Weston Super Saint

I'm sure Soggy will be congratulating the Government for keeping the schools open for the children of all key workers - and for finding solutions for all the other reasons why the schools shouldn't have been immediately shut down....

Soggy will be over the moon - schools closing on Friday....

Is that the same brother who is sending his daughter to school whilst he and his wife self isolate?

I don't envy the army!! Just over 100,000 army personnel in the UK (including Army Reserve), made up of enlisted and officers. Just under 790,000 named streets in the UK to keep people off!

Would seem like a perfectly legitimate reason why Brexit negotiations need to be put on hold if the people carrying them out are tasked with other, more important / imminent duties....

Isn't it just those in 'isolation' for 7 or 14 days that cannot get to the shops? For everyone else, doing the 'food' shopping is one of the essential tasks that are exempt from any lockdown / isolation - the intention after all is to 'limit' social interaction rather than eradicate it. For those who are in isolation surely they will rely on friends / family / neighbours / local community etc to help out?

Are you saying that those responsible for negotiating Brexit are not able to continue unless they have face to face meetings, or that they have been tasked with other duties at present?

You do know that around 80% of the population are expected to get the virus - even pregnant teachers.

Jesus wept! Absolutely no-one here is claiming that closing schools will not slow the spread of the virus. Pretty much everyone else on here understands that what the policy makers are trying to achieve is a controlled growth of the virus in order to 'contain' it - funnily enough, that's why they've named it the 'containment' phase! Eventually they will look to close the schools - even the chief medical office has said this will happen. However, what they want to do is control when and how this is done in order to minimise disruption. Not sure how we can make this clearer for you....

Unlike you not to listen! Initially the ban on large events was to free up emergency services. Now, large events and 'unnecessary' travel are being stopped in order to slow the spread of the virus. In the future (it could be a day, week month), other avenues will be explored to slow the spread even further - like closing schools, shutting down public transport (or restricting numbers that can use it at any one time), imposing curfews etc. It must be hard to keep up but I'm sure there'll be someone down the pub or across the road that can tell you what you want to hear.

Then your brother has clearly not followed the advice given - quelle surprise! If a family member needs to 'self isolate' then the whole family should do so too - self isolation is currently being advised for anyone who is showing the symptoms of the virus or has come into contact with a known 'infected' person. You should speak to him again and put him straight

The necessity to stop 'large gatherings' is to free up the emergency services that are used to police / provide first aid cover at these events. There's not a constant need for emergency services at schools.

Jesus wept! Have you ignored everything that everyone wrote yesterday? The six weeks (and more) when the schools are shut are PLANNED. People know in advance when this is going to happen and guess what, they book their own holidays around that to cover the child care. They also utilise the services of grandparents to help out, something which is not an option right now! Conversely, the current situation is UNPLANNED. Nobody has booked their holiday for the three weeks leading up to Easter in case an epidemic arrives, so childcare is a very real issue for a lot of people. Just because it doesn't affect you personally, doesn't mean it is not a worry for millions of other people!

Don't food banks stockpile? Spain having to nationalise private healthcare doesn't look like a country that is 'coping' to be fair : https://english.elpais.com/society/2020-03-16/spanish-government-puts-private-healthcare-firms-at-the-orders-of-the-regions.html

What about those kids living in poverty whose only hot meal a day is the one they get at school? If they get sent home from school, they are unlikely to eat, if they don't eat, they will die. It's not just about GCSE's....

Shop assistants, lorry drivers, warehouse pickers - surely these are 'key workers' who will keep Soggy's local supermarket shelves fully stocked? People will die if they don't eat apparently....

That's the spirit - 'self isolating' in someone else's house!

You're all over the place pal! Your point seems to be that thousands of children pose a greater risk than you because you are just one bloke! One bloke that happened to be in a 'packed' supermarket with hundreds of other people, but that's OK because you don't have any symptoms and need to shop! Can you explain how you are going to do your shopping when they close the schools down and all the people who currently work in the shop where you are buying your food and all those in the supply chain that gets the food to your shop, are all off work because they have to look after their children who are not at school despite having no symptoms? Are you so hell bent on blaming the Tories that you cannot see that closing the schools will have knock on adverse effects? Ordinarily, grandparents would help with child care during school closures but that's not an option at the moment is it?

Diametrically opposite one might say

Surely by your own twisted logic, panic buying is a very good thing? Surely, the fact that people have panicked and stocked up means that they won't have to go to the shops for a number of days or even weeks. Thus, less people making fewer 'unnecessary' trips. Your other argument also seems biblically stupid, even for you! You claim that several hundred children in a school is a bad thing but in the 'rammed' supermarket then it's fine for you to be there because you are just one person. You seem to have conveniently forgotten the 'several hundred' other people in the shop with you!

Better than your investment fund?

It doesn't provide support for 'herd immunity' and I've never claimed it did! Perhaps you missed the text that I handily copied - perhaps you fell asleep earlier when it was being discussed that teachers were calling for schools to be shut but Boris was the big bad ogre for not listening to them. Anyway, to re-iterate (and to make it very clear to you what my point is, as it seems to have slipped past you as always) : Whilst two weeks may be a long time in certain contexts, the fact that the WHO have stated restricting movement (and by that I am inferring both international and domestic, as frankly in this context there really isn't that much difference) during public health emergencies is ineffective, should suggest that the current policy of not restricting movement is the right one.... #typicalnarcissistmakingassumptionsaboutwhatpeoplearesayingandthenclaimingtobeallsuperior

Odd then, that the WHO seems to support the UK's approach.... https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-recommendations-for-international-traffic-in-relation-to-covid-19-outbreak/

Fingers crossed! Considering there's been four open letters to get this information published, you'd hope it will probably be OK!

Ah, I see, so when the information is published, we can immediately rebuke it because it has come from a Government IT system!