We gave Covid 19 the keys to our house 157 days ago, how are things going?

It is 08.00 am on Friday 5 February 2021, one hundred and fifty-seven days from the start of the 2020 – 2021 school year.

Something new to report – the latest edition of our personal art form, our street dance!

Not getting close to our fellow humans has been our mantra for the past year – wearing masks at all times, keeping our minimum 2 metres distance, staying away from crowded places and out of crowded shops, no house visits. Very early on, without giving it any real thought, we introduced our very own, patented, rapid action ‘ZIG-ZAG-crossing-street-then crossing-back manoeuvre’, triggered whenever we felt our social distance being threatened or about to be invaded. It was and is very successful. (there is one obvious exception, of course. Even today, after a year of knowing exactly how to behave, the ’no-mask’ jogging brigade still deliberately delight in sneaking up behind you, whooshing past your shoulder, trying to exhale their spit all over you. We still have not found the perfect collective noun and adjective to convey exactly what we feel about this behaviour).

Now, we are being told to take even more care to avoid the much more contagious flush of new Covid 19 variants. Somewhere we read that there were now over 4,000! Mum and dad did not actually discuss specifically what to do about it this latest twist, we just automatically raised our game. Forget about the two metres, we go automatically for the biggest gap physically possible, the bigger the better. Unfortunately, given the mix of apparently random, Brownian and stop-start movements of many humans, the gap is very dynamic at times and is in regular danger of being breached. Our solution has been to learn from the meercats. We conduct constant 360^o surveillance of everyone moving within eyesight and react accordingly to keep the safest distance possible between us and the nearest human. Our ZIG-ZAG has become a new art form, our very own street dance, a sort of cross between the Hokey-Kokey, Cha-Cha-Cha, The Irish River Dance and Ring a’ Ring of Roses. It is of course accompanied by a very catchy staccato drum beat rhythm that we chant under our breath.

The latest on Covid 19 impact on schools the new protective measures

• Recent school and class closures:
  • 22^nd January:       47 schools, 13 colleges and 4 high schools as well as 371 classes
  • 28 January:            75 schools and 17 colleges
  • 4 February:             83 schools, 16 colleges and 6 high schools as well as 934 classes
• Students testing positive:
  • 22^nd January:        Some 10,000 students have tested positive for Covid-19
  • 28 January:           1,1864 students have tested positive for Covid-19
  • 4^th February:          12,520 students have tested positive for Covid-19
• School staff testing positive:
  • 22^nd January:         1,586 school staff members have tested positive
  • 28^th February:         1,864 school staff members have tested positive
  • 4^th February:           1,808 school staff members have tested positive
• This week, the education authorities have also signalled that the number of classes closed in primary, middle or high school should increase significantly. This is because of the tightening of the health protocol on February 1, whereby a class will be closed as soon as a single case of contamination with a variant of the coronavirus is detected.

Mum and dad’s assessment – At least now we are much better informed about the schools, even if we do not like what we hear and can deduce:

• There will never, ever, even in a month of Sundays, even if Covid 19 floods everywhere, be a national school closure
• More students are Covid positive this week, the figure is now up to 1,250. While the number represents only a tiny, tiny element of the whole French school population, nonetheless it is still 1,250 humans who are potential transmitters of the virus from school to home. Yes, they are young, yes, it is claimed that they do not transmit, BUT, who has ever proven that the CANNOT transmit?
• Our conclusion1: we have searched diligently for meaningful scientific studies of the rate of Covid 19 transmission from children in school to their families at home, and bluntly, about the rate of family deaths that have arisen as a result. Nothing yet to report. Yes, OK, we know there are a lot of confounding variables but this fundamental question needs answered
• Our hypothesis: given what we all know, that Covid 19 is a human-to-human infection, mum and dad hypothesise, with 100% certainty, that school transmission has been, is, and will continue to be, a key source of infection and death in the family unit.
• And what are the authorities saying about the 1,808 teaching staff who are positive? They are adults. They ARE transmitters. Just ignore? Not enough to worry ourselves about?
• Our conclusion 2: it is becoming clearer week by week that the education juggernaut is being very stoutly defended from being derailed in any meaningful way by the powers that be. Trying to be philosophical about it for a moment, we presume their rationale is ‘better for the populace and school families to be exposed to collateral damage from keeping schools open, rather than the kids, and their education, taking direct hits from closing all their schools’.

 And, as we said in last week’s blog:

Still no third lockdown !!!

The ‘men-in-charge’ appear to walk and talk and look like humans, but they are obsessed and cannot think, they are blind and cannot see, and are deaf and cannot hear (the sobbing of their citizens), all because the £, €, and $ that fill their waking day and their nightly bad dreams have poisoned and numbed many of their ‘human’ faculties – thinking, logic, emotions, equality, fraternity …..  

But at least we have one new protection decision this week:

As of 1 February 2021, Category 1 masks (no idea what they are, we’re still finding out!) are now compulsory for the French population at large, including the 12 million + school children aged 6 and over. The supposed rationale? To protect them better following the arrival in France of more contagious variants of Covid-19.

Mum and dad’s assessment: This feels like the ‘men-in-charge’ just had to make some sort of decision this week, any sort of decision, to demonstrate their presence. Whatever the construct of the mask, if they are not worn correctly, not cleaned correctly, not changed with the right frequency, and not policed correctly to ensure good mask behaviour, they will not deliver as planned.

What the order definitely does: It is a distraction from the real problem of unsatisfactory mask wearing; it kills the home-produced masks cottage industries; it promotes the professional producers.

This order is simply another example of fiddling while Rome is burning.

By John Saunders

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World Health Communication Associates (WHCA) & INSPIRIT Creatives UG NGO,
MediaWise and MediaFocusUK

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