Forum menu
OK. Is this going to be another example of where the usual suspects jump over someone for having a different opinion?
My wife works in a school. She's worked in several others before this one, and is in contact with several ex-colleagues. I'm not going to link them or their school, but at least one of her ex-colleagues is espousing an opinion that teachers are being actively denied the vaccine (by the refusal to vaccinate all of them) as a strategy to get the herd immunity out through the younger / "not at risk" population. They think any teachers at serious risk are being done; the rest are expendable in the sense that stats say they won't get very ill, and if a few do, well so be it.
I think it's bollocks.
I think the decision is wrong, but I think it's just wrong, not an evil masterplan. I'm not even of the opinion it's being done because they can't backtrack on the schools are safe line. I just think they believe there is greater need elsewhere for now. Again, I think they're wrong and ALL teachers should be on the priority list
But I also think that blanket statements like 'teachers are being denied vaccinations' or 'not vaccinating teachers is a political decision' plays into the hands of conspiracists
Note the key word. I THINK..... you are free to tell me that you think different or why my thinking is wrong, but not to just dismiss it like this place tends to dismiss any alternative thought.
Off the top of my head AZ shelf life is 6 months in the fridge.
When you consider ANYONE involved in the NHS at any level is able to get vaccinated the teacher thing becomes even more silly.
If Teachers rates are low, it’s because the kids have been at home nearly all year!!
Allow Teachers access to the same system HCW use to book jabs. Charity workers have been doing the same. It will be nothing to do with GP surgeries calling people.
What is your source for the idea that the EU won’t use the vaccines?
Theres a few reports hinting at it to varying degrees/reasons
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/25/uk/boris-johnson-vaccine-eu-intl-gbr/index.html
Germany has administered just 15% of its available AstraZeneca shots, according to the health ministry, partly because the country is only administering it to people under 65 and most of those eligible for vaccination at this point are older.
Sorry hadn't put in links
Here is another one
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/acceptance-problem-as-most-oxford-covid-jabs-delivered-to-eu-not-yet-used?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
My partner works in an NHS lab so far away from the public and they wete offered the vaccine ages back.
I think it's obscene that teachers aren't offered it by now.
there we are again....
I think it’s obscene that ALL teachers aren't being offered it
^^ Sorry, that's what I meant.👍
Edit: Have I stepped into the middle of an argument I am not aware of? Not been in the thread much the last few days.
My mates gf, who works in social care hasn't left the house 9 months yet got offered a vaccine weeks ago.
Teachers with underlying health issues, or over 50, or… are being vaccinated
Not true. My teacher friend requires steroid inhalers and montelukast every day just to breath properly, yet doesn't qualify for the jab according to her gp.
Teachers are the one vocation (after health and care workers) I absolutely think should get it..It's absolutely ridiculous they aren't being offered a jab.
I think the decision is wrong, but I think it’s just wrong, not an evil masterplan. I’m not even of the opinion it’s being done because they can’t backtrack on the schools are safe line. I just think they believe there is greater need elsewhere for now. Again, I think they’re wrong and ALL teachers should be on the priority list
But I also think that blanket statements like ‘teachers are being denied vaccinations’ or ‘not vaccinating teachers is a political decision’ plays into the hands of conspiracists
Note the key word. I THINK….. you are free to tell me that you think different or why my thinking is wrong, but not to just dismiss it like this place tends to dismiss any alternative thought.
I think you are right.
I also think sometimes it's best just to step away. A wise man pointed me that way once.
I also think sometimes it’s best just to step away. A wise man pointed me that way once.
Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.
Sorry, that’s what I meant.
Everybody knows that.
There is no one that thinks that no teachers at all are being vaccinated. There are many people that think that teachers and other public facing staff should take priority over workers of the same age who can work without contact with many people. Jon is just very excitable about his straw man proposition.
forget it. Can't be arsed.
How about we vaccinate teachers other than the private school ones, since they're scum?
And supermarket folks other than the Waitrose ones....?
Seems that some parts of country are further down the list than others.
I'm in West Yorks, my 50 year old other half (just happens to be a primary teacher), and two of my colleagues both with asthma (one mid 40s the other only early twenties) were vaccinated today.
Good article here about vaccines & vaccine inequality
https://www.vox.com/22285256/covid-19-vaccine-predictions
AZs uptake hesitancy stems as much from the early problems with their trials as anything
Though Tbf everyone was in a rush at the time & sanofi/GSK trial was messed up worse
& macron was obviously being a dick
Also touches on variants which are a worry, a large chuck of the world went be vaccinated for a year or more, Eastern Europe is seeing a big wave, a pool for new mutations to arise and then what happens here now that virus is under selection pressure from the vaccine?
What happens with the flu next season after we've surpressed it this year with masks & distancing?
Likewise my youngest kids haven't had chicken pox or measeles yet, nor the regular series of colds & tummy bugs their older brothers got in the first year of school?
God I'm a misery guts
I work at Waitrose! Should I feel better about my position than the plebs at Tesco etc? 😂
In all seriousness, I currently work weekends at Waitrose, and in a couple of weeks will be returning to school to teach guitar face to face, rather than online. I'm only 34, but do feel fairly pissed off that middle aged poshos earning 5 times per year what I do, working at home, will get vaccinated before I do.
Ah well. Hopefully I'll be able to get back playing gigs at some point soon, at which point I wont really care one way or the other.
What happens with the flu next season after we’ve surpressed it this year with masks & distancing?
Likewise my youngest kids haven’t had chicken pox or measeles yet, nor the regular series of colds & tummy bugs their older brothers got in the first year of school?
Surely they've been vaccinated for Measles? As for Flu deaths a large number will have died from Covid this year instead. I suspect wide scale mask usage will continue as there seems to be very little suggestion of lifting the legal compulsion anytime soon and people seem to have got used to it.
Tom B:
I understand that but the vaccines are being given to those who it is felt are most at risk from the virus rather than most at risk of catching it.
It's a risk assessment thing, we do it at work all the time. Likelihood of happening x how bad is the impact if it does. L x I
In this case it's felt that increased likelihood that you as a 34 year old will get it is outweighed by the fact it probably won't be that serious if you do.
vs
relatively unlikely to get it but bad consequences if you do.
I fully understand and agree that there should be exceptions - my wife works in a school herself, my daughter does two evenings a week on tills in the supermarket. But I can't completely argue with the general philosophy of those with the highest overall risk L x I get first dibs.
(I know it's not just the impact, but also the spreading risk - increases L for others that they live with but because the at risk are being vaccinated quickly, it's lowering I)
It's not black and white and while I think I understand why this approach, I can understand but still disagree.
Surely they’ve been vaccinated for Measles
Ah yes they have, my eldest caught it at nursery when he was younger
Yeah I totally get that @theotherjonv ....not read the last few pages, I guess that it kicked off again?!
Just to add a tiny anecdote (obviously a statistical outlier) my store was forced to close in January due to a Covid outbreak. Over 30% of staff tested positive. The person hit hardest was a late 20's guy. He ended up in hospital. He did his first shift back last Saturday and by the end of it was a literal example of the phrase'white as a ghost'.....really sobering, I've not known him long but I think he's a mtber. Top bloke from what I can tell.
Middle aged poshos....Hmmmm
No, not really - I think ambiguous language is being used in one area and someone else seems to have taken exception. It's an emotive topic, people get emotional. Daft really, over a small point.
Sadly - your workmate is the outlier, the 0.1% or whatever the number is for a typical late 20's person. Terrible phrase but 'collateral damage' and I don't mean that in any way lightly. The stats are massively in his favour but someone has to be that 0.1%. Policy needs to cover the majority number, if it can't cover everyone.
middle aged poshos
You realise you don't need to be posh to have a decent job yeah?
But console yourself with the fact that the ONS recently released stats on occupations most likely to be infected by covid. Shop workers were pretty far down the list.
If i were a betting man, i'd lay down some considerable on two things that will also become endemic -
Many will continue to wear masks
Many will insist on some distance
-
and this will become part of our fabled 'new normal'. And it will be by choice.
And then seasonal Influenza hospitalizations will decrease massively, and we'll wonder why we didn't do something so obviously easy sooner.
My friends missus is a teacher in Keighley and through her school has been contacted by a GP practice in Bradford who are fitting the teachers in before they go back in any available spaces.
Same for my wife as a police officer. Another hub is fitting them in to fill up spaces. This is only happening because one of her collegues took it upon herself to sort it out as the office has lots of retired officers working in it, so a has a much older demographic.
I'm grateful MrsMC (approaching 50 but in denial) got her first jab 3 weeks ago, as a frontline social worker. Their risk level was relatively high on the much criticised BBC Reality Check report, but she's been in and out of client's houses throughout the pandemic with just a mask and hand sanitiser, and quite a lot of clientville are a bit lax with the guidelines.
I know a lot of less deserving council staff also got the jab at the same time. No doubt a lot of deserving ones missed out.
Good balanced video (without his normal jokes) from Dr Rohin Francis about COVID and schools. The description below the video links to the papers he refers to.
Posi covid news! Covid cases falling globally. im hyped had 2 coffees and its sunny! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-cases-falling-globally-big-question/
Good video that. It challenges some of the thinking of the actual risk faced by teachers (and I STILL think they should be prioritised anyway) so may not be popular. Also alludes (well TBF mentions that he isn't going to go there) that there are some that 'believe' that the refusal to mass vaccinate all teachers is some sort of conspiracy. But I'd better not go there because I get over excitable.
Thanks theotherjonv - at the end Rohin says he's also in favour of vaccination of teachers
But console yourself with the fact that the ONS recently released stats on occupations most likely to be infected by covid. Shop workers were pretty far down the list.
As are teachers...
That's not the same info as was released 4 days ago..teachers are 4th.
Either way, shop workers don't appear on either list.
That’s not the same info as was released 4 days ago..teachers are 4th.
That ONS data groups teachers and university teaching staff together... despite the fact that uni staff have in the main not been with their students or each other over the period covered (this academic year) so will be pulling the average down.
Secondary school and sixth form teachers should have been vaccinated before their schools are filled up again. Primary school teachers should also be a priority, once all the over 60s and at risk categories have been covered. As should the police, prison guards etc who don't have control over who they have to deal with at close contact indoors.
The ONS data must have some baseline for what is actually open. I don't believe that on Monday 8 March the manager of a (Closed) restaurant will be at greater risk than a teacher (in an Open school).
The actions that we take as a society actively change the relative risk for everyone.
Restaurants were open for the first few months of the ONS period, and I can absolutely believe that during that time the people working in them were much more at risk of being part of the chain of transmission than just about anyone else. Keeping them closed for now is a depressing necessity. But, again, as the government is prioritising what we reopen, and who should be back in public facing roles first... that should feed into which working age people are vaccinated first (behind the elderly and those otherwise identified as most likely to be hospitalised and/or die).
JCVI sticking with age based system for second phase, simplicity trumps all else.
Yes, it's simple. Vaccinating an IT professional with the option to work from home, rather than a secondary school teacher told to be in front of multiple groups of older teens indoors in winter, is most definitely "simple".
What did I just read?
Yes, it’s simple. Vaccinating an IT professional with the option to work from home, rather than a secondary school teacher told to be in front of multiple groups of older teens indoors in winter, is most definitely “simple”.
I don't disagree that teachers should be prioritised but it isn't simple. You're oversimplifying
"Vaccinating an IT professional who has the option to work from home but if they were to get infected have a significant likelihood of a serious outcome due to their age / underlying issues....
vs
"a secondary school teacher told to be in front of multiple groups of older teens....... but who if infected is highly unlikely to have a serious outcome
whoops, double post
Thing is, if we're vaccinating on health grounds, (age and vulnerability) then the folk who're mostly doing the work, the GP get to pick those people from our current records...If you start to do it on some thing like vocation (comparative exposure)...You'll have to have people to prove to you what they do. The current system needs no further evidence. You get a text, you show up...
I don't think it should be up to GPs and health workers to be the arbiters of who's telling porkies to get an early vaccine.
Just seen the announcement..
I imagine alot of angry folks at moment..
It would be nice to pick out groups of people who should get the vaccine before others but I struggle to criticise much about the process. We are all so lucky that there is a vaccine and we are unbelievably luck that it is coming to us all so quickly. The vast majority of people at serious risk will have had some degree of vaccination by the end of March, I struggle to have words for how amazing that is.
stcolin :What did I just read?
So a geophysical event caused by the sun is affecting iron levels in our blood leading to cellular changes within our bodies, something.....something iron and lightning as well as the mineral content of areas of the earth leading to peaks of cellular disruption in march and October is to blame.
Seems legit...... Im away to buy directional and cryogenically treated oxygen free copper speaker cables to insert up my arse and leave trailing on the ground behind me, sorta like those earthing straps you found on shoddy vauxhall viva's back in the late 70's.
I await my Nobel prize for services to humanity.