As the virus spreads, the lies continue

I've just been watching BoJo's 100th address to the nation tonight, with Chris Whitty and Patrick Valance flanking him on either side. 

We should be used to these public press conferences by now, since they've been going on (and off) for over six months, but it's still a bit weird to hear some of the nonsense that comes out of their mouths. They're still claiming that schools are safe and that there hasn't been a significant statistical rise in cases of children aged 0-16.

We can pick that apart very easy, as much of the home educating community has done so. It's obvious that the statistical trend is going be skewed because previously not many children were being tested, therefore the ones that were tested mostly all tested positive. Now, many more children are being tested, so there is going to be a hefty number of negative results mixed in with the positive results.

Put another way, if just 1000 children were tested previously, and 900 of the children tested positive, that means 90% of the children yielded positive results.

If now 5,000 children have been tested, and 2,500 children test positive, that means only 50% of children are yielding positive results, despite there being 1,600 more infected children than there were previously.

(Note I just made up these figures to highlight my point. These are not accurate figures.)

You see what I mean mathematically, right? If you look at the percentages, it doesn't look as though more children are being infected. If you look at it in real world terms, yes the numbers in this age group are going up. As over 1,600 schools have had outbreaks so far, it's something of an insult that the government thinks we're all stupid enough to buy into their spin.

In addition, they admit that people aged 17+ are showing a definite increase in infected numbers. So basically all university students, and parents (people in their late 20s, 30s, and 40s) of children who have... yes you guessed it... returned to school.

Not to mention teachers. The number of teachers coming down with the virus is growing daily. Are they really trying to tell us that these teachers have somehow coincidentally caught the virus from somewhere else?

Even if children themselves might be asymptomatic, that doesn't mean they aren't bringing the virus home to their families, and even BoJo can't deny that this virus is being transmitted within households. Well where does he think it's coming from? Is it a complete coincidence that this second wave has coincided with the reopening of schools?

They must think we're very naive, and articles from newspapers such as The Guardian are backing him up, branding parents who are home educating due to the Coronavirus "overprotective", and "misinformed", and other choice patronising monikers. The virus has been scientifically proven to spread indoors, in poorly ventilated buildings, and in particular when not wearing masks or socially distancing between people. That screams "school" to me, as it does to all other home educating parents who actually realise what's going on here.

Well anyway, one thing is clear, the virus is back on the rise and it's down to every individual to take some personal responsibility.