Schools back. A big step along the road to normality.

 

Tomorrow in England, the schools go back. They’ve been shut since early January when the government abruptly imposed another lockdown over coronavirus. However a remarkably successful vaccine roll out which has seen 20+ million Britons safely vaccinated against this disease has created the conditions where schooling in person can return.

The remote schooling has been both stressful and difficult for many parents with some schools being better than others in the provision of remote teaching. We’ve been lucky, our child’s school has been brilliant but others have not been so lucky. They’ve had to deal with poorly planned lessons, delivered badly and with very poor feedback between school and the parents and the child. There’s no doubt that the home schooling has been as disruptive to some children as evacuation was to children during the Second World War. We’ve seen both good and awful remote schooling during this time. We moved our child from his original school shortly after the first lockdown, as even prior to the pandemic we were getting more and more frustrated with a lack of home school communication. That lack of communication and lack of provision worsened during the pandemic so we moved our child to another school last September and we’ve been delighted by the service that we’ve had since then. We’ve actually been treated like customers, which makes a change when dealing with Britain’s state education system where too often parents are treated like scum.

The return of in person schooling is a big step along the road to normality and its a normality that can’t come soon enough. We’ve got a lot to do to repair the damage that the lockdowns have caused to the economy, to society and to the mental and physical health of Britons. Although I’ve shifted my position on many issues during the pandemic period, most notably with regards my initial suspicions of the mRNA vaccines, I still believe that if Britain had had better pandemic planning that looked at other diseases of concern not just influenza, then maybe things would have been different. Maybe with better planning Britain would not have had to have lockdowns of such great length and severity?

I’m seriously concerned at the damage that the government’s policies have done to civil liberties and some agencies, such as the police have taken a massive hit to their reputations. A perception, too often backed up by solid evidence, has shown the police in a bad light. A lot of people are going to take a long time to forget how the police kneeled for BLM/Marxist thugs whilst kicking merry hell out of those protesting lockdowns. This was biased and partial policing at its worst and this is going to be remembered and filed away along with police failures on Islamic Rape Gangs and selective and biased policing of ‘hate speech’ laws. This is eventually going to blow back in the faces of police possibly by a reduction in public help and support. When all this is over work is going to have to begin in earnest to repair the damage to civil liberties.

Another thing that I would like to see is the government being honest in the future with the public regarding pandemic threats. You don’t need to be a genius to know that whilst covid might be bad, there are other horrible diseases out there that could be even more devastating. I’m thinking of a really bad mutation of influenza or an air transmissible haemorrhagic fever or even a return via terrorism of something like Smallpox or even Anthrax. Thankfully there are vaccinations available for both Anthrax and Smallpox and it is to be hoped that the development of mRNA vaccines may even help to created a far safer version of the Smallpox vaccine than the one that used to be employed prior to Smallpox being wiped out. If Britain was afflicted by a Smallpox attack I fully expect the anti vax community to call for the vaccine to be refused and Smallpox to be treated by homeopathy or some other equally useless pseudo-science. If we were afflicted again by a pandemic disease then I would expect the government to be honest and tell the public the truth about it as well as close Britain’s borders early enough to prevent the import of disease. The government has done itself and the rest of us no favours by being seen as disjointed, evasive and vacillating, something it has appeared to be at times. The piss poor communication by government has not just frustrated Britons but has given an opportunity for the charlatans and grifters of the anti vaccination community to peddle their bullshit and appear credible even though they are not. If you want to get some idea just how much the anti vax cult has exploited covid then may I suggest that you look at the Science Based Medicine and Respectful Insolence sites. They are documenting and countering the way that the anti vax and pseudo-science groups are exploiting the situation. I think that these anti vax and alternative medicine nutcases will always be with us, but I believe that much better and more vigorous science teaching will with any luck in the future lessen their influence and make them as laughable as they deserve to be, maybe hopefully as laughable as the Flat Earthers or those who believe that Gravity is a myth created by ‘the Jews’. I truly believe that greater science knowledge across all parts of the public is the bleach that could clean up the cess pit that is the anti vaccination movement.

The return of children to school is a good sign that this pandemic may soon be over and we can dispense with the lockdowns, the assaults on civil liberties and the increasingly hated masks. An end to this pandemic will come by applying the science and hopefully it is the application of science that will not just deal with the effects of the next pandemic, but possibly stop it from happening in the first place.

My child is longing to get back to school and he needs to be back at school as seeing him pine for other children to play and interact with has been extremely distressing. I’m extremely glad that the schools are no returning and that hopefully that means that the nation is on the road to recovery.

 

6 Comments on "Schools back. A big step along the road to normality."

  1. It is good that children are going back to school. They need social interaction from their peers.

    Those schools you talk about with poorly planned lessons and poor feedback between schools, parents and children is still in this day and age, happening unfortunately.
    When I worked in a teaching pre school I had a brilliant teacher to learn from but management there were very nasty so she left.
    The person who replaced her was bone idle and it was seriously tough working with her and I quickly discovered that the teachers that matter are the ones that care. Some are just in it for their egos.

    I do not see an immediate need for another lockdown but November is a cause for concern. Please note this coincides with colder weather as well.

    You are right about the police. They need a good arse kicking.

    I too look forward to the end of mask wearing. It’s been very hard for disabled people and people like me who have to go up and down stairs at work end up struggling to breathe. I don’t believe mask wearing is good for children either as I am sure it restricts air flow and children especially need oxygen for their developing brains.

    I see you are still on about anti vaxxers. I just want you to be mindful that a lot of people make up their own minds about vaccinations whether they are right or wrong. Just saying.

    • Fahrenheit211 | March 7, 2021 at 7:59 pm |

      Agree that this has been horrible for children.

      The pandemic has revealed serious shortcomings with education. It’s also revealed similar shortcomings with the NHS. It’s notable that those countries that have comprehensive but competitive systems,such as Israel have done really well not just in treatment and research into new treatments for covid but also in vaccine roll outs. Granted that Israel has a smaller population than the UK but it also doesn’t have a sclerotic one size fits all system like the UK.

      I believe that there will be more people who will look askance and with suspicion at the police in future than they did in the past.

      I’ve been using online firms far more than I would have done to reduce mask wearing. I find them psychologically bad probably because I’ve been in riot situations as a photographer where smoke bombs have been chucked about. I worry about the dehumanising effect of them especially with regards to children. I was horrified to see that some of the studies that show masks didn’t work against covid turned out to be seriously flawed both practically and ethically. Lots of people believed this study and believed it wrongly.

      I’m critical of anti vaxxers as I believe that they are a major public health risk. I was wary of the mRNA vaccine until I dug down into the science of them which soothed my fears. The problem with the AV’s is that they don’t do this and if they do then they do so in order to fraudulently discredit the science of vaccines.

  2. Many of the people you class as anti-vaxxers are just concerned about these new DNA type vaccines and not the old style vaccines and many of those concerned actually work in that field. I’m sticking with them and will have a proper tested normal vaccine or not at all.

    • Fahrenheit211 | March 8, 2021 at 9:49 am |

      That’s your decision of course. However these are not ‘DNA’ vaccines they are messenger RNA ones. I used to have concerns about them but then I dug down into the science and history of them and changed my mind about them.

  3. I have a heart problem (a lazy valve) and have to take beta-blockers to avoid heart ‘misfiring’. Even so, I have 3 or 4 episodes where for 10 – 15 hours my heart beats at 100 – 120 beats per minute. I will not be taking the vaccine, why
    Astra Zeneca Heart Palpitations 8820 Tachycardia 382 Deaths 244 TOTAL REACTIONS FOR DRUG 157637

    Pfizer- BioNTech Heart Palpitations 471 Tachycardia 293 Deaths 212 TOTAL REACTIONS FOR DRUG 85179

    Vaccine Unknown Deaths 4 TOTAL REACTIONS FOR DRUG 796

    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine-adverse-reactions/coronavirus-vaccine-summary-of-yellow-card-reporting

    • Fahrenheit211 | March 8, 2021 at 1:11 pm |

      If you cannot take the vaccine for medical reasons then that’s all the more reason for the rest of us who can take it to do so. Herd immunity via vaccination protects those who can’t be vaccinated from infections.

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