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Covid-19 Megathread


Loki

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I travelled back from a "red" country yesterday and the process of leaving Gatwick airport was a disgusting fucking shambles.

Basically you have to fill out an online quarratine form when you arrive at passport control. The link to the online form you have to get via scanning a QR code. The QR code is on a single piece of laminated paper cellotaped to a small table. So after social distancing on the entire journey home, you basically had dozens of people from multiple flights all crowding round a small table together then filling out the convoluted form on their phones directly next eachother crammed into a very small area. I was put more at risk in that 5 minutes than I had been for my entire trip. Additionally, you'd think they would have had clear guidance/posters with instructions in a way that everyone knew what to do and could do it in a socially distanced way. But no, it was a single security guy just saying "you need to fill out a form" and pointing everyone to the same crowded tiny table with the single laminated piece of paper on it. 

Edited by LaGoosh
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34 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Nice of them to start it from Monday and not immediately. Gives us all time to stock up on bog roll again. 

I don't think that is the reason

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/54084761 St Leger festival starts today with spectators. It's like Cheltenham all over again

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11 minutes ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

I don't think that is the reason

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/horse-racing/54084761 St Leger festival starts today with spectators. It's like Cheltenham all over again

Ah of course, the horse racing lobby based in Newmarket have sway for some reason. I wonder who the MP for Newmarket is?

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42 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Ah of course, the horse racing lobby based in Newmarket have sway for some reason. I wonder who the MP for Newmarket is?

There's a horsey festival on in Doncasternext week that they're selling tickets for as well. 

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2 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

I travelled back from a "red" country yesterday and the process of leaving Gatwick airport was a disgusting fucking shambles.

Basically you have to fill out an online quarratine form when you arrive at passport control. The link to the online form you have to get via scanning a QR code. The QR code is on a single piece of laminated paper cellotaped to a small table. So after social distancing on the entire journey home, you basically had dozens of people from multiple flights all crowding round a small table together then filling out the convoluted form on their phones directly next eachother crammed into a very small area. I was put more at risk in that 5 minutes than I had been for my entire trip. Additionally, you'd think they would have had clear guidance/posters with instructions in a way that everyone knew what to do and could do it in a socially distanced way. But no, it was a single security guy just saying "you need to fill out a form" and pointing everyone to the same crowded tiny table with the single laminated piece of paper on it. 

I've been through Gatwick a few times now since flights resumed, thankfully not having to do any of that, but it's complete pot luck whether everything goes more efficiently than ever or is just a complete shambles that takes twice as long as normal. 

Travelling into Jersey, you fill out a form online before travelling, and they email you the QR code. Someone scans that on arrival, and then you're directed to one of eight booths for a swab test. Arriving on a flight on Sunday, when there weren't any other flights getting in around the same time, I probably got through the whole process in under ten minutes, no hassle whatsoever. Then you get phoned if you test positive, texted if it's negative, and have to respond to texts for a set number of days afterwards. Obviously it's on a much smaller scale, but for somewhere that's normally a shit-show with this kind of thing, and hopelessly disorganised, they've done a fantastic job. The only time there ever seems to be hassle is when someone kicks up a fuss about not wanting the test.

What's complicating it now is that there used to be a traffic light system by country - green means sensible social distancing but no quarantine while awaiting your result, amber is quarantine for five days, red is quarantine for fourteen days. On arrival you declare where you've been, happy days. But now they've broken it down by local authority, which means there's a couple of hundred options to choose from just in the UK, and you can't always rely on someone knowing what council or whatever the place they visited falls under. And being in London just makes it ridiculous, because there's so many different authorities at different levels - so Tower Hamlets is green, but if I cross the street into Hackney, that's amber.

 

Work-wise, we have students back in now - adults have to socially distance, but kids don't. So we have signs up on classrooms saying that they're for the use of 19+ year olds only, and the layout can't be changed because it's designed to enforce social distancing. But we don't have enough rooms, so actually 16 year olds can use those rooms, and because they don't have to socially distance, they can move all the furniture around as much as they like, and then it's the responsibility of the likes of me to move it all back ahead of the next class. Mixed age groups? God knows.
Similarly, timetables have been staggered to try and make sure not too many people are all moving around the college at once. Group A starts at 8.45am, Group B starts at 9.15am. But as I predicted when it was first suggested, and saw evidenced this morning, a lot of these kids will be dropped at work by their parents, who are starting work at 9.00. So rather than keeping them apart for half an hour, what actually happens is you end up with all of them congregating around the benches and bike sheds at the same time.

Edited by BomberPat
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Amusingly in the past week its been suggested to me that I should be looking at how to do a children's story group and a dementia meeting group in the library and that we should be approaching schools and care homes to see how they'd feel about library staff visiting. 

I'd make a comment about misreading a room but they'd have to be in the room to start with. 

 

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