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Re-opening Schools?

planetgeli said:
So we went back last week. 2 inset days then the kids on Friday.

After one inset day we had our first ever positive staff member. Everyone told to do lft tests. Over the weekend we got our second ever positive (we only have 20 staff, so that's 10%). The second one was from the person who has more contact with both kids and staff than anyone else. I don't think I've ever seen her in a mask.

Today I've tried to forget about it but am convinced the numbers won't stop at two. I haven't been in today because I had an urgent MRI in London. Am now coming back to Wales on the train. This train should have nine coaches. It's been given five. It's packed.
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Just texted my line manager to say I'll be late tomorrow as my train has now broken down in Bristol.

She tells me she's covid positive as well. So that's three. And that's just the ones I know of.
 
12000 children out of school this week as they are deemed close contacts.
Schools are back since 26th to 30th Aug

And the government is telling schools and parents that it's all down to community transmission...not in school transmission.
 
I feel for Gemma. That's insane.

Hopefully she's putting in a strongly-worded complaint to the school. I mean telling kids the 'rules' have changed is one thing, telling them Covid has gone away is an outright lie.

The thing is, parents who keep their kids off school for this reason (like Teaboy I'm glad I don't have to make those decisions) will be penalised for absence. :mad:
 
Teaboy said:
Of course schooling is vitally important to kids but right now I wouldn't blame any parent for keeping their kids at home. I'm very glad I don't have to make these sort of decisions.
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What?! That’s such an extreme position. This has become so polarised there are people on both sides with totally nutty views like this.
 
oryx said:
I feel for Gemma. That's insane.

Hopefully she's putting in a strongly-worded complaint to the school. I mean telling kids the 'rules' have changed is one thing, telling them Covid has gone away is an outright lie.

The thing is, parents who keep their kids off school for this reason (like Teaboy I'm glad I don't have to make those decisions) will be penalised for absence. :mad:
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Why would you trust that? Sounds like bollocks to me
 
oryx said:
I don't think it is a nutty view.

What if you have vulnerable family members at home? That must apply to quite a lot of parents.
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He used the phrase ‘any parent’.

But even if we take the case of a child with a CEV family member. The fact is covid is here to stay, and we have developed a very effective vaccine that has decoupled infection rates from death rates and largely from hospital admissions. All adults have been double vaccinated if they wish. Children need education and socialisation, for their intellectual, psychological and social development and their mental health. The situation with covid is not going to change in the medium term, it is what it is. You cannot keep children at home indefinitely, into a third academic year, there are significant risks to doing so. It is not a proportionate response to the risk.

The idea that ‘any’ parent could do so, without any other family at home with risk factors, is nutty.
 
Red Cat said:
Why would you trust that? Sounds like bollocks to me
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It may well be misinterpreted via a child's report of it, or indeed not true at all, but taking it at face value it should be addressed. If I had kids and one of them told me that, I'd want to take it up with the school.

There is enough 'bollocks' spouted about Covid that it could well be true... we'll probably never know.
 
Edie said:
He used the phrase ‘any parent’.

But even if we take the case of a child with a CEV family member. The fact is covid is here to stay, and we have developed a very effective vaccine that has decoupled infection rates from death rates and largely from hospital admissions. All adults have been double vaccinated if they wish. Children need education and socialisation, for their intellectual, psychological and social development and their mental health. The situation with covid is not going to change in the medium term, it is what it is. You cannot keep children at home indefinitely, into a third academic year, there are significant risks to doing so. It is not a proportionate response to the risk.

The idea that ‘any’ parent could do so, without any other family at home with risk factors, is nutty.
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Some context required here.

For starters I've said on this forum several time that blame is a pretty useless concept in regard to the pandemic. Also as a childfree person I try to stay particularly clear of judging parents decisions. So when I say "wouldn't blame" its in this context.

Some further context is its got to stage now where I disbelieve virtually everything (probably everything) the government says about schools and this pandemic. They have been lying to our faces throughout and now we've just got to Orwellian levels of double speak. You also have far more faith in the vaccines then I do so lets see how the next few weeks go.

Even more context is that my brother in law got hospitalised because his wife (my sister) is a teacher. Last context is that a friend is currently in hospital despite being double vaccinated and covid came into their house via their toddler and an outbreak at a nursery.

I think I already covered the importance of kids being in school in the initial post.

ETA: I also wasn't advocating parents keeping children away from school merely attempting to sympathise with their predicament.
 
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Edie said:
He used the phrase ‘any parent’.

But even if we take the case of a child with a CEV family member. The fact is covid is here to stay, and we have developed a very effective vaccine that has decoupled infection rates from death rates and largely from hospital admissions. All adults have been double vaccinated if they wish. Children need education and socialisation, for their intellectual, psychological and social development and their mental health. The situation with covid is not going to change in the medium term, it is what it is. You cannot keep children at home indefinitely, into a third academic year, there are significant risks to doing so. It is not a proportionate response to the risk.

The idea that ‘any’ parent could do so, without any other family at home with risk factors, is nutty.
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I don't think it's nutty at all.

What is nutty is removing all precautions when there's still a pandemic. Obviously the vaccine has made a difference but Covid hasn't gone away.

The vaccine is effective upto a point but people are still getting ill and dying, and being worried enough to keep kids off a school that possibly doesn't even believe Covid is still existent isn't extreme or nutty. I think it's quite a normal reaction even if the vast majority of parents don't put it into practice.

I'm sure parents who think like this have probably considered the effect of a lack of formal schooling (and have experienced difficulties with that during lockdown).
 
Edie said:
He used the phrase ‘any parent’.

But even if we take the case of a child with a CEV family member. The fact is covid is here to stay, and we have developed a very effective vaccine that has decoupled infection rates from death rates and largely from hospital admissions. All adults have been double vaccinated if they wish. Children need education and socialisation, for their intellectual, psychological and social development and their mental health. The situation with covid is not going to change in the medium term, it is what it is. You cannot keep children at home indefinitely, into a third academic year, there are significant risks to doing so. It is not a proportionate response to the risk.

The idea that ‘any’ parent could do so, without any other family at home with risk factors, is nutty.
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There is still a direct link between number of cases and number of hospitalisations and deaths. It has been weakened but not broken. So there is no decoupling.

For example Scotland has hit higher peaks for positive cases detected via testing this time than in previous wave. Hospital figures have not hit those levels, but they are still heading rapidly back to the levels seen last autumn, and thats true for both patients in hospital and patients in mechanical ventilator beds. And it was clear this would happen once their number of positive cases went up, its only a question of waiting a week or so to see trends in positive cases be reflected in hospital trends.

I think there are a range of attitudes from parents and children that are all entirely understandable. And I wouldnt expect everyones attitudes to the pandemic and risk and the extent to which we can return to normal to all evolve at the same pace and feel comfortable in doing so.

Here is a little bit of data for Scotland to visualise what I was on about.

Screenshot 2021-09-08 at 20.04.jpg

Now if there were no unvaccinated people, that graph wouldnt look as bad. But it would still show the numbers going up when number of positive cases rose. For example recent local news from here in the middle of England said that half of the covid patients in my local hospital had not been double jabbed, which means half had.
 
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Teaboy said:
Of course schooling is vitally important to kids but right now I wouldn't blame any parent for keeping their kids at home. I'm very glad I don't have to make these sort of decisions.
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I think we could see a massive increase in more-organised home schooling as a result of this. Not just this latest nonsense, but the fundamental shifts in working patterns and general disaffection with the education system.
 
Red Cat said:
Yeh we do but still want our children in school. Children’s development has been knocked by this with enormous impact on their mental health.
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Yes...but I fail to see why covid should be allowed spread through schools ?
It's going to spread ans because school outbreaks wont be counted it will all be registered as community transmission.
There are plenty kids in schools with asthma and underlying health issues who will suffer more than they should and long covid in a child can really affect their development

I don't understand why kids sat near each other in a classroom where one of them has covid will not be deemed as close contacts.
 
Sugar Kane said:
Yes...but I fail to see why covid should be allowed spread through schools ?
It's going to spread ans because school outbreaks wont be counted it will all be registered as community transmission.
There are plenty kids in schools with asthma and underlying health issues who will suffer more than they should and long covid in a child can really affect their development

I don't understand why kids sat near each other in a classroom where one of them has covid will not be deemed as close contacts.
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I think you probably can understand. All you have to do is set aside logic and reason, and replace them with expediency and graft.
 
Sugar Kane said:
Yes...but I fail to see why covid should be allowed spread through schools ?
It's going to spread ans because school outbreaks wont be counted it will all be registered as community transmission.
There are plenty kids in schools with asthma and underlying health issues who will suffer more than they should and long covid in a child can really affect their development

I don't understand why kids sat near each other in a classroom where one of them has covid will not be deemed as close contacts.
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It's not my policy, so I don't know why you're posting that at me like that.

I just don't think this grouping of parents in a way that suggests it's a predicament for all parents is helpful because I don't think it's true. It was a serious predicament for us last year and earlier this year and it might be again very soon but it's a balance of risk, and people have different takes on that.
 
Regarding ventilation in schools:

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/gavin-williamsons-ventilation-failure-schools-covid-19-government-sage-1181619

[Gavin] Williamson took to the airwaves on Thursday to reassure parents that he had a “programme of CO2 monitors available” to reduce Covid transmission in schools now that pupils are going back for the autumn term. When he was questioned, he conceded that in fact “they are being rolled out during this term”. In reality, schools have not received monitors and they won’t be getting them for some time.
 
Edie said:
He used the phrase ‘any parent’.

But even if we take the case of a child with a CEV family member. The fact is covid is here to stay, and we have developed a very effective vaccine that has decoupled infection rates from death rates and largely from hospital admissions. All adults have been double vaccinated if they wish. Children need education and socialisation, for their intellectual, psychological and social development and their mental health. The situation with covid is not going to change in the medium term, it is what it is. You cannot keep children at home indefinitely, into a third academic year, there are significant risks to doing so. It is not a proportionate response to the risk.

The idea that ‘any’ parent could do so, without any other family at home with risk factors, is nutty.
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All adults have NOT been double vaccinated even if they DO wish.

I don't think anyone is arguing kids don't need education and socialisation. The point is that removing all mitigation from the thousands of schools returning this week while numbers of cases continue to be high and deaths are still happening is batshit crazy. The effects of Covid on the young are still being looked at but I don't want my or anyone else's kid getting long covid and can understand why a parent might feel their kid is safer at home.

We're going to end up with a situation where my daughter could catch it by sitting next to a kid who has it but would have no idea because she wouldn't be told. Then she can bring it here, give it to me and before I have symptoms I can distribute it to the 170-odd people I come into contact with weekly.
 
Edie said:
What?! That’s such an extreme position. This has become so polarised there are people on both sides with totally nutty views like this.
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It's nutty to consider removing your kids from a place which is unsafe? And also run by lunatics?

The gaslighting alone is going to be seriously harmful to the kids' relationship with the school, which in turn affects their education.
 
sheothebudworths said:
I don't think this is an either/or situation, is it?
The issue is there are fuck all mitigations left in school (other than 'ventilation', but with nothing meaningful having been put into dealing with that), as opposed to what currently exists everywhere except schools (not to say those are great either).
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And ventilation is all well and good in an usually warm September but come January it becomes a health hazard all by itself.
 
So what would you all have continue? Sending bubbles home continuously like the end of last academic year? Kids going in for one day a week or a few days every half term? Or just shut schools and continue parents home educating? Everybody stay in their homes in a national lockdown?

Because no amount of caution and reassurance will be enough for the proportion of the population who are gripped in fear. It’s borderline hysterical in some cases. And it’s whipped up by the media and people continually and obsessively discussing it like on here.
 
Chicken pox causes hospitalisations and deaths amongst children. The fatality rate for kids is higher than that for COVID, likewise the injury and death rates in road traffic accidents for commuting to school.

People’s sense of risk has been seriously distorted.
 
I think it's perfectly understandable that people are worried. We're at about 200 deaths a day and not everyone is diving into the figures to see who is dying. Not everyone has been vaccinated, people have families of multiple generations. Kids do get long covid. It's all the same arguments. But now we're not allowed to act on our own assessment of risk which is yet another fucking contradiction in the official approach. And we don't even get to assess risk fully as you could be seeing someone vulnerable but not know your child had been a close contact.
It just feels like there's no mitigation except vaccinations which basically don't exist in school.
 
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