Government flip flops / school closures

Bobtheman

Here is my advice:
Discount all ministerial interviews except those given at the end of a cabinet meeting. Because they will say one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon.
Look at McGrath yesterday morning - no school closures /delayed openings.
I can't see schools opening Jan 11th and I would discount all interviews until the next cabinet meeting.
Why the stupid idiots can't say " I don't know" is beyond me.

Postgrad10

Norma’s headlining the rte news site. Schools will open on the 11th. I don’t believe her.

Treppen

Postgrad10 wrote: »

Norma’s headlining the rte news site. Schools will open on the 11th. I don’t believe her.

Who?

Icsics

Postgrad10 wrote: »

Norma’s headlining the rte news site. Schools will open on the 11th. I don’t believe her.

Neither do I, it’ll be ‘blended learning’ or exam classes only

bubblemassage

Does anyone know how this affects Further Education? Can't figure out when I'm back in work now...

penny piper

Postgrad10 wrote: »

Norma’s headlining the rte news site. Schools will open on the 11th. I don’t believe her.

I can't see how schools can re open January 11th.....isn't this new strain of virus which we have been told is now here ... highly infectious in young people...If there's to be a "full level 5
lockdown" schools must be included throughout this period....schools should have been ready to go online...Dept of Education Minister's fault.....

afkasurfjunkie

They are saying now that close contacts will not be tested and will have to quarantine for 14 days instead. That would be a recipe for disaster in classrooms. Schools won’t be opening if that’s the case surely?

babybuilder

Postgrad10 wrote: »

Norma’s headlining the rte news site. Schools will open on the 11th. I don’t believe her.

These people (and I choose my words carefully) are deranged and/or seriously mentally ill. They are treating parents, school staff and children with utter contempt. Ultimately, the office of Taoiseach is responsible for the rapid onset of transmission as it was decisions before Christmas that brought about the latest crises. Shame on the office.

Rosita

Bobtheman wrote: »

Here is my advice:
Discount all ministerial interviews except those given at the end of a cabinet meeting. Because they will say one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon.
Look at McGrath yesterday morning - no school closures /delayed openings.
I can't see schools opening Jan 11th and I would discount all interviews until the next cabinet meeting.
Why the stupid idiots can't say " I don't know" is beyond me.

It's almost weird to read this post as I more or less decided today to ignore all comments on schools reopening. Politicians lie they way other people breathe. Last March there were "no plans to close schools" day after day and then they were closed without even a day's notice.

I heard on the radio that it was expected that if they could get the R number down to 1.4 we'd still have 3,000 cases per day on January 23rd. That's the scenario we are looking at. No politician should be believed on this. Listen only to facts because everything else is lies.

They normally recruit oral examiners by early December. They haven't even advertised the jobs at this stage. Read into that what you will.

TheValeyard

The 11th is a holding pattern to see how the country is doing.

babybuilder

TheValeyard wrote: »

The 11th is a holding pattern to see how the country is doing.

Don't think for a minute that they know what they are doing.

TheValeyard

babybuilder wrote: »

Don't think for a minute that they know what they are doing.

Oh it's totally like Die Hard 2

Random sample

She didn’t say schools would reopen, she said it was their firm intention to open them.... I read that as it won’t happen.

SEC admin staff were still dealing with 2020 exams in December, I will put the delay on recruitment down to that.

I don’t see us going back on the 11th, but I’d like to know soon so I can start readjusting my January plans for online.

6-8th seems to be extra holidays, but private schools are teaching online to their timetables, so the divide continues to widen there.

Wanderer78

Bobtheman wrote:

Here is my advice: Discount all ministerial interviews except those given at the end of a cabinet meeting. Because they will say one thing in the morning and another in the afternoon. Look at McGrath yesterday morning - no school closures /delayed openings. I can't see schools opening Jan 11th and I would discount all interviews until the next cabinet meeting. Why the stupid idiots can't say " I don't know" is beyond me.

We elect them on the basis of being capable leaders, but what we want is all knowing, and perfect robots.....

kippy

It amazes me that a lot of people don't get this.
The government are making decisions based on advice and this advice is based on numerous inputs, one of which is numbers getting the virus in the community. This is not a fixed number and is fluid.
I would expect changing advice/flip flopping/whatever you want to call it to change with the numbers.
All that can be done here is to go with the flow and manage as best you can.

I am not saying the government/department are great, many issues remain, but you simply cannot hammer them for being hazy on certain things.....

Random sample

kippy wrote: »

I am not saying the government/department are great, many issues remain, but you simply cannot hammer them for being hazy on certain things.....

It’s not that they are hazy, it’s that they are absolutely 100% sure, until they are not. People would be happy with hazy!

That’s why the by hook or by crook comment from varadkar keeps coming back, people assumed that to mean sit down state exams were definitely happening.

kippy

Random sample wrote: »

It’s not that they are hazy, it’s that they are absolutely 100% sure, until they are not. People would be happy with hazy!

That’s why the by hook or by crook comment from varadkar keeps coming back, people assumed that to mean sit down state exams were definitely happening.

They are hazy.
Positions change based on changing environmental factors. Particularly when it comes to public health.
And TBF you have to accept what the situation is and deal with it as best you can.

Bobtheman

The news this morning of a back log of Cases that have tested positive is worrying. 4k

ethical

Norma is a puppet for the Civil Servants behind her and they are not fools.Of course the open/close/blended(a word I hate!!!) debate will continue as things are VERY fluid as regards the virus.

The Dept saved an absolute fortune by NOT having JC or LC last year.Dont bet against them doing the same thing this year.(Scotland has already cancelled their exams as far as I know.) You can be sure Paschal and Co. are looking closely at the figures.Also bear in mind that Normas Dept.got away with it as regards the "many court cases" that were supposed to arise out of the grading system used last year.Jonathan and Amelias parents did not take the Dept to court eventhough they had paid out a fortune in grinds etc so that their offspring could get into Law and Medicine. The parents were "happy enough" with the outcome. Norma was even happier! Expect her to be told to try the same for this present year..........and sure if the parents are not happy they might take a case.Its a gamble,it worked last year.

Rosita

kippy wrote: »

It amazes me that a lot of people don't get this.
The government are making decisions based on advice and this advice is based on numerous inputs, one of which is numbers getting the virus in the community. This is not a fixed number and is fluid.
I would expect changing advice/flip flopping/whatever you want to call it to change with the numbers.
All that can be done here is to go with the flow and manage as best you can.

I am not saying the government/department are great, many issues remain, but you simply cannot hammer them for being hazy on certain things.....

Haziness isn't a problem. It's the mock certainty that's the problem and which gives rise to the credibility deficit.

Random sample

Bobtheman wrote: »

The news this morning of a back log of Cases that have tested positive is worrying. 4k

That was mentioned at the presser yesterday. The positive swabs have been over 2000 for the past 3 days. Hopefully they will have that backlog reported today so it doesn’t keep building.

Rosita

[quote="Random sample;115765219"

SEC admin staff were still dealing with 2020 exams in December, I will put the delay on recruitment down to that.

.[/quote]

I rang the SEC a month ago and I was told it had not been confirmed to them that the Oral exams were taking place hence the delay in advertising.

It'd take all of five minutes to modify the previous year's advert and put it up on the website. Doubt it was workload that was the problem.

In fairness I wouldn't read too much into the lack of advertising for recruitment - there's still lots of time. But it does send out a message that the response to the current situation is less than sure-footed.

Rosita

Bobtheman wrote: »

The news this morning of a back log of Cases that have tested positive is worrying. 4k

It doesn't do much for confidence when they can't even record the cases efficiently. At what stage will be able to look at figures and believe them?

Random sample

Rosita wrote: »

It doesn't do much for confidence when they can't even record the cases efficiently. At what stage will be able to look at figures and believe them?

When they match the swab results which are released every afternoon.

They haven’t tried to hide the backlog. It has happened a few times and the information is freely available.

When it’s happened before it was because they were waiting to work out clusters before announcing figures.

kippy

Rosita wrote: »

Haziness isn't a problem. It's the mock certainty that's the problem and which gives rise to the credibility deficit.

You can't please everyone.

Random sample

kippy wrote: »

You can't please everyone.

Do you think some people want to be lied to?

Rosita

kippy wrote: »

You can't please everyone.

Indeed not. But telling the truth would at least provide some kind of moral framework around public policy. There are too many "by hook or by crook" moments. I suppose at least Foley's "full intention" is at least a linguistic nod to reality. Good sign she won't go far in politics.

kippy

Random sample wrote: »

Do you think some people want to be lied to?

Some people want certainty - some people want realism.
The realism is there can be no certainty in this.

People get "lied to" all the time. In this instance, anyone who cannot see the wood from the trees heading into our tenth month of this and make up their own mind on what is likely to happen, probably needs to review their information sources.

kippy

Rosita wrote: »

Indeed not. But telling the truth would at least provide some kind of moral framework around public policy. There are too many "by hook or by crook" moments. I suppose at least Foley's "full intention" is at least a linguistic nod to reality. Good sign she won't go far in politics.

I don't disagree but that type of retoric is almost everywhere - a "them and us" or a "taking sides" attitude - doesn't really help anyone.
But again, you cannot please everyone and even getting a simple message out to people often gets lost in translation for a certain portion of intended recipients.

Rosita

kippy wrote: »

Some people want certainty - some people want realism.

Maybe they could do alternative broadcasts? Maybe press the red button if you want realism instead of certainty. There must be a way around this to cater for such a split society.

Alternatively they could just be honest and we would have certainty that we are getting realism?

Rosita

kippy wrote: »

I don't disagree but that type of retoric is almost everywhere - a "them and us" or a "taking sides" attitude - doesn't really help anyone.
.

Yeah, some of the adversarial interviewers don't help in their desperation to get a loose soundbite. It only encourages entrenchment in politically palatable "certainties".