!!
Depends what you mean by "capacity".
The upper ends of the spectrum run pretty much at capacity. So the effect of doubling the size of one intake is to push everyone down the list of universities. People who would have made it in to top-rank institutions in a normal year have to make do with an institution of middle rank, and so on.
I'm not quite sure why @Arethosemyfeet argues that more people would take gap years, unless it's in response to this effect - that people who think they'd have a decent chance at a top-ranked place in a normal year might choose to defer so they don't face quite so much competition. I'd have thought that the massive recession we're about to have would lead to fewer people taking gap years (less parental subsidy, harder to find work because due to recession there's lots of unemployed people, ...)
I am not at all a fan of the idea of a blanket repeat of the current academic year. The year was more than half done by the time we entered lockdown; in the case of those with public exams, it was almost entirely complete. Most of what was to come during lockdown was revision and the exams themselves. It's probably actually the kids in year 12 who have the hardest challenge, as they've lost a big chunk of time in the middle of their A-level studies, although one could argue that A-level students should be able to study independently at home reasonably well. Perhaps it's the year 10's in the middle of their GCSE work that will have more challenges - particularly those that aren't necessarily guaranteed five GCSE passes. I think there's merit in the idea of allowing people to retake the current year if they choose, though.
The idea that most 17 year olds can study independently with a similar degree of success to being taught is not one supported by my experience either as a student or a teacher.
The upper ends of the spectrum run pretty much at capacity. So the effect of doubling the size of one intake is to push everyone down the list of universities. People who would have made it in to top-rank institutions in a normal year have to make do with an institution of middle rank, and so on.
I follow your post, and I can see why the above could be true - but around here the higher-end institution (Manchester) is also expecting a financial bloodbath next year as next to no internationals turn up. So - I don't think capacity will be a problem for a while. Unless we mean overcapacity.
I have a girl in Year 10. It's not great - but she's a self-starter. I like the school (the staff try hard, and care for the kids) but there's a lot of drongos in her classes and she's probably teaching herself as much as she'd be learning in class. Well, we'll see.
Comments
It's going to be really hard on the children, especially Dragonlet 2, if they can't visit their grandparents and meet up with their cousin this year. I'd really like to get to my parents in Kent as that would be the closest thing we'll have to a holiday this year. (We were supposed to be away in Holy week.)
I'm already expecting that the great funfair in the autumn, which is near us, won't happen, so Dragonlet 1's birthday weekend will be much quieter than usual!
That way it takes the pressure off, and everybody has a comprehensible explanation on their cv. Also then those going into school cos key work or vulnerability, could do interest based projects of DofE style skills work - and there would be somewhat less reproduction and exaggeration of educational inequalities.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and India. There is some indication that certain states, particularly Florida, have been cooking their books to minimize the number of official COVID-19 deaths.
No countries have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
You’d be effectively stealing a year from every school age kid in the country. I don’t think that would wash.
On a positive note, the local sixth form has just issued a firm offer of a place based on his predicted grades, so we can breathe a sigh of relief there.
I'm not sure it does. Not everyone will take advantage of it, and a surge in applicants will likely be met by a surge in gap years. There would be some increase, but distributed over a number of years rather than double in a single year.
I think Arethosemyfeet is right - it's my impression (with PT HE provider hat on) that under-capacity in HE is not the problem we are immediately faced with!!
And certainly in Europe, the trends are down on both of those counts. Relaxing controls has been happening at different times and with different degrees in both the US States and the European countries. So it may be that the worst is over for a while. But Shipmates; caution is understandable. Unless there is further news from the laboratories, the virus today is the same as it was before the lockdown; same infection rate, same capacity to kill or produce serious debilitating illness. So the risks remain.
At the same time people are not, for the most part, and despite flouting of rules/guidelines, going about their business as they were a few months ago, so a decrease in transmission compared to before is also to be expected.
They can and sometimes do. Most commonly because they mutate and become less infectious and/or less virulent. There are other mechanisms such as environmental ones which is why flu is seasonal.
There is zero evidence of this happening so far with SARS-CoV2 and given that it has a slow mutation rate, it would be surprising although not impossible.
AFZ
The bigger problem is that it will double the number of students in reception/year 1, with the effect staying with that cohort for their entire educational lives. Unless we permanently change school ages, so that children start at 6 and finish at 19.
They lose nothing and gain a great deal.
No offense, but your answer to everything lately is "do what Germany does, because Germany is awesome". Makes me wonder why you haven't moved there yet.
But presumably only when the milder form provides some advantage in resisting the stronger form.
As it is it appears we are back in mid-March, except this time with a higher number of existing cases (and not much more natural immunity than then).
Having everyone repeat a year would. Allowing people an extra funded year post-16 would not. If it means some folk take their GCSE maths or English aged 17 rather than 16 what's the big deal? Better than the likely alternative where GCSE maths resit classes in 15 months timed are rammed full with kids trying to make sure they get their A-Levels done at the same time. An extra funded year gives them a bit of breathing space and flexibility.
Well, actually, @Boogie is correct, indeed in quite a few countries, including the currently much-lauded Denmark, 6 or 7 is the norm and much pedagogy demonstrates, not only that this does not disadvantage children, but has definite benefits (I taught Child Education till retirement). For transparency, my eldest son and his family live in eastern Belgium, he works and my grandchildren go to school just over the border in Germany. I know where I’d rather be at the moment!
The other way a disease burns out is that it runs out of people it can infect (effectively R is significantly less than one). Often that would be because people get symptomatic before peak infection and readily self-isolate (who needs an excuse to stay in bed when you're sick?). Which is what happened with the previous recent coronavirus epidemics, this one differs because peak infection potential appears to be before symptoms develop and seems to be more readily spread which is a very bad combination for us.
Yes, I don’t live that far from Weston Super Mare and local people are angry and frightened because of the massive crowds of tourists flocking there over the past 10 days or so, especially the two weekends. They’re also flagging up the VE Day celebrations as an issue. Funnily enough, I’d been talking to a friend (on the phone) about it a few days ago and remarked that the other major public health issue I was concerned about was the fact that there were no toilets open and people were spending all day in the area - well, I’m sure I don’t need to spell it out! Sure enough, there’s been a lot in the local news since of resident’ gardens, back lanes, etc being used and beach buckets of excrement being left around.
Well, if our experience living in France when our two were small is anything to go by, although compulsory education beginning from rising 5-6years (according to where your birth date falls in the calendar year), is the official norm, in practice, most children are in some kind of collective education by age 2 at latest. Be that halte-garderie (creche), kindergarten, nursery school, or in our case- a bilingual kindergarten, which although professing to be run on Montessori principles, nevertheless sent pupils home with copybooks. They were certainly learning to read, write and count long before proper school age.
We’re talking an 8 am start for most pupils and a 4/4.30; pm finish, with maybe after school care taking you up to 6 pm. So childcare likely wouldn’t have been a problem. I doubt the system has changed much in the ensuing 25 years. Basically, there was wraparound care, plus plenty of Grannies around willing to cover any of the gaps so that mum could hurry back to work.
Note, my post above refers only to France and a very high-flying part of France academically at that. I know little about the other European education systems; from what you’ve referenced, @Doone, I wish we’d had similar. The pressure we experienced didn’t suit every child, but I guess I’m going off thread here!
IIRC, @Boogie has expressed her intention of doing precisely that as soon as was convenient.
Very true.
But, in this case, it’s true. Putting children under pressure to succeed academically at a young age is counter productive. Learning through play is the key. Then, when formal learning starts at seven they are keen and really well motivated.
Kindergarten involves lots of play, especially outdoor play.
Wouldn't that still create a bottleneck somewhere though?
E.g. either: next year's Y11 would consist of this year's Y10, plus some of this year's Y11 who wanted to re-sit;
or: sixth-forms suddenly become three-forms: Y12, Y13, and pupils who were Y11 last year but don't feel confident starting A-Levels.
The mechanisms are complex and interacting. Epidemics burn out when they stop spreading reliably... I.e. too many immune people around so an infected individual doesn't meet enough people who are susceptible to pass it on to. Or people's behaviour changes so contact levels fall so far or changes in the weather make it harder to successfully jump from one person to the next (such as increased sunlight and UV radiation as a consequence).
The problem is that there is no evidence that SARS-CoV2 is becoming less infectious or that increasing UV light in the Northern hemisphere will have a meaningful effect.
As to the circulating levels of the virus in the community; we are guessing. As people are probably bored of me saying now, the only data I trust for comparisons over time is the In-hospital death rate.
We don't have good enough prevalence data to make any proper judgments. Although the ONS data is getting there. However one could make a guess working backwards... The NHS England data puts the death rate (for 24th May) where it was on 18th March. There are ways that this data could be awry but it's likely to be solid. The death rate corresponds to the infection rate some number of days before this. 14 days is a good guess for this (but this number needs to be more precise as small variations here make a big difference*). So thus it is very likely that the prevalence of the disease on 10th May equates to the 29th February. Given that the infection rate was increasing at that point and is clearly on a downward trajectory (or at least, was) then one can estimate when the prevalence level has got to from the mortality figures. And thus, in theory, at least, we could be down to a level whereby track and trace can work. There are lots of problems with this method but it's probably good enough. I.e. I think we are close to a point where it is safe to begin relaxing measures. I've no doubt that the epidemiology experts have modelled this really well with various assumptions to work out the risks. (i.e. changing the time of death from infection etc.). Allowing for the fact that the rate of infection might not follow quite the same curve as the mortality figures.
Anyway, caveats aside; lockdown has worked and we're at a point where some relaxation is possible. There are three problems with this.
1. The government has already started some relaxation and that week or two could be very costly.
2. Our Track/trace and isolate program is not in place yet. Without that, you need to lockdown for a lot longer.
Two weeks ago the ONS estimate of prevalence was too high to make Track/trace and isolate practicable. I suspect (although we're waiting for the data) that we are probably there now. But the key to this is that you have to get it right. Because if you lose control then it takes only a matter of days to explode again, making lockdown the only option.
3. We don't know (because we were never testing enough and we don't know how many people were asymptomatic with infection, nor how many were symptomatic but not hospitalised).
As the ONS estimates continue it should be possible to overlay these two data sets which should give us a good idea of real-time prevalence and the true mortality. The paradox here is that the lower the true-mortality, the worse it is in terms of containing the virus.
What I mean by this, is I do think the true mortality is probably 1% (because of how many asymptomatic infections there seem to be) but it could be as high as 5%. Obviously the lower the better but for this kind of modelling and the decision-making, the only question that matters is how many cases in the community (assuming we can test well enough to pick them up) vs what resources do we have available to tracking and tracing.
This is based just on the England in-hospital numbers because I can't be bothered to combine all the relevant data but the principle still holds. Again I am assuming an average of 14 days from infection to death. The peak in English hospitals was the 9th April with 900 deaths.
So if the mortality is 1% (and the time factor is 14 days) then that implies that 90,000 people were infected on 26th March. If the mortality is 5% then the infected number on 26th March would be 18,000. Either number is far too high for tracking and tracing. Especially when you remember this is the number of newly infected cases on that day - there will already be many thousands infected and when you're starting tracing, you need to capture (virtually) all of them. Once the program is running then only the new cases matter. So, The death rate for 24th May (which is only provisional) looks like around 80. It might go up a bit, but we'll use 80 for the calculation: Hence the 1% mortality would equate to 8,000 new infections on 10th May (and 1,600 if it's 5%). I am assuming that based on current levels of activity the number of people needed to be traced is and tested is probably ten times that number. So on 10th May we would have needed something like 80,000 extra tests (as well as all the shoe-leather work to find them in the first place - ok, mobile phone dialling probably...). So that's way too high. So you can model this further and get an estimate of current prevalence rates (and add in the other nations of the union and the best estimates of care-home deaths). There remain some problems with this approach but there's probably enough data (especially if cross-referenced with the ONS surveys) to go from the death rates (which is essentially realtime) to a current prevalence rather than one that's inevitably two weeks out of date.
We could (could) be down to something really low like 10 new infections a day. I doubt it's that low but it's possible. (Remember that's only new infections and not the whole story). One can modify the model with lots of different assumptions but we are probably at a point where track and trace can work. That statement has one HUGE caveat.** So we can begin safe relaxation if we have 1) testing capacity and 2) track and trace capacity and 3) effective isolation for those traced and testing positive (or waiting to be tested).
My worry here is that we don't actually have any of those three. Let's do a thought experiment; let's say that we are back to late February, in terms of prevalence numbers but that we won't have a tracing program ready for another two weeks... If we do relax too fast then we're talking about the same thing we saw in early March where it takes weeks and a lockdown to gain control.
AFZ
*This is an average. There are certainly cases of people getting very ill within a very short time from being exposed as well as some who have Covid-19 for a couple of weeks before needing hospital admission. The extremes don't matter here as the average should show the relationship between death-rate and prevalence. If it's longer than 14 days, that means that the equivalent prevalence rate now extends even further back, which would be a good thing.
** The assumption used here is that we are still on a downward trajectory. I am not sure this is true because of the half-relaxation and inconsistency over the past few weeks. There are some big alarm bells here - including the spike in admission at Weston General Hospital. If this pattern is repeated we'll see an up-tick in the mortality in 2 weeks' time.
Yes, I understand that, my point was that neither of the scenarios you lay out is likely to apply, so we are essentially back to the situation in mid-March albeit with a higher base level of cases, and the government planning on loosening the lockdown.
See above. We are not back to mid-March. We are probably back to late Feb. (Probably).
AFZ
It would not surprise me at all if there are quite a few people who try by some means or other, whether supported or independent study, to bump up their grades, especially Maths and English as they had a bit of a shock in their mocks about coasting and their predicted, and therefore actual grades this year, are going to show them seriously under-achieving. This will be most true for those aspiring to higher end unis or 'accredited courses'. I wouldn't be surprised if there is some sort of lee-way on direct entry exam fees next year if that is a big issue.
Potentially universities will give more lee-way on who they will automatically accept once they see the marks coming through from UCAS later this year. The problem is courses like 4-year Engineering and I believe Medicine, where the standards are set by the industry governing bodies as your degree qualifies you to work in those professions without further entry-level exams.
The nearest we got to water yesterday was the paddling pool I bought last year but didn't get out.
I notice our trust has gone under 100 confirmed inpatient cases, and the death rate has really slowed. We're not an area that attracts tourists, although Eid may have encouraged a bit more mingling over the weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if a second wave starts as hot spots in areas like coastal resorts, especially those with more limited hospital facilities, that start to join up and get spread about.
At work we're trying to plan resumption of community screening clinics, but it's a very mixed bag in terms of venues saying yes atm. If we lose many more months, we won't be able to fit everyone in who is due this (financial) year, especially with the need to lengthen appointments for the extra cleaning required. The lock-down hokey cokey would be worse though, with all the cancelling and restarting clinics that would entail.
Some twenty years ago, the government of Ontario abolished the final year of high school, meaning a double cohort of students all qualified for university/college/whatever at the same time. The system coped. It wan't all that pretty, but so far as I remember, there were not floods of complaints about people unable to get into university, or universities having to turn away qualified students. While it would not be pretty, it can be done.
Thanks, I missed your post due to the way the forum scrolls - and it was more an reply to Alan than anything else. I agree with your reasoning and have much the same worries.
I suspect it may dominate the news cycle (at least when the Johns Hopkins figure confirms the count). But a series of second spikes in several States would be a much more significant development so far as the overall management (or lack of it) is concerned.
Most 6th forms and colleges can cope with increased numbers, whether on level 2 or level 3 courses. Some class sizes will increase a bit, but a lot of classes run below max capacity normally.
Though as I recall it wasn’t all at once in one year. It was possible to “fast-track” for several years in advance, and many people did, which meant that when it became obligatory rather than optional to finish high school in 4 years, it wasn’t happening all at once for everyone.
Think about it; what would happen is this:
2020-21 1/3 less undergraduates. (No first year)
21-22 normal no. of undergrads. Double the first year and no second year. Need some planning and possibly doubling up on the timetable in places but no major issues.
22-23 as 21-22 except the double year is now the 2nd year.
23-24 1/3 above normal numbers of undergrads with normal first and 2nd years and double 3rd year. That would need some work but if the decision is made now then there's 3 years to prepare.
There are financial implications for the universities but nothing the government couldn't smooth out easily if they chose to.
Similar contingencies for schools.
It's clearly not perfect and has problems but that's the wrong question. The right question is is it better or worse than the alternatives?
AFZ
Depends what you mean by "capacity".
The upper ends of the spectrum run pretty much at capacity. So the effect of doubling the size of one intake is to push everyone down the list of universities. People who would have made it in to top-rank institutions in a normal year have to make do with an institution of middle rank, and so on.
I'm not quite sure why @Arethosemyfeet argues that more people would take gap years, unless it's in response to this effect - that people who think they'd have a decent chance at a top-ranked place in a normal year might choose to defer so they don't face quite so much competition. I'd have thought that the massive recession we're about to have would lead to fewer people taking gap years (less parental subsidy, harder to find work because due to recession there's lots of unemployed people, ...)
I am not at all a fan of the idea of a blanket repeat of the current academic year. The year was more than half done by the time we entered lockdown; in the case of those with public exams, it was almost entirely complete. Most of what was to come during lockdown was revision and the exams themselves. It's probably actually the kids in year 12 who have the hardest challenge, as they've lost a big chunk of time in the middle of their A-level studies, although one could argue that A-level students should be able to study independently at home reasonably well. Perhaps it's the year 10's in the middle of their GCSE work that will have more challenges - particularly those that aren't necessarily guaranteed five GCSE passes. I think there's merit in the idea of allowing people to retake the current year if they choose, though.
I follow your post, and I can see why the above could be true - but around here the higher-end institution (Manchester) is also expecting a financial bloodbath next year as next to no internationals turn up. So - I don't think capacity will be a problem for a while. Unless we mean overcapacity.
I have a girl in Year 10. It's not great - but she's a self-starter. I like the school (the staff try hard, and care for the kids) but there's a lot of drongos in her classes and she's probably teaching herself as much as she'd be learning in class. Well, we'll see.