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JuniaRocks

Listed below are comments made by JuniaRocks between Monday, 6th July 2009 and Wednesday, 26th August 2009.

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The current situation and the next peak 8:02pm on 26 Aug 2009 Gosh, I do seem to have attracted a fire of abuse for my post. Perhaps I should add a couple of clarifications to what I'm saying.
1. The 'at highest risk from deaths' comment is one you can find on all sorts of reputable sources (eg health department websites and good quality broadsheets). The precise age ranges presented differ, but the general consensus from my reading seems to suggest that the most deaths so far have occured in roughly the 20-40-year-old age range. I'm not planning on reading up on it all again to prove my figures, but a quick reference to Fergus' blog of some weeks ago (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/ferguswalsh/2009/07/keeping_a_sense_of_proportion.html) refers to the highest incidence of deaths being in the 16-46 age range. Now clearly we are dealing with low numbers at the moment, but I think it's worth bearing in mind that young-ish adults seem to be at a higher risk.
2. I'm not sitting around in a panic, nor am I ill-informed. Like all sensible people I take sensible precautions and get on with my life. However, I think the fact that this illness, unlike seasonal flu, may perhaps hit the younger working population uncharacteristically severely, is worth taking into account, especially when that age-group are in jobs which necessitate a high degree of contact with children likely to be spreading the disease fairly rapidly. (I think it's fairly uncontentious to say that many commentators are expecting a rise in cases when the schools go back).
3. The issue isn't really about me worrying about getting swine flu. (In fact, I'm pretty sure I had it a couple of months back, as it happens). I'm thinking about the overall impact on the nation. There was an NHS survey a few months ago in which startling high numbers of front-line staff said that they would have to take time off if the schools were closed. And it takes relatively low numbers of teachers being off to close a school (see this year's snow as an example of this). The need to keep things running is behind my suggestion. I do hope that those throwing their hands in the air in horror that my suggestion that teachers are vaccinated will not throw their hands in the air in horror when schools are closed or classes disrupted because of teacher illness.
Hope that might go some way towards clarifying things and lowering the blood-pressure of some of my fellow bloggers.
The current situation and the next peak 3:03pm on 21 Aug 2009 Fergus, could you look into the situation as regards teachers and the vaccination? Working with 11-16s, I am going to be strongly exposed to the virus. There are two issues here:
1) As a 36-year-old I am in the high-risk group for deaths. Don't wish to scare-monger, but this is a concern, both for us young(ish) teachers and for the system as a whole.
2) Perhaps more of a concern for the country, if teachers end up going down with the flu in significant numbers, then schools will need to close, and millions of parents will have to stay at home and look after their children. This will seriously undermine the ability of the country to go on as normal.
I am at a loss to understand why the government doesn't put us on the list after the high risk categories named as vaccination groups.
Who will be first to get vaccine? 2:48pm on 06 Jul 2009 Does 'social care workers' include teachers. It should. If not, schools will end up closing because teachers are ill, and then the vaccinated healthcare workers will be unable to work because they are at home looking after children sent home from school.
It would also be good to know why elderly people are so high on the list, when they aren't a high risk group. I'm 37, and therefore at, from the US figures, the highest risk of dying of any age-group.

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