Coronavirus and schools
HAS the Prime Minister revealed a chink in his armour, that is that he is cavalier or at least selective in the “truths” he expounds about the COVID-19 virus and its effects on population?
After having nailed us all to our living rooms, cleared the beaches and caused a boost in the sale of disinfectants he now tells us that children should all return to school, citing “recent studies” that show that social distancing in classrooms is not necessary. What are these studies and how have they been conducted rigorously within the relatively short time that the virus has been present?
We are provided with little actual evidence of this. Is the expressed concern for children to not lose out on their education the real issue or is it merely an expedient to manage the social and economic recovery strategies being contemplated by the government.
One has to wonder at the mixed messages caused by the mismatch between rhetoric and action.
On one hand, some top-end-of town personalities are allowed to return from overseas without the requirement for mandatory isolation after arrival while on the other, severe impositions on ordinary citizens attempting to maintain some semblance of reasonable daily life are applied. What is good for the goose should be good for the gander. The importance of education cannot be denied, and many parents would probably prefer to have their children attend school once they have experienced a week of home schooling but where are the positive actions from government to provide the resources that will ensure the protection of all school staff and children from the possibility of infection transmission?
It is about time that we heard something positive in this aspect rather than what amounts to the simple bagging of school staff with references to selective “recent studies” in an absence of detail. Kerry Linwood, Atherton 1996: Thirty-five people are murdered and many more injured by a gunman at Tasmania’s historic Port Arthur.
2009: Australia’s fourth richest man, Visy Packaging empire boss Richard Pratt, (above) dies aged 74.
2014: Fifty-two days after Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott announces the air search for its wreckage will cease but the underwater search will be expanded.
2015: Family members farewell Australian drug smugglers Andrew
Chan and Myuran Sukumaran on the eve of their execution in Indonesia. 2018: The world’s oldest spider, a trapdoor matriarch named Number 16, dies at the ripe old age of 43 in her burrow in Western Australia’s wheatbelt. She outlived her previous rival, a 28-year-old Mexican tarantula.