Prime Minister's statement

[ProfJohnL]

I'm wondering if I can take my old caravan to the dealers (40+ miles away) and collect the new one.. If I leave it much longer the required service intervals would impact negatively on the timing of our usual European tours.
I don't want to be mistaken for a tourist whilst towing and I am over 70 but with no health issues (touch wood). My instinct is to stay in lockdown, but am so tempted.
I will give it some furtherthought...and check the small print which seems to give me permission.

The governments website

Google Search

today (12th may 2020) states

"1.2 I don’t have to stay at home anymore?
You should stay at home as much as possible. The reasons you may leave home include:

• for work, where you cannot work from home
• going to shops that are permitted to be open - to get things like food and medicine
• to exercise or spend time outdoors
• any medical need, including to donate blood, avoid injury or illness, escape risk of harm, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person"

On that basis I don't think changing a caravan is work, nor essential shopping, therefore it it would probably contravine the current regulations.

However if your caravan dealer wants to keep the deal going he might be persuaded to bring the new van to you and take the old one away. For him it would be work, and therefore permitted.

 

[otherclive]

I'm wondering if I can take my old caravan to the dealers (40+ miles away) and collect the new one.. If I leave it much longer the required service intervals would impact negatively on the timing of our usual European tours.
I don't want to be mistaken for a tourist whilst towing and I am over 70 but with no health issues (touch wood). My instinct is to stay in lockdown, but am so tempted.
I will give it some furtherthought...and check the small print which seems to give me permission.

Over 70s should still stay at home until end of June. Moving a caravan cannot be considered essential can it? If you are not called as EV then you can go out for essential basic shopping, exercise etc. Whilst you can now drive to exercise having caravan on the back might prove difficult to explain.

My post above gives the latest guidance from HMG. Might be useful to read it.

As an aside a friend and two close relatives didn't think that they had health issues until one had heart attack plus cancer, the other two had heart attacks. It's an age thing unfortunately.

 

[PTA]

Good news! Dealer will bring it to my house and take the part ex back.

 

[otherclive]

Good news! Dealer will bring it to my house and take the part ex back.

That’s a good outcome. Make sure that you have ample time to check it over. Plug in and see everything works too.

 

[PTA]

That’s a good outcome. Make sure that you have ample time to check it over. Plug in and see everything works too.

Thanks. Yes, don't worry "I have a little list"...actually, a rather big one!

 

[otherclive]

I have great sympathy with school teaching staff about their concerns over primary children returning to school in the near future. Today whilst out walking the dogs I passed a local primary that has been open for some pupils throughout. It was 1500 and parents, grandparents etc were stood outside on the pavement ready for the children to come out. But clearly there are significant problems in that many adults do not have a clue what social distancing means. There they all were chatting away close up together. So perhaps the teachers concerns relate to the adults in whose care the children reside.

However not all were so irresponsible as some sat in the cars with windows up, and engines running. Clearly doing their best to keep CO2 and NOX levels from going down too far. 👎

 

[Parksy]

I have great sympathy with school teaching staff about their concerns over primary children returning to school in the near future. Today whilst out walking the dogs I passed a local primary that has been open for some pupils throughout. It was 1500 and parents, grandparents etc were stood outside on the pavement ready for the children to come out. But clearly there are significant problems in that many adults do not have a clue what social distancing means. There they all were chatting away close up together. So perhaps the teachers concerns relate to the adults in whose care the children reside.

However not all were so irresponsible as some sat in the cars with windows up, and engines running. Clearly doing their best to keep CO2 and NOX levels from going down too far. 👎

It's not an insurmountable task to provide schoolteachers with perspex face shields to give them basic protection against Covid 19.
There have been very few instances of primary school aged children catching Covid 19, but studies need to be completed on the probability of children spreading the infection.
When I was a schoolkid about 40 of us sat inside a classroom and one teacher stood in front of a blackboard with chalk, and we were all taught together.
Teachers and teaching unions should be careful what they wish for with their policies of non- cooperation with this government.
The technology already exists which could allow one schoolteacher to stand in front of a camera to teach 4000 pupils sitting in front of computer monitors.
It would be a sad state of affairs if this scenario came into being but teachers unions shouldn't rule it out.
We could see a lot of qualified teachers competing for jobs.
No government can legislate sheer stupidity away, the parents huddled together have become complacent and sadly Darwinian outcomes might be the only thing that will persuade these people to respect social distancing.

 

[Beachball]

In this time of uncertainty it is excellent news that there are still companies offering such great customer service 5/5 for them.

 

[Robert_374373903]

So there goes my rebooked holiday 1/6 and now going on 1/7 I hope.
Still, someone mentioned the fish will be bigger.

 

[Beachball]

So there goes my rebooked holiday 1/6 and now going on 1/7 I hope.
Still, someone mentioned the fish will be bigger.

How much bigger are the fish ?

 

[ProfJohnL]

...There have been very few instances of primary school aged children catching Covid 19, but studies need to be completed on the probability of children spreading the infection.

I'm not sure the headline statistics fully represent the infection rate of primary school age. The problem is we don't actually know how many people have been infected, yet alone children. The firmist data we have are the death rates,

Coronavirus Age, Sex, Demographics (COVID-19) - Worldometer

Age, sex, demographic characteristics such as pre-existing conditions, of coronavirus cases of patients infected with COVID-19 and deaths, as observed in studies on the virus outbreak originating from Wuhan, China

www.worldometers.info

This tells us that deaths in the age range 0 to 10 years rests at about 0.04% of all covid deaths, but this is not an indication of how many children have been infected. We must consider the anecdotal feeling that children may be infected with just very mild symptoms, and in some cases there may be no apparent symptoms, so the number of infected children may go unrecognised or counted, yet they may be carriers and able to go on to infect others, especially older and more vulnerable members of a family or friends of family.

We also know that people with underlying pre existing medical conditions are more likely to succumb to the virus, and children have fewer pre existing issues so per capita, they're less likely to have the most severe symptoms.

During the lockdown, the children's ability to mix has been significantly curtailed which will mean lower numbers of cross infection because of the lockdown, but when the wider school cohort is reintroduced that can so easily change.

 

[Mel]

In Denmark they have got Primary schools reopened and there was a report on this evenings‘ news showing how they had organised it. The children were doing well with social distancing, which is probably unsurprising given that children are most comfortable when they have clear rules and boundaries.
mel

 

[CHESHIRECAT]

How much bigger are the fish ?

They wont be! They've had no food for months🤭

 

[PTA]

In Denmark they have got Primary schools reopened and there was a report on this evenings‘ news showing how they had organised it. The children were doing well with social distancing, which is probably unsurprising given that children are most comfortable when they have clear rules and boundaries.
mel

Except when they are in the Reception class aged 4 and 5 when their understanding is at an early stage. Also, there are huge logistical problems with classrooms for children of that age, when structured play is an important part of learning . For example, does the teacher sanitise every piece of Lego and jigsaw at the end of the session, wipe down the tables, accompany children to the toilet ( those who are toilet trained) and wipe down afterwards...or clean the child up? How does the teacher hear children read on a one to one basis whilst maintaining social distancing? What amount of time needs to be put aside for school dinners when many children need help with eating? Certainly in Denmark and Germany teachers of young children have significantly more support in the form of ancillary adults than do English (specifically "English") classrooms.
It's a difficult juggling act and nowhere near as easy as one might think. According to research, children of this age lose most by missing out on education and it's more difficult to catch up on missed learning BUT they are also the most difficult to manage in the way dealing with Covid 19 requires. I'm glad I don't have to manage it!
Sorry...got carried away.

 

[DaveA1]

My wife has suffered bouts of depression for a number of years now, so the lock down as been difficult, very.
Just hearing that we can go for long drives and maybe, maybe a trip too the CL you see in my aviator has cheered her a bit, The apparent easing of some lock down measures, as eased things a bit. The easing is a god send, although very small.

 

[Parksy]

I usually peruse online news every night before bedtime and there were articles about the effects of lockdown on the UK leisure industries.
The consensus between some of the larger holiday park operators and the two main clubs was that generally speaking they were looking at July to operate on a limited basis within government guidelines.
Even if pubs and restaurants are mainly closed or open with limitations, country breaks on CS's and CL's could be an attractive option for caravanners who want a break from bad news days and house arrest.
We've been going to the Twinwood Festival every year since 2005, but the expected email to tell us that this years festival is cancelled arrived this morning.
For me, I'm sad that there will be no festival this year, but relieved that it's been cancelled.
Social distancing would have been impossible and even though we bought our festival and camping tickets at last years event we wouldn't have gone if this year had gone ahead.
At least we can look forward to 2021 all being well, and our tickets will still be valid so here's hoping that next years Twinwood will be the biggest and best party ever.
Now that we are allowed to drive further I'm going to our caravan storage this weekend to put a battery on the caravan, move it with the motor mover to roll the tyres round and to check that everything is ok.
It will be the first time that I've seen our caravan since the first week of March.

 

[ProfJohnL]

**We have today (Thursday 14th May 2020) heard of how sadly some children (very few according to officials) do exhibit some worrying rare immune reaction symptoms which do not seem to be shared with older people.

My thoughts go out to all families who have lost loved ones of any age to this indiscriminate infection.

The Office for National Statistics has today published some figures on age related infection rates.

Younger people just as likely to be infected with coronavirus, data shows

The study also found that people working health and social care roles are more likely than the wider population to be infected.

uk.news.yahoo.com

This was based on a survey of some 10000 homes and excluded front-line healthcare workers. They conclude from the figures the infection rates are broadly similar across all age groups. What the survey does not show is how each age group's symptoms vary. It does seem to be the case that young children in general** do not exhibit the same severity of symptoms as older people who perhaps have other underlying issues.

The fact that different people exhibit different symptoms, and the incubation period can render an infected person as a carrier for several days before symptoms appear does mean identifying carriers is very difficult, especially without high reliability testing.

Consequently the risk of an extremely vulnerable person of catching the virus is roughly the same from contact with any group of people (Healthcare workers are a special case) including primary school children.

The virus is presently so embedded in the worlds population, that eradication is now a pipe dream. Its here for the long term. Medical developments will hopefully find ways of relieving the symptoms, and hopefully find a vaccine. But rather like the present flu, Covid vaccines will need to be regularly adapted to cover mutated strains. Unfortunately I see Covid much like the flu, will be responsible for some serious cases and deaths every year.

We are facing a long drawn out battle, and we will find ways of coping with the threat, so there will be a new normal ways of doing things, and that means some of our traditional freedoms may be be less "free".

Stay safe.

 

[Hutch]

When i went to our storage place, a couple of days ago, I drove in, met the two farmers that, run the site. They told me that the site was closed and that really nobody should be there. As my caravan is stored in a separate barn away from the main storage site and i was just collecting the battery they said ok. But could not bring it back until they had been told by the goverment, that access was ok. They do have a problem there with a lot of walkers using non approved footpaths around the farm.
I must admit the drive upto the site about 10 miles was nice to get away from the house. So I had to take the wife out for a round the villages run yesterday.

 

[PTA]

Confession.
After driving to my mother in law's care home ( 7 miles away) to drop off some essentials, I did a 35 mile return journey.
Freedom!...of a sort.

 

[waffler]

Good to see other are as sad as me and read the Road Map. There is an error on page 27. It tells you to wash your hands before putting on a mask and before removing it. This is dangerous. Wash hands after removal as the mask may have virus on the front of it. I have told my MP who has told the minister. On the caravan front we are planning to get out. We aim to go Monday to Friday preferably to temporary sites or 5 van sites. So a grocery delivery on Sunday should last us the 5 days away. No coffee shops, museums etc but still nice to have a different view. Thinking longer term we have upgraded the internet in the caravan to unlimited downloads so plenty to do and watch. I suspect we are going to be limited until there is a vaccine, if ever.

 

[Hutch]

Waffler, by the time we go away in our caravan again, I would hope we will be going back to the supermarkets again.

 

[Robert_374373903]

I will be taking our caravan this Monday coming for the annual service. I read the instructions that you can now travel as far as you want to providing you keep to the 2m rules when getting there .I also think that towing a trailer/caravan providing you do not stay overnight is ok. Comments.

 

[DaveA1]

Think you are expected to return to your start point at the end of the day.

 

[Parksy]

I will be taking our caravan this Monday coming for the annual service. I read the instructions that you can now travel as far as you want to providing you keep to the 2m rules when getting there .I also think that towing a trailer/caravan providing you do not stay overnight is ok. Comments.

If you really must take your caravan to be serviced on Monday I'd advise you to have written evidence that your caravan is booked in for servicing on that day.
Expect to get stopped by the police who will need to be convinced that this caravan service is vitally important and must be done now.
Will the dealers collect, do the work and deliver back to you?

 

[otherclive]

I thought that whilst you could drive anywhere in England it was for essential shopping, garden Centers, pharmacies etc and for exercise. Can’t really see a 1.4 tonne box in tow meeting those criteria.