 Welcome to Tiske Sauer and welcome back to Aaron Bistani, fresh from his wedding. Aaron, congratulations. I was getting a lot of congratulations to you in the comments on Wednesday. I want to pass that on to you live on air. That's great Michael. Did you have a good time? Did you have a nice time in Malta? It was really good actually. I recommend Malta. You're looking for somewhere sunny, kind of easy. It was a very good choice. Tonight, we have some brilliant stories for you, big ones. The JCVI decision not to vaccinate teens. I say a brilliant story. There are lots of people quite annoyed about this, but it's definitely a big deal. We'll also talk about Gavin Williamson's series of really car crash interviews. It just keeps getting worse and worse with that guy. And we will close with a story about Andrew Neil, not, at least for now, returning to GB news. As ever, let us know your thoughts, your questions on the hashtag Tiske Sauer. And if you haven't already, do hit subscribe. First story. The Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunizations have advised the UK government on the rollout of jabs since 1963. Yet it's only since the start, the COVID pandemic that the musings of the JCVI have led the nation's headlines. With schools going back across England this week, that focus had been on a long-awaited decision on vaccinating 12 to 15 year olds. And the JCVI surprised most observers today when they said, it's not going to happen. Or at least it's not going to happen on the basis of their advice. The judgment is a little confusing. I'm going to go to the key section of it now. So the JCVI wrote in their statement. Overall, the committee is of the opinion that the benefits from vaccination are marginally greater than the potential known harms, but acknowledges that there is considerable uncertainty regarding the magnitude of the potential harms. The margin of benefit based primarily on a health perspective is considered too small to support advice on a universal program of vaccination of otherwise healthy 12 to 15 year old children at this time. As longer term data on potential adverse reactions accrue, greater certainty may allow for a reconsideration of the benefits and harms such data may not be available for several months. So as I said, that's a fairly complicated statement. The JCVI is saying that the benefits of vaccination for healthy teenagers they think that that does outweigh the risks. However, it doesn't outweigh the risks to such a great degree that they are willing to advise that healthy 12 to 15 year olds are given the vaccine. I suppose they need there to be a bigger gap between the benefits and the risks given the uncertainty which is currently involved according to them. So what are those potential adverse effects of the COVID vaccines that the JCVI are worried about? Adam Finn is a member of the group and he spoke to Radio 4 this afternoon. The signal that we're aware of with the both of the mRNA vaccines, which are the ones that we are able to use in this age group relates to the heart. So in a small number of recipients of the vaccine, particularly males and particularly after the second dose, you get an inflammation either of the heart muscle or of the membrane around the heart called pericardium. Now in the short term, people who are affected in this way, although they're quite ill, they get better quite quickly. But what's uncertain is what the longer term consequences of that might turn out to be. And we've been hearing from colleagues in the United States who've been seeing numbers of these cases that they're seeing changes on scans which are making them concerned. And they want to see what happens to those changes over time to be confident that the condition does resolve and doesn't need any long term consequences. Okay, when you say a small number, what do you mean? How many in how many? So the numbers that we've got at the moment, they're actually changing and they're quite uncertain. But somewhere between three and 17 cases per million doses is what we're seeing in this age group. So it's obviously a small number, but it has to be balanced against the relatively small number of healthy children who actually get sick with COVID sufficiently to end up in hospital or even on rare occasions dying. And those numbers are very similarly low. They're very small numbers as well. So if we immunized all four million or most of the four million healthy teenagers in this age, we would be getting similar but slightly lower numbers of myocarditis cases to the number of severe COVID cases we'd be preventing. It's important to note that JCVI are not advising that no 12 to 15 year old take the vaccine. They had already suggested that certain teenagers with underlying conditions already take the vaccine and people who have family members with underlying conditions they have today suggested that group is expanded. So if their advice is followed another 200,000 people will be entitled to the vaccine, as we'll discuss in a moment. They also leave the door open for the government to overrule them. To discuss the recommendations of the JCVI, I'm joined by Antony Costello. Antony Costello is Professor of International Child Health and Director of the UCL Institute for Global Health and was a former director at the World Health Organization. Antony, welcome to the show. What do you make of this decision or this advice from the JCVI? Well we, you know, there's a group of people on independent stage and another group of people that came together this morning which was coordinated by Dipty Gertasani with experts from the United States, from Israel, from the country. And we actually disagree with the JCVI. I mean, you know, the JCVI are a set of experts. There's 10 men and five women. They come from a range of background, virology, pediatrics, public health, lay observes. And their interpretation of the evidence is that the vaccine is just about out of the harms but it's not enough. I just, you know, saw the statement that you read out. We disagree with that because if you look at the case numbers, well if you actually go back to earlier this year that the, there was a paper published by the people advising JCVI where they looked at the first year of the pandemic, so from January to January basically. So this is before the impacts of data and they basically showed that there were 6,000 hospitalizations in that time. There were nearly 700 cases of what's called pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome and half of those ended up in intensive care unit with a whole bunch of problems, kidney failure, you know, sepsis and all the rest of it or shock. And then there were 25 deaths of children with COVID and 61 deaths that were COVID. In other words, they may have died from other complicating things but they were positive for COVID at the time. Now when I started thinking, well it's pretty straightforward, you know, on that basis that's a lot of hospitalizations. Since that time when we were looking at this back in June, we thought well we've been through Delta, there'll have been a big surge. If we had the numbers updated it'll be double that. So then of course, you know, the numbers have come down by June and they consider it and they hedge their bets. Now things are rising. In the past month there have been about nearly 1100 admissions into the hospital of children. We don't have any death figures that we know but based on the previous rates, you know, you would expect a handful of deaths to occur each maybe. And that of course doesn't touch upon the numbers going into intensive care unit. And then the much bigger problem of long COVID which I don't think they have addressed enough. You know, the figures vary but the biggest study that's been done suggests that about one in seven children have symptoms lasting longer than three months. And some have it much longer than that. And interesting because you've got to understand that this Delta is like a new pandemic. It's way more transmissible and it also escapes the vaccine in terms of infecting you. Whether you like it or not, even if you're double vaccinated, you are at risk of being infected. You may not know you may be asymptomatic but you'll be carrying the virus. And I know this because I was double vaccinated and at the end of June I got COVID and I was completely on my back for three weeks. Very fatigued, loss of smell. Then I felt a bit better for about three weeks and then I've had other three weeks or four weeks of feeling completely crashed out. And I've got some symptoms signs in my legs and I've got loss of smell. The reason I mentioned that, I'll stop in a minute so you can ask questions, but it's that this is a neurotropic virus. It gets into your brain and that always should worry us. And there was a big study done in Oxford published a few months back where before the whole pandemic started they'd scanned a whole load of people with CT MRI scans actually. And then they followed them up and they compared ones who have been infected with the virus against those that hadn't been. And it was quite a big study and very well done. And they showed that in people who had this loss of taste now that there was thinning of the brain in the area where you would expect those to be controlled. So that worries you and there's a lot of other stuff coming up about possible long term neurological problems for people, you know older people may be increasing the risk of dementia and the like. So this is really worrying. So I think you throw that into the mix. There's more than enough evidence for us there. And so we did just to sum up, we did a British Medical Journal published review of the benefits and risks in adolescence and Dipty led on this. Basically, unless you had a very low transmission rate, if you were down to levels in the community of say 30 per 100,000 cases or less, then you could argue that the vaccine and the risks and harms were pretty much imbibed. And therefore you might decide not to do that. But we're nowhere near that. At the moment, young people, it's above 400. So it's 10, 12 times more than that. And not putting in place the mitigations, you know, our Secretary for Health thinks we've got with the virus. And we're not putting calm, dark side monitors into schools. We're not doing the thing that we should be doing to reduce risk. So the message today, and I'll finish with the quote from the male advisor to Israel has got even higher utilization rate than us. But they said, don't think that's going to, you know, there's still going to be infection around. And he said, don't wait a day, vaccinate all your kids, because it's going to protect them against the serious complications and against long COVID symptoms. But it's not going to stop anyone ultimately getting infected. So that's how nationalization of it. I think JCVI have come down on the wrong side here. And of course, they're out of sync with the United States that have vaccinated a million kids now, the European Union where rates are going up. So I think we're out on Olivia. And you know, I would argue, experts don't always get it right. We made mistakes early on in the pandemic. I think this is a mistake. And a lot of people agree with me, but you know, time will tell. Do you have any insight into why they've come to this decision? Because I mean, I'm not I'm not an expert on the pros and cons of vaccines. I imagine most of our audience won't. But it does seem confusing because, you know, as I said in my intro, the JCVI, it's been around since 1963. It's not just some sort of quango invented by the conservative government to sort of justify their miserly policies when it comes to health or whatever is, you know, it seems to me an honest group of experts. Why have they come to a decision which you think is so wrong? I mean, obviously, I'm asking you to guess here, but how should we understand that the differences between their assessment and the likes of yours and Indie Sages and the Americans and the French, for example? Yeah. I mean, to be fair, first of all, they would always want to be cautious about introducing a universal vaccine. Because, you know, normally, if you decide to vaccinate for measles or rubella that was introduced, you know, 30 years ago, that took about two years to weigh up all the evidence. And this is being asked to move a bit quicker than that. So in a sense, when you have to take those kind of decisions, you want to err on the side of the question. And as you've heard, there are, you know, a number of cases about up to 15 to 20 per million cases of vaccination doses can cause this inflammation of the heart. Now, in America, they've reviewed a lot of that and shown that all of them settled down. Most of them don't require more than one day of hospitalization. And there have been no deaths. Whereas actually, the inflammation of the heart from COVID is actually at a higher rate than that. So I think that that maybe has swung you could argue that the dominant people tend to be tertiary clinicians. And they've taken the view, oh, we're not seeing the cases in our hospitals. But of course, for long COVID, they're not going to see that it will seed in primary care. I mean, Anthony Harden, to be fair, the chair of that committee is a GP. But I think he's largely working on this right now. I don't know. I think, you know, it's a small group of people. And apparently, they took a vote. And it was a majority decision. So I don't know, you know, was it eight, seven? Was it 10, five? You know, I don't know. I'm sure they'll release that information. And they have hitched their bits a bit. They said to the government, you want to get a virus from other people. And they may decide to change their mind. But I think the problem is that we've got children all going back to school next week. And the risk of infection are going to ride already at a high level. We've missed the opportunity. And as the Israelis, don't have any regrets about this. So I think I think that's why you've got this. Let's talk about that hedging. So they have said more evidence might emerge, and they might change their mind. They've also said, if you want, you can override us. You know, you can take into account broader things than we are, you know, than is within our remit. I want to get up the relevant section from their statement today. So they wrote, the JCVI is constituted with expertise to allow consideration of the health benefits and risks of vaccination. And it is not within its remit to incorporate in-depth considerations on wider societal impacts, including educational benefits. The government may wish to seek further views on the wider societal and educational impacts from the chief medical officers of the four nations with representation from the JCVI in these subsequent discussions. Sajid Javed, the health secretary, of course, has said he has already asked the chief medical officers to give him their advice and that a decision will be announced shortly. So Antony, do you think he should just overall them and should he do it as soon as possible? And also, are you expecting him to? I was reading a few days ago that Johnson was very keen to vaccinate, largely because a lot of the assumptions, you know, every night on the news, you'll hear that 88% of the adult population have been vaccinated and or 75%, 77% have had double vaccination. But of course, that excludes the 0 to 80, which is a lot of people, that's 12 million. And therefore, the true numbers vaccinated, double vaccinated in our population as a whole is 62%. And that's not enough to get to the herd immunity level, even if we can achieve it, it's going to be high, it's going to be well over 80%, that most people think. So there are reasons why you think the government would want to do it to get, you know, more people vaccinated than I happen to concur with them for once in a pandemic. So I wouldn't be surprised if there was some movement here, especially if you start to see, I don't know, I mean, how can you predict what Sergeant John would do or Boris? But I wouldn't be totally surprised if they found a way to overrule it and maybe talk with Chris Whitty and others and say, look, on balance, we're going to go ahead for X and Y reason. But we'll have to wait and see. Because, you know, the JCPI are saying it would be months before they get data to make them change their mind. And finally, your old organisation, the World Health Organisation, they've said that we shouldn't be vaccinating kids in the rich world. We should instead be donating those vaccines to countries where there are more people in more desperate need because they're in groups that are at a high risk of COVID and hospitalisation and death, etc. Are you not persuaded by that argument? And if not, why do you think they're saying something that you disagree with? I'm just here trying to make sense of why all these experts are disagreeing at the time. No, I mean, look, these are difficult decisions. But I do disagree. I don't believe the solution to vaccinating the world when we need probably approaching 20 billion doses. Look, supposing this is a, you know, some people are talking about boosters that some immunologists say shouldn't be talking about boosters. We should be talking about a three-dose vaccine system. And if that's the case, we're going to need 20 billion doses. And we're nowhere near that. I mean, it's down at, you know, one to two per cent of Africa have been vaccinated. And they're not getting out. We need the finance. We need the technology transfer. And we desperately need a patent waive. I mean, all these vaccines were developed with funding from taxpayers from philanthropy. And yet you've got two major vaccine companies, Pfizer and Moderna, who won't have anything to do with WHO's technology transfer because they've increased their prices by a third in the past month. And they think they're going to make a shed load of money out of cancer and Ebola and HIV and things. And therefore, they don't want to share the technology. You know, I'm old enough when I was at primary school, there was kids in the years above me who had gammy legs from polio. And I was one of the first cohort to get the polio vaccine. And when Jonas Salk, the American who invented the first polio vaccine was asked, why have you got patent for this? And he said, can you patent the sun? You know, there was absolute rule and right in Oxford and Cambridge, right up until the 80s and 90s, always out of philosophy, you never issue go for patents because we're above that we're doing research for the benefit of all. So we're in a right on this. And with the patent waiver, I mean, Biden was behind it, Macron was behind it, the World Trade Organization agreed and go see and go see who's the chief. Even Diedros supported it at the time being, though he plays his cards to try and keep on bought with people because he's got so little money. And yet vetoed by Germany, by UK and Canada. And that was because they, you know, wanted to protect big pharma. And, you know, it's going to cost millions of lives. And Gordon Brown said this is the greatest moral failure of our generation. And I think he's right. And so, you know, we put a letter out into the FT a couple of days ago saying there needs to be really big high levels at the UN General Assembly this month, and that the people need to get together and come up with a scheme to get 7 billion doses out. And by the end of the year, and 7 more billion doses out by next summer, so that we can really do this seriously. Because it's all in our interest to do this. Because the other big worry is that if you have levels of transmission, whilst you're vaccinating people, it, you know, from an evolutionary point of view, you're going to encourage variants. And we just don't know exactly where we're going to go with new variants. So it is complicated. I think WHO have got it wrong on this. It's actually about just going for the donation route. Donations are not going to work. You know, Canada just said, oh, we'll give one or five million doses. Well, that's a drop in the ocean. And today we have read in Reuters that the British are destroying vaccines because they've almost reached their expiry date. So we had the doses there to vaccinate, you know, 12 to 15 weeks, but we haven't used them. Anthony Costello, thank you so much for joining us today. Real pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks so much. Next story. As Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson has had one of the most important and challenging jobs of anyone in government during this COVID pandemic to help kids continue their education while remaining safe from an airborne virus would be challenging for even the most committed, the most intelligent government minister. Sadly, unfortunately for Britain's children, Gavin Williamson is neither of those things. On Thursday, he gave a car crash interview to the BBC on ventilation in schools. Let's take a look. I'm just going to ask you the first time I'm going to try and get you to concentrate just on the question, which is a room. I want you to talk about that room, that teacher, a room with no windows and no ventilation. The wider issue is the one thing. I want you to talk about that room and what happens next. Well, you know, as you're well aware, you know, we're doing a whole set of measures. And of course, the vaccine program is the key reason why we can give me three in relation to that in terms of that classroom. As you'll appreciate, you know, you know, we're always looking at how we can improve the sort of security and the sort of striking that sensible balance towards getting children back into school, but also continuing to deal with with a whole sort of global pandemic. Okay, so I'm really trying to make sure that we don't end up talking over each other, but I'm very keen that you address that issue. So I have a teacher with a classroom with no ventilation and no windows. So you say you're looking at the wider issues and I'm trying to work out what happens in that circumstance. Are you, for example, as the Education Secretary say, do you know what for the time being, don't use that room, because you cannot make that room compliant with the principles you're talking about. So for example, that room, don't use it. Is that what you would advise? So that's not what I'm saying. And that's why we've got a program of CO2 monitors. Because even though that room may not have windows that can open, it doesn't mean to say that there's a problem in terms of ventilation in that room. That's why we've got a program of CO2 monitors. Have the schools got those monitors yet? Sorry, I didn't hear you there. Have the schools got those monitors today? So they are being rolled out during this term. And of course, it's a whole sort of, we have to take that balanced approach. We're having to look at what's the impact in terms of the vaccine program suppressing, whether it's the Delta variant or earlier variants. I mean, it's completely unbelievable. It's like Gavin Williamson is someone who didn't do his homework and all he's practiced before the interview is how to change the subject. So he's asked, look, we all know this is an airborne virus, ventilation is very important. The host had had a teacher ask say sort of in my school, you can't open the windows, there's no ventilation, what am I supposed to do? Gavin Williams says, oh, well, there's a global pandemic. We have to strike a balance. And there's been a vaccination program. Your job is to make sure there is ventilation in all of these classrooms. And if it's completely impossible to ventilate a certain classroom to provide an alternative. And instead, all he does is change the subject. And he changes the subject to things which aren't his responsibility. Oh, there's been a vaccination program. That's in the health department. Gavin Williamson, is there one thing that you have done that you can be proud of? Because it doesn't sound like it in that interview. And it hasn't sounded like it in any interview you've done. I mean, since you had the job. Also, I mean, to suggest, oh, what should they do if it's not ventilated? Well, we'll be sending them carbon dioxide monitors. That's good. But that doesn't actually ventilate a room. That just tells you if it's ventilated enough or not. So what if they get that carbon dioxide monitor? And it shows that the room doesn't have a healthy amount of air coming through it to keep everyone safe. And the icing on the cake in this situation is that while a carbon dioxide monitor is nowhere near sufficient, because it doesn't solve the problem, it just tells you whether you have a problem or not, they haven't even got them out to schools yet. Amazon Prime, right? I'm not here to advertise Amazon. But if I want to order something, I can get it delivered to my door within 24 hours. The health secretary, sorry, the education secretary has known that schools need these carbon dioxide monitors for months now. Could he not just get one of his civil servants to order them, just deliver them to all the schools in the country? It's quite easy to do. But he still hasn't managed it. Aaron Bustani, I want to bring you in on Gavin Williamson in this interview. I mean, we have become used to it, haven't we? But it does seem phenomenal to me. You know, with Gavin Williamson, we're not normally talking about always corrupt. He's got all these vested interests. It's just that he hasn't done anything. He doesn't do anything. How bad is the school's thing? Is it going to get you think? Because I mean, it was really interesting listening to your first guest, Anthony Costello, and he said, we are basically now looking at a different pandemic. This is basically, it's acting like a different virus. That doesn't mean it's more deadly or anything like that. But in terms of strategies to deal with it, they do need to be profoundly different. And if you actually look, and I don't mean to be sort of over the top here, I don't think we're going to have another lockdown, for instance. But if you look at the data coming out on the 1st of September a year ago, I think we had three deaths from the 31st of August. I think today we had 120 deaths. Yesterday we had 170 deaths. It's a similar case with hospital admissions. They're still very low given, you know, society is normal, fantastic. But if you look at it compared to a year ago, they're far, far higher. They're far, far higher. And I'm not suggesting that that means we're going to have a lockdown at Christmas like we did last year, because of course, as you said, 62% of the whole population has been vaccinated, but not kids. And I just wonder, in the absence of these measures, Michael, with the Delta variant acting as it does, with the fact that vaccines aren't, you know, they're not 100% effective if you expose teaching staff, support staff to children with this nonstop four months, very many of them, very high numbers of them will get sick. I just wonder, you know, I don't think a lockdown is possible, but here's a question for you. Do you think that before December we might see something where they say, that's it, sorry, we're going to have to shut the schools again for a couple of weeks or a couple of months or indefinitely? Because quite frankly, the infrastructure is not there. I doubt it. I doubt it quite frankly. I mean, I think the government didn't actually lie when they said we're going to close the schools last and open them first. Like I mean, I think to some degree they did prioritize schools. So I don't think we're going to not have a lockdown, but close the schools. I think what's in question here really is, do we have the policies or the, you know, the modifications in place, for example, ventilation? That means that by the time kids do get vaccinated, I think that will eventually happen as few as possible will have had the harms that come with a COVID infection without being vaccinated. So for me, the question here isn't really about, are we going to have a winter catastrophe with bodies piling up in the hospitals again? It's more, are we going to save X number of kids from the long-term consequences of catching COVID now? So I feel like the, you know, the two things we're weighing up are quite different to what they were last year. So I don't think they will shut. I might be wrong, but that would be my guess at this point. But they're basically, like I say, you just look at the data in terms of what's happening with COVID now to a year ago. We've obviously got similar weather conditions. We've got people behaving in similar ways. They're mostly outside. They're doing the same kinds of things. We don't have school. We don't have university. People aren't going into workplaces as often as they would be. People are indoors less. And the numbers really speak for themselves, Michael. Like I said, 120 people died in the last 28 days to today, 170 the day before. A year ago, it was three. Look at admissions. Look at case numbers. So as Anthony Costello says, that it does behave profoundly different ways. And again, it does feel like another big experiment where you say, you know what, we're just going to let the Delta variant rip through schools. We're going to let it rip through the under 16 population. No, that doesn't mean you're going to get a high body count. Yes, most of them will be asymptomatic. Yes, most of them, you know, will have it and it will barely register because of how we know it behaves with younger people. But it doesn't seem particularly wise way to administer education. I mean, I do think we could be in a situation, Michael, where you see whole schools just shut down. Yes, it might not be a national thing, but I think if you've got, I just don't understand, if you're having multiple cases in every classroom every week, I don't really know how that functions as a system of education. Again, we don't know it, but it's not been done before. Well, I suppose, I mean, the difference between this year and last year. So this year, we have a much more contagious virus that the Delta variant is much more transmissible than the variant which was around last summer, which is why summer hasn't got rid of the virus in the same way that it did last year. So last year, I think with that virus, summer and the conditions of mainly being outside and schools being closed was enough to basically suppress the virus so that barely anyone got it. Now that's not the case. But what is the case now that wasn't the case last year is that it does seem that we will meet these herd immunity thresholds at various points in time. So that doesn't mean that the virus is going to completely go away, but it does mean that we will see peaks and troughs, which aren't just based on restrictions. So if you look at what happened at the end of June, the beginning of July, that was the first time since the start of this pandemic that you saw a significant fall in COVID cases without any extra restrictions. So what might well happen is that you'll get COVID pass through a school and for a while, that will be very disruptive because you have teachers going home. Obviously, most of them will be double vaccinated. So they won't all get it, but some probably will. But ultimately, you have a situation where a school has herd immunity. Right. So at least all the teachers, if you've been double vaccinated and you got COVID, it's very unlikely you're going to get it again, as has been reported as is being shown in studies, being vaccinated and having an infection very, very effective at stopping not just severe disease, but infection altogether. So I think you probably will see sort of the development of local herd immunities, which means that we could see these sort of peaks and troughs of cases in a way that's often difficult to explain as it was at the end of June. So I don't think we are in this situation where we say, look at the numbers, it's just going to go exponentially up and up and up and up until there's a disaster. No, nobody's saying no. Nobody's saying it's going to go up and down exponentially. But we do have 40,000 new cases a day, Michael. You're making it sound as if there are no new cases. That's 40,000 cases a day before you open schools. And you're basically saying, yeah, basically the entire population, zero to 16, you'll all be with one another. I honestly don't see how you administer a system of education like that. It feels like it will be running. I mean, and you're saying, well, of course, that we've vaccinated. And of course, that's the story that we discovered. And I think you're right. I think young people will be vaccinated. But given the timeframe, which that rolls out, and then of course, you have to wait for three weeks per dose to kick in, I just, I feel like this side of Christmas, I just don't see how it's going to work effectively. And I do think I do. And look, we don't know how it plays out, but it does feel like it could be another one of those stories and people look back and go, who the fuck thought that was a good idea? You know, and it does feel like there aren't really any contingencies being made as to as to how we might administer education slightly differently, you know, an extended half term, four day week, et cetera, et cetera, not just the infrastructure in schools, which is as you've already covered with Gavin Williamson, it isn't really there. So I'm a bit worried, Michael, hope I'm wrong. Yeah, I mean, we'll have to see as I say, I think more mitigation should be put in place because I don't want to see more kids get long COVID. But practically, they have changed the rules now. So the reason education was incredibly disrupted, disrupted, sorry, before summer was that anytime anyone got COVID, a bubble had to go home. Anytime a teacher was in contact with someone, they might have to self isolate for 10 days. So, so clearly a school couldn't function in those conditions, and they barely were functioning by the end of last term. This time around, none of those are in place. So if you have a kid with COVID in class, they will spend 10 days off school, potentially no one else will. If a teacher goes out to a pub on the weekend and gets pinged, they can still go to work on Monday morning. Potentially, these teachers will get COVID at some point, like probably most of us will at some point, they'll have 10 days off and then they'll probably not be off with COVID ever again. So I don't think there is this, I suppose, logistical challenge that there was before the summer, but we might get lots of kids getting long COVID, which isn't something we should, we should take particularly lightly, lightly, sorry, not likely. And let's go back to Gavin Williamson. I want to look at a tweet from Stig Abel who had interviewed him on the Times Radio, obviously the same morning, and that he had that discussion with BBC Breakfast. So Stig Abel tweeted, I asked Gavin Williamson twice on Times Radio, are schools now better ventilated? And so safer in 2021 than they were last year. He twice talked about vaccination of adults. So the answer is presumably even no or don't know. Why has there not been any investment in ventilation? Why couldn't the Education Department send out laptops a year ago? Why is this department seemingly incapable of doing anything? Is it, is it that we just got unlucky with this education secretary? Is it that there is some sort of ideological opposition to doing these things? How do we explain this just, I mean, this catastrophic continuous failure that we are seeing to make sure kids can be safe in schools? I think some of it's on Williamson, but I don't think, I don't think all of it. I think if you look at healthcare systems in general are better set up to deal with crises than most of the other government departments generally, whether it's transport, housing, criminal justice, you know, that kind of very slow and steady, but health, the Ministry of Health, whatever country it's in, you know, it will be able to meet certain situations generally not pandemics, of course, but you do get, for instance, in this country, excess deaths over winters. You can get new health conditions emerging on the time, whether it's HIV AIDS during the 1980s, whether it's mad cow disease in the 1990s, whether it was the SARS, yeah, in the early 21st century. So I think, you know, the fact that healthcare systems are generally more adaptive to crises and shocks than other departments isn't a big surprise. But of course, the nature of Covid, yes, of course, they all had to adapt. So I think education, as elsewhere, has been particularly bad. And again, you know, we keep on returning to, well, why is that? It's because of the ideological kind of foundations of the people in charge of these departments. But not just Gavin Williamson, the advisors, the civil servants, the opinion makers in civil society, etc. The idea that you have a Department of Education, which responds decisively because of a pandemic, it's just completely anathema to neoliberal politics. And like I said, health care is a little bit different just by virtue of what it is. But we see pretty much every other government department failing really, really, really badly. Of course, this one's a little bit more visible because Gavin Williamson is so deeply dislikable because he's so bad at interviews. It's quite funny seeing his kind of semi uncontrolled haircut. Is he going for a pseudo Boris Johnson look? Is he trying to get ahead of the curve when it comes to a new lockdown hairdo? We don't know. But I think, you know, this goes beyond just Gavin Williamson being a painfully bad politician on television. And I think it does speak to a broader failing of Anglo-American politics. You know, we have not had the kind of political leadership on this issue that we need. And it's not just on COVID-19. Climate change. You know, we're having fights in this country, Michael, about whether or not we can shut down roads so we can build cycle lanes. Meanwhile, in China, they're building 600 mile an hour maglev, you know, train networks that they've got in Shenzhen. I think 20,000 taxis running on electricity, the entire city's bus network. So we have a profound problem in Anglo-American neoliberal politics in basically not being able to take on big problems. And I think the Department of Education shows that in my proposal. Let's go to some comments. We have quite a few. Anne Cameron with a fiver says, thanks for exposing this one excuse for a politician. I assume that's the reference to Gavin Williamson. Henry VIII fake with a fiver says, who needs a waffle maker when you've got Gavin Williamson? Very well put. Taddo Cantwell with 10 euros says, welcome back. Island has vaccinated many 12 to 18 year olds will be an interesting comparison with UK schools and potential shutdowns. And Simon Dwayne tweets on the hashtag, have you lost sight of the fact that over 100 people are dying per day? And that number is doubling every six weeks. Don't let this level of deaths be normalized. Now I'm taking that as a challenge to myself. I suppose in response, what I would say is that we can't shut down society because people are dying. There will always be transmissible illnesses that kill people, right? So we've often had winters where tens of thousands of people die from flu. And that doesn't mean that we stop sending kids to school. There are real, real costs to lockdown. There are real, real costs to keeping children out of school. And I actually think there are real, you know, real risks and downsides for some of the mitigations that people are supporting in schools, for example, bubbles. I think the idea that we are constantly, you know, often in a well-intentioned way and often in a necessary way, you know, forcing kids to live in a world where they have to constantly be worried, are they transmitting a virus to each other? I think that, you know, I think there are real downsides to that. So I think we do need to have a balance here. Where I think probably everyone can agree is that there are measures we can take which don't have those downsides and which we can probably continue having forever. And it will limit COVID deaths and limit other unnecessary deaths, for example, from flu, which is, let's have good ventilation, let's have proper sick pay. But I think now that we have the vast majority of the population vaccinated, which means that for most people, this is a relatively mild disease. We can't have the same kind of authoritarian. And I backed all of these authoritarian policies before the vaccines. I think they're absolutely necessary. I'm not saying this to disparage them. But I'm saying that now the vaccines are around, we do have to start, you know, letting kids live their normal lives, essentially. Aaron, I know you want to come in on this particular point. Yeah. So I mean, look, we were in Malta celebrating my wedding, Michael. And there were a number of sort of points raised on social media about this, some completely deranged, which didn't make any sense. But some are important. And one of the more important ones, thoughtful ones is, well, you know, you're talking about COVID-19 and you're going abroad. Well, firstly, tourism is huge, whether it's inside the UK, whether it's abroad. And this is usually interesting for me. Nobody so far went to that wedding from the UK with COVID, without COVID and caught it there. Two people who were invited got COVID. One person got it in the UK on the second day they were in Malta, they took a test, tested positive, they isolated another friend of mine, very old school friend of mine, got it before he went out and had the symptoms tested, tested positive, never went out. And everybody I know, when we talk about a wedding party about 120 people, nobody got it in Malta, very low case numbers there. Now, if you're going to Malta with two vaccinations, you're having a test there three days before you come back here, you're having a test here on the second day, it's incredibly hard, I think, that's just my personal view, but the data confirms that it's very hard, particularly in summer, for that to be an issue. And actually, you know, going to watch football in a pub a couple of months earlier for the European Championships final was a more dangerous thing than going to a foreign country. As strange as that sounds, it's true. Equally, you know, nightclubs, pubs, bars, you know, we can talk about whether it's a COVID passport, whether it's a, I think you probably want a mix of a passport with, you know, a recent test showing negative, obviously. But there are ways, Michael, I agree with you can navigate this and say, yeah, that works, it's not perfect, we'll have cases, people will pass away. But you can manage it in such a way that you minimise risks. And yes, we carry on life relatively normally. With this, I don't think that's the same thing, because I don't think we're mitigating the risks in schools, Michael. I don't think there's a plan. I don't think they're taking appropriate steps. With travel, you've got this huge infrastructure now that's put in place, people have to jump through a whole bunch of regulatory hurdles. Good, brilliant, that should be there. And, you know, we're going to see the same, I think, as bars and clubs, you know, sort of hopefully stay open during winter. But with schools, I don't see it, Michael. And I think it's dangerous when you put those two things in the same category. This is dangerous behaviour, yet we're making modifications, behavioural, built environment. And this is also dangerous, but we're not doing anything. You know, I think the latter category is a really concerning one. And using the former is saying, well, we shouldn't worry about this because we're making plans here. Well, great, we're making plans there. When it comes to schools, Michael, you've got unvaccinated kids, you've not really changed the built environment whatsoever. We haven't really run this experiment, well, we have actually, we ran the experiment with the Delta variant in last winter and look what happened. It does feel like, again, like I say, we could be blindsided by another crisis this winter. Do I think it will lead to a mass lockdown? No, I don't, because 60% of the whole populations are vaccinated. But I think it could be a bigger crisis than we probably think right now. And it could, it could have been averted. You know, again, like I say, what are the contingency plans? You know, you could say we're going to have an eight-week Christmas holiday or a six-week Christmas holiday. We're going to have, you know, double the length of halftimes, four-day weeks, you know, hybrid learning, maybe two days a week, you could do all of these things. They're not in the conversation because we have a government pathologically addicted to say, we're returning to normal. Well, every time they have done that so far in this crisis, Michael, it's failed. And I'm not saying this from the perspective of I want us all to stick in our homes again. Last winter was the worst winter of my life. I absolutely don't want to see a repeat of that. But at the same time, I think it's entirely fair to expect a, you know, a sector of state for education and the government to keep kids safe. And I don't think they're doing that. Yeah, I suppose I just think a lot of the things you're proposing there are actually really big deals. So the reason I'm putting forward ventilation as something which we can all agree is a good idea is because it won't get rid of COVID. It will limit the spread of it as well as the spread of flu, et cetera, without really affecting kids' development and education. The idea of just, you know, making Christmas six to eight weeks long or making the day four days a week, I think all of these things would have really, you know, real costs. And now that we are in a situation where most people have vaccinated, I don't think that 100 people die a day. Most kids aren't vaccinated, though. Most kids aren't vaccinated. No, but most people who are at risk of dying from COVID are vaccinated, right? So the idea that we can... We're talking about disruption. We're talking about disruption just... But we're talking about disruption to education. So if we have swathes of the population, you know, four to 16 getting COVID, that's going to disrupt their education as well. Well, it's not the question is what's the best way to... But it's not necessary. The point I'm making is kids getting COVID isn't necessarily going to disrupt their education that much because we don't have self-isolation anymore. We don't have bubbles. So it will be a bit more like getting a cold, getting the flu. And, you know, for kids and for vaccinated people, it's not that different from getting the flu. Yes, you can have long COVID. You can also get post-viral fatigue syndrome, which many people do get from other viruses. So I'm saying we do need to have ways to try and limit the spread of it, but we're not going to get to zero COVID. And when we are balancing the costs and the benefits of certain policies, I think taking kids out of school is a really big deal. And I think now that... Nobody's saying that. You are. If you're saying you want to have a Christmas holiday that's six to eight weeks long... No, I'm not. I'm not saying it's hard. I'm not swothered. Presently, it's how long is Christmas holiday? It's what, two weeks? Two weeks. Say four weeks. Yeah. So I'm saying are there contingency plans that affect Michael? If you do get huge case numbers, we're not talking about it. Before we had the end of lockdown, we were having the conversation, thank God all the projections were really wrong, about 100,000 new cases today, and people were saying, well, what do we do if that happens? And it felt like, yes, the government was going far, wasn't going far enough, but there were certain preparations in place. What are the preparations in place if this runs right for the whole school population? And the only thing I, when I'm talking about this again, if people are sort of just tuning in now, Aaron's being incredibly pessimistic, generally, I'm not pessimistic about the situation at all. But I think we're looking at Delta now, kills three people this time last year, kills 120 people today. I'm not talking about deaths. I'm talking about the fact it's a fundamentally different virus, the one that people generally think we're dealing with. It seems like a giant experiment. It does seem like a giant experiment. And I agree with you, Michael. I also want to minimize the disruption to kids' education. My point is, if X, Y, Z happens, what is the government going to do about it? We haven't really heard anything. Yeah, I mean, I think they should have more plans. But I suppose the question is, is 100 people dying a day enough to say let's make the Christmas holiday eight weeks long? I'm saying no. I'm not talking about deaths. It's a straw man. I'm not talking about deaths. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the disruption to kids. You're saying we have to minimize disruption to children's education. Well, if basically the entire population four to 16 gets COVID, I think that's going to be pretty damn disruptive, Michael. And so what steps can we do to mitigate that? Well, clearly it is. Well, that's going to happen whether or not you make Christmas holidays longer. Is it? Is it? Yeah. I mean, I don't see why long lengthening the Christmas holiday is going to stop people getting COVID. They're going to get vaccinated. No, because they're going, that's not true. They're going to get vaccinated. We know that they're all probably probably that entire population we vaccinated by next spring. So I think that's quite a sort of fatalistic and dangerous position to have. Well, they're all going to get it. Really? I mean, I don't think that's true at all. Anyway, well, I mean, I think probably we will all get it. I mean, but ideally you'd get it after you get vaccinated. But for kids, the risk is very, very low because I think the risk of taking them out of education for a significant, for another significant amount of time between now and spring is probably bigger because because vaccinating them doesn't take them out of school. I'm saying let's take it. If you're going to, if you're going to get it anywhere, it doesn't really matter. It doesn't really change anything. Why vaccinate them? Why vaccinate them all after they've got it? So the issue is, the issue is weighing up cost benefits for older people. Right. The issue is costs and benefits. So I'm saying it's probably worth vaccinating kids to stop them getting COVID before being vaccinated because vaccinating them isn't going to really affect them. It's worth vaccinating them after they've had it? No, it's, it's, well, well, it is worth vaccinating them after they've had it actually, yeah, because it will, it will still increase their, their, their resistance to getting it. Again, ideally, ideally, you'd vaccinate them beforehand, but I don't think taking them out of school until they're vaccinated is a particularly. I'm not, again, you're retreating position, I'm not saying. The policies you're coming up with seem completely useless to me. A four week, some Christmas holiday. What's the point in that? A four day week? These things are barely going to limit the spread of COVID-19 that will radically affect people's education. No, I think, for instance, if you have, if we have a doubling, if we have exponential growth going into Christmas, I would be really happy for the government to say, well, if that happens, we're looking at plans where we would double the period of Christmas holidays and we'd accelerate, you know, rollout of vaccines to young people. That to me sounds wise, doesn't seem particularly radical. Maybe, you know, maybe I'm crazy. I think that's a perfectly normal thing to be putting out there. We'll agree to disagree. If we get that exponential growth, I mean, I think probably quite likely what we'll see is a similar thing that we saw in, in, in June and July, which is where we have a fairly constant level of high rates of COVID until we get to something a bit like herd immunity, or we vaccinate a few more people. Someone says, why can't we just invest and improve online education for when people need to be out of school? I just don't see it happening. I've worked in a school that the point with kids getting into school is that why you need everyone there is because it is the kids who are most marginalized, who are going to suffer the most if, if, if you're out of school. So whatever good you make YouTube videos, or whatever good you make online education, you're going to have a lot of people who have fundamentally messed up for a while because they spent so long out of school. All right, let's go to our final story. All right, so we'll go to one more comment. Anna McLeod with a five on YouTube super chat says, can't commit to always supporting but have a little from the summer work boom. Thank you for holding up the truth of our media. Thank you very much. I wonder what your job is to have a summer work boom. It's hard to imagine that GB news would have been able to launch earlier this year without Andrew Neil. He was the face of the channel. He fronted it. He was the chairperson and it was the legitimacy he brought to the channel that made it possible for them to bring so many presenters, so many journalists on board. However, two weeks after the station began airing, Neil ran off to the south of France, exasperated at technical mishaps. He said at the time he would be back before the summer ends. Well, it's September and it looks like he's not comfortable coming back just yet. Multiple insiders expected Neil to be back on air on September the sixth, but the Times understands that this prospect is now out of the question. Neil, who also serves as GB News' chairman, has been in talks with management about his return without a resolution. GB News said last month that it was looking forward to welcoming back Neil in September, but the channel did not repeat this statement when approached for comment today. This all comes after Neil reportedly clashed with the channel's chief executive, Angelos Frengopoulos. Insiders said that Neil told Frengopoulos that the station had an over-emphasis on political opinion over news, so he wanted it to be an alternative to the BBC in the sky. The director wanted this to be more of a Fox News style opinion channel. The Times also had this. It is understood that Neil regarded GB News' launch as shambolic after it was plagued by problems, including poorly lit set misspelled cryons, misbehaving graphics, and repeated loss connections to remote guests. The GB News board is also said to have raised questions about GB News' performance. The channel has been averaging a daily audience of 20,000 in recent weeks, compared with 34,000 in its first five weeks. At the same time, Sky News and BBC News have made audience gains. Aaron, do you think Andrew Neil is going to come back to GB News? And do you think this whole thing has been a bit of a flop? A daily audience of 20,000 is really bad. We get more than that for episodes of Tiskey Sour and we didn't have... I mean, how much money did they have in seed funding? It was like 60 million, wasn't it? That is not much to show for it. But then you get this kind of... They go, well, we've got more subscribers on YouTube than you do. Oh, my gosh. 60 million. Are you kidding me? You're getting me a 60 million. I think we'd be... If we had 60 million, we'd be bigger than Channel 4 in like two years. Anyway, it's a huge amount of money, Michael. We'd certainly be bigger than LBC very quickly. I don't think he's coming back now. I think... And for two reasons. Firstly, this has been a huge failure as a political project for him and a professional project. Just because the standard of the production has not been particularly high, I think he was delusional that it would ever be better than it is. It's very, very hard to start any kind of new organization, let alone a media outlet. And I think he has a nice life. I think he has a nice filler in the south of France. He's an older man. He has his work at the spectator. I'm sure he'll still get tragically enough for the rest of us gigs at the BBC. He'll be invited on for his two Bob's worth on Good Morning Britain. So, do you really want to keep on embarrassing yourself in front of 20,000 people every day? And kind of pissing all over any sort of professional legacy you had? I suspect you wouldn't. And I suspect that they're not going to want him back. Maybe even more hands-off kind of approach. Maybe he'll be more of a guest sometimes. I mean, that would still be pretty good for them and for him. But in terms of anchoring a show, no, I don't think so. That was a great tweet earlier on today. And somebody, I think this is entirely correct, by the way, they said, you know, people refer to Andrew Neal as this pugilist, this incredible forensic interviewer. Part of that was because he had this huge team of researchers. You and I went on, you know, BBC this week, for instance, Michael, we saw it. Huge number of people working for him because it's the BBC, doing the hard yards, doing the research, getting the guests, etc., etc. And GB News doesn't have that because it's not the BBC. And I think he's kind of surprised it's not the BBC. It's not the Sunday Times who was previously with Rupert Murdoch in the 80s. So I think he was kind of delusional about how well this could be as a media product. I think it's fallen short. I think he'll stop. And I think his life is sufficiently nice anyway that he kind of will just want to relax. I mean, I might be wrong, but wanting to go back to London in the freezing cold in the winter for 20,000 people watching a day when you could stay in the south of France. I mean, I know what I would do if I were him. But who knows? I want to go to a few more comments on the last topic of discussion because it's created a lot of interesting chat. One from Gavin Jackson. Sure thing, Michael, teachers like myself just love being thrown under the bus rather than authoritarian. You mean necessary measures. I think I mean, I'd say at that point, and I actually links to someone else saying, wait, are we all going to get COVID? I think most of us are, you know, we are. No, I mean, that's the point with Delta, most of us are going to get COVID-19. And it's a question of sooner rather than later. Yeah, ideally, obviously, I mean, I was really scared of getting COVID before I was double vaccinated. Now I'm double vaccinated. I just see it as it will be a minor inconvenience, right? I mean, I've been doing lots of things where I could have got COVID-19, right? And so I do think we are going to have to move into a headspace where we're not constantly, you know, dictating our lives and what we're willing to do and what we're happy to do based on whether or not we might catch COVID-19. Obviously, there are going to be people who are immunocompromised, who are going to be in situations where I think there are, you know, genuine problems there. And also, you know, I would absolutely say no teacher who is immunocompromised should be forced to go into school. I think we need to have much better self-health and health and safety laws. As I say, I also think schools should be much safer than they're currently being made. But I think that should be in a way which doesn't particularly limit kids' education and also accepting that there is still going to be COVID around. We're not going to get to a zero COVID situation. Related to that, we're not going to get to a zero COVID situation. There was another comment that I thought was interesting. Michael, fewer than 30 deaths in New Zealand, what was authoritarian here? Now, I was for the New Zealand strategy before we had widespread vaccinations, but what is authoritarian in New Zealand is you can't go in or out. Right? I mean, it's quite significant that you can't go in or out. And then any one time someone does come in with the Delta variant, you have to have local lockdowns. Now, those are authoritarian measures. I thought they were justified before the vaccine. I don't think they're justified after the vaccine because this is now a much milder illness for people who are double vaccinated. So, yes, I mean, I think that what New Zealand is doing at the moment, I think that they've had a much better two years than we have done. But I think ultimately, New Zealand will transition to similar policies which we are having, which is to say, we need to get as many people in this population vaccinated as possible. And then we need to go back to something which is quite a lot like normal. As I say, I'd like that to be a better normal. I'd like that to be a normal where we have good ventilation, where we have sick pay, where we have all of these things that will make us less vulnerable to other diseases and actually make our lives better as opposed to worse. But I don't want to have travel restrictions. I don't want to have to self-isolate for 10 days if I've been next to someone who has an illness that will only have a mild effect on me. So, yeah, I think we're going to move to the next phase of COVID-19. I mean, I would say on Twitter the other day, I was defending, I mean, we are going to have to learn to live with the virus. Someone suggested that maybe a better phrase is we're going to have to adapt to the virus. At the same time, I do think there is a sort of mental and emotional thing here, which is we are going to have to come to terms with the fact that this is a new virus which is circulating. It's going to be there forever. We're probably going to catch it. Obviously, this creates very difficult situations if you are someone for whom the vaccine didn't work particularly well on and that's why we need to have government policies which are massively supportive of people in those situations. But we're not going to stop the world. We're not going to stop travel. We're not going to have bubbles of kids spending two weeks here, out of school, two weeks there. Normally, you'd expect a kid to take four days of school in a year. Now we see it as normal for them to take 100 days off school in a year. That's not good. Obviously, it was necessary before vaccines. Is it necessary now? I would say no. Aaron, I don't know if you want to respond to that. No, my difference with you is I think I have no problem with kids taking extra two weeks off if it means they get covered with a vaccine rather than without a vaccine. That would be my position. Why does that mean two weeks off school? If it was two weeks off school to not get it before the vaccine, I'd go for that. I think you're going to have marginal benefit in two weeks off school, unless you just don't send them back to school or you have this situation you had last time around where you have all these bubbles going home. I don't think that's going to make much of a difference. I think it boils down to the school kids thing. I think it boils down to you. You're right. We're all going to get it. Ideally, we get variants which are much weaker than the variants we have today. Ideally, we have much stronger vaccines than we have today. That's highly likely if you get it in two, three, four years' time. I do think it's a bit concerning if we're saying, oh, yeah, kids can get COVID without being vaccinated. We haven't really said that about any other part of the population so far. They are the part of the population that's least at risk from COVID. We're talking about 12 million people. I mean, you're still talking about hundreds of thousands of people who are very vulnerable, hundreds of thousands. The vulnerable kids are getting the vaccines. How quickly? How quickly? If it's a school's open this week, Michael, I mean, the rollout is happening now. It takes about a week for you to have some effect from it. It takes three weeks. It takes three weeks to be optimal. It takes three weeks to be optimal. It takes a week to have your immunity there. Ideally, you'd have two doses anyway. But my point is, Mike, we agree that ultimately, we have to get used to the idea that you're going to get it, but you're going to have to be vaccinated. My point is, ideally, we would have been in a situation where that would also apply to school children. There's a bit of a double logic going on. But of course, their education shouldn't be disrupted. And I agree with you. We're going to have to get used to COVID. By the way, we're going to have to get used to pandemics. We're probably going to be able to adapt to COVID in the next 10 years, and there'll be something else. And going back to your point originally about New Zealand, I mean, that is when you want to be doing those sorts of things. If you have something as transmissible as COVID, but as deadly as Ebola, we are fucked. We are really in big trouble. And that's when you absolutely want the state to behave like New Zealand until you're a vaccine. Of course. But I think you're right. You look at the cost benefit. You look at how deadly COVID is. You look at the fact we have a vaccine. Yes, I don't think you should be closing your borders. I don't think you should be having a huge clamping down on civil liberties. Like you see in Australia right now, there's something being trialled in Australia where the government effectively can find out where you are purely at random. Geotag, you identify you. I think that's really concerning. I think that's really, really concerning. You have to take a picture of yourself in 15 minutes, I think. Yeah, and I think that's Chinese style surveillance. And the whole point is, look, China doesn't pretend to be a democracy. You can criticise it on human rights, civil liberties, or you can set up a great job on poverty eradication, growing its green sector, both can be true. But it doesn't say it's a democracy, right? It doesn't say we elevate the idea of individual freedom and above other things. They don't say that. Countries like Australia do, but I think when you see things like that happening, clearly, clearly, clearly, that's the odds with their professed values. And I think that has to be, that is concerning. I'm not a libertarian. I believe that, yes, of course, you can rationally curtail freedoms if it's going to save people's lives. Of course you can. We do it all the time. You do it in war. But I don't think the risks posed by COVID if we vaccinated are sufficient to be clamping down to that extent, like we see in Australia. I think it's deeply worrying. And of course, the bigger concern is going back to my previous point about this being an age of pandemics, because of climate change, by the way, great book by Andres Mann on this about the corona crisis and the case for war communism. Sounds strange, but it's a good book, very short book, much recommended with Verso books. We're going to have more of these. And I think if there is a fourth and fifth and sixth coronavirus this century, and they're more deadly, if this is how we're seeing states respond now, I think it is something to be deeply worried about. And I'm not somebody who says, we need to talk about liberty. I'm not one of these right wing libertarian nut jobs, but it has to be a concern at the same time. This is interesting. Thomas Smith first with 1799. Thank you very much. Williamson could have had the entire curriculum rewritten and adapted to suit the current cohort that is doable, rather than expecting to catch up to where they'd been, had there been no pandemic at all. I think that's very interesting. I would support something along those lines. I think the issue is, you know, and this is quite a mainstream thing to say now, this is a particularly radical thing to say that the catch up is less about will they have, you know, will they know the, you know, algorithms and whatever in maths and will they know certain bits of grammar in English is the fact that kids isolating at home has real consequences for them. And it has real consequences in terms of the development of kids and their emotional well-being, et cetera, et cetera. So it is, are we happy to have more of that when we are looking at an illness which is very comparable to other ones that we've, you know, we've lived with for a very long time. Obviously, before the vaccines, that was not the case. After the vaccines, it kind of is. Aaron, any final thoughts tonight? We barely touched on Andrew and Michael. I mean, it's, you know, perhaps that's, that's appropriate given it's just been such an underwhelming end to a pretty, a pretty long and august media and political career. The point about children and young people and mental health, I think it can't be, it can't be overstated. You know, I think, I think many, many people watching this, they know a young person who before the pandemic was very different to the young person or the kid that came out the other side, whether it's anxiety, sleep problems. And that's, that is a hugely important point. You know, we can't have, it's not just about, yes, of course, the education and sort of cognitive development and reading and, and numeracy skills aren't why they should be. Of course, that's all hugely important. If you've got kids suffering from insomnia, anxiety, depression, that is a real consideration. It's a real consideration. So I agree with you, Michael. I think that has to be up there with, if we're talking in a highly quantitative sense about, you know, deaths and hospitalizations, we also need to talk about people's physical and mental health and particularly young people because they have really missed out. They have really missed out. You know, a five year old child can't understand what's going on. They don't know why the world has changed the way that it has over the last 18 months. I think that has to be, that has to be a variable in terms of how we move forward in our society. And I agree with you. There is no happy medium because ultimately we're in a terrible situation with this, better than a year ago, of course, but still not ideal. But like I say, you know, I don't need to ruminate on this publicly. I think anybody who's who's got a child or, you know, have their friends have kids or that's a relative and niece and nephew of that age. I mean, it's really horrible to see. I know a couple of young kids, they're different people now, they're different, different people. And I think that can't be taken for granted. All right, let's wrap it up there. Thanks for all of your comments. The audience are very engaged today. We will be back on Monday. Aaron Bustani, it's been a pleasure speaking to you. Glad to have you back in the country. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. I'm glad as well. We have to have this old Michael and Aaron, they hate each other, the disagreements. Not at all, Michael and I have the greatest respect for another. You and I have the greatest respect for another. But look, Navarra doesn't have a party line. I think that's one of the strengths of the organization. We disagree about these things. And I'm sure, you know, our audience disagree with us and often we learn from them. So long may it continue. Absolutely. I wholeheartedly concur quite out of sync with the rest of the show. You've been watching Tisgy Sour on Navarra Media. Good night.