Re-opening Schools?

[SpookyFrank]

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.

There's no good option on the table thanks to the decision to remove all restrictions two months ago. But simple protective measures that could be happening aren't, for reasons of cost and political narrative-building not for health or education. Lying to parents and kids en masse cannot possibly be the answer.

E2a: As for 'gripped by fear' that's an incredibly loaded statement which implies there is no justification for that fear. There is. People have a right to be afraid, even if it's inconvenient for you.

 

[existentialist]

There's no good option on the table thanks to the decision to remove all restrictions two months ago. But simple protective measures that could be happening aren't, for reasons of cost and political narrative-building not for health or education. Lying to parents and kids en masses cannot possibly be the answer.

E2a: As for 'gripped by fear' that's an incredibly loaded statement which implies there is no justification for that fear. There is. People have a right to be afraid, even if it's inconvenient for you.

And, furthermore, there are plenty of people following a cautious, science-based line on this whom I suspect are being lumped into the "gripped by fear" category"...

 

[Fruitloop]

Bear in mind that it's increasingly becoming clear that Covid-19 can cause brain damage, kidney damage etc in the long term, even in mild and asymptomatic cases. The UK is completely alone in choosing to perform this kind of experiment on its young people, all the other nations that have a choice are vaccinating and mitigating as much as they can. It's not unreasonable to want to protect your children from unknown lasting harm.

 

[Fruitloop]

The cynic in me suspects that whilst Germany etc might be worried about the long-term social cost of such a mass disabling event in young people, the Tory scum don't give a fuck because they have no intention of paying for it.

 

[SpookyFrank]

And, furthermore, there are plenty of people following a cautious, science-based line on this whom I suspect are being lumped into the "gripped by fear" category"...

Yeah well it's a category you'd put people in if you had no way to productively respond to what they said.

 

[Edie]

This is crazy. I’m out.

 

[Fruitloop]

Kidney injury: COVID-19-associated acute kidney injury: consensus report of the 25th Acute Disease Quality Initiative (ADQI) Workgroup - Nature Reviews Nephrology

Loss of grey matter in the brain: Alarming COVID study indicates long-term loss of gray matter and other brain tissue

 

[platinumsage]

The UK is completely alone in choosing to perform this kind of experiment on its young people, all the other nations that have a choice are vaccinating and mitigating as much as they can. It's not unreasonable to want to protect your children from unknown lasting harm.

This is simply not true. The rules on e.g. mask-wearing in schools vary a lot, the UK is not an outlier. Likewise so does vaccination of children (e.g. Sweden is doing the same as the UK, only vaccinating vulnerable children).

 

[platinumsage]

And, furthermore, there are plenty of people following a cautious, science-based line on this whom I suspect are being lumped into the "gripped by fear" category"...

Probably because their particular flavour of "cautious science-based" would look very different if it was applied to the same standard to other aspects of their lives.

 

[kabbes]

I have the sense that the inner government actually want children to catch coronavirus because they believe this is the safest way for younger people to develop antibodies. They want everybody vaccinated and having regular enough re-exposure to keep their immunity to serious disease topped up. I have been persuaded by this thread that such thinking is wrong-headed but nevertheless, I see signs of this thinking in those making the decisions.

 

[existentialist]

Probably because their particular flavour of "cautious science-based" would look very different if it was applied to the same standard to other aspects of their lives.

I think the explanation is more likely the one that SpookyFrank offered - that it's a lot easier to dismiss caution as "fear" than it is to answer the questions being raised by the cautious. Same with Brexit and "project fear".

 

[platinumsage]

I think the explanation is more likely the one that SpookyFrank offered - that it's a lot easier to dismiss caution as "fear" than it is to answer the questions being raised by the cautious. Same with Brexit and "project fear".

As I said, if such questions were raised in other aspects of their lives where risks were similar, fear rather than caution would be the appropriate word.

 

[Looby]

Yes there will be people whose responses and fears might seem disproportionate and possibly are but we don’t know what’s going on for them.
On the other side of this, there are people who seem to give no shits at all and not only act in incredibly inconsiderate and selfish ways but also attack and criticize those who won’t join them.
Most people are in the middle ground though and are making their own risk assessments based on their circumstances, their health worries etc

To dismiss these as ‘gripped by fear’ is really really unhelpful.
As someone with anxiety, I’ve been labelled as anxious more than once when I’ve actually been quite poorly both by friends and relatives but also by medical professionals. It’s fucking horrible to have your real and reasonable worries dismissed and in one case, really dangerous as I had sepsis and ended up having emergency surgery because I took too long to seek medical help.

We need to be really careful about language used here and try to show some understanding and compassion. We’ve all managed this shitshow in different ways and are dealing with relaxing of restrictions. People aren’t mad or crazy if they think it’s been done badly.

 

[platinumsage]

People aren’t mad or crazy if they think it’s been done badly.

It would be nice if this applied to people on both ends of the arguments. I know some perfectly reasonable people who think that potential psychological effects on children of repeated testing, isolation and mask wearing weighs rather heavily against the very low risks from COVID compared to other childhood diseases for which such mitigations were never dreamed of. These people are "making their own risk assessments based on their circumstances, their health worries" but certainly wouldn't be shown any "understanding or compassion" on this thread.

I'm not sure that many people are on the middle ground. People take their positions and criticise those who don't see things their way. It's all tied up with people's personalities, personal politics and perception of the current government too.

 

[Fruitloop]

This is simply not true. The rules on e.g. mask-wearing in schools vary a lot, the UK is not an outlier. Likewise so does vaccination of children (e.g. Sweden is doing the same as the UK, only vaccinating vulnerable children).

I don't think the article really substantiates that, where are the countries with insane levels of new cases (greater than the US and Japan put together at the moment) that are so actively abolishing all the mitigations in apparent pursuit of some kind of hybrid immunity? Sweden is admittedly also an outlier, and has been since the beginning of the pandemic, but along with the UK they fall into the category of 'countries that have dealt with the pandemic very badly', so I don't think we should be reassured that they're in our little club

 

[Steel Icarus]

This is crazy. I’m out.

What's crazy is that you'd happily put people in harm's way to potentially catch a serious illness you yourself were shit scared would kill you when you got it and posted about it on here.

 

[Fruitloop]

N.B. not trying to get at anyone here, it's a shit sandwich and no mistake, and everyone has to deal as best they can. I've got three kids all at different schools, and have been trying to make an impression on them (the schools), but honestly it's not easy.

However talking to the people I know who are things like neuroscientists and immunologists, a lot of them are really alarmed at the moment, as am I, and given that all the govt rhetoric is that it's fine and we should just move on, I think it's important to say that I really don't think that is the case at all; parents in particular should be quite concerned about what's going on at the moment and should be applying as much collective pressure for a change of strategy as we're able.

 

[Steel Icarus]

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.

No adults in schools, then. That right?

 

[Teaboy]

I have the sense that the inner government actually want children to catch coronavirus because they believe this is the safest way for younger people to develop antibodies. They want everybody vaccinated and having regular enough re-exposure to keep their immunity to serious disease topped up. I have been persuaded by this thread that such thinking is wrong-headed but nevertheless, I see signs of this thinking in those making the decisions.

Yes. I'm pretty sure elbows has written about this previously that there was an apparent government policy of immunity through vaccination for adults and immunity via exposure for kids.

I think that was a while back and now that Delta is really showing its hand the government approach seems to be exposure for all.

 

[Fruitloop]

Chicken pox doesn't really have an issue with long term sequelae for most people. You get it, a tiny fraction of people die and the rest of them are just entirely better. We're looking with Covid at 1 in 7 having symptoms that last for months, with some children having been ill pretty much since the start of the pandemic. We don't know if they're going to get better.

 

[platinumsage]

I don't think the article really substantiates that, where are the countries with insane levels of new cases (greater than the US and Japan put together at the moment) that are so actively abolishing all the mitigations in apparent pursuit of some kind of hybrid immunity? Sweden is admittedly also an outlier, and has been since the beginning of the pandemic, but along with the UK they fall into the category of 'countries that have dealt with the pandemic very badly', so I don't think we should be reassured that they're in our little club

Ok, so you changed your point from “all the other nations that have a choice are vaccinating and mitigating as much as they can”, which is demonstrably untrue, to “where are the countries with insane levels of new cases (greater than the US and Japan put together at the moment) that are so actively abolishing all the mitigations in apparent pursuit of some kind of hybrid immunity” which is something else entirely.

 

[platinumsage]

Chicken pox doesn't really have an issue with long term sequelae for most people. You get it, a tiny fraction of people die and the rest of them are just entirely better. We're looking with Covid at 1 in 7 having symptoms that last for months, with some children having been ill pretty much since the start of the pandemic. We don't know if they're going to get better.

Chicken pox is a good comparator for deaths, as it’s more deadly than COVID for children. If you want a comparator for other effects, how about glandular fever. There was a kid in my class at school who had to repeat a year because it totally wiped him out. Glandular fever is infectious for seven weeks before symptoms show, and is only transmissible by direct contact with bodily fluids such as through kissing or sharing drinks. No one ever dreamed of restricting those things for under 18s due to glandular fever’s long term effects did they?

 

[existentialist]

It would be nice if this applied to people on both ends of the arguments. I know some perfectly reasonable people who think that potential psychological effects on children of repeated testing, isolation and mask wearing weighs rather heavily against the very low risks from COVID compared to other childhood diseases for which such mitigations were never dreamed of. These people are "making their own risk assessments based on their circumstances, their health worries" but certainly wouldn't be shown any "understanding or compassion" on this thread.

I'm not sure that many people are on the middle ground. People take their positions and criticise those who don't see things their way. It's all tied up with people's personalities, personal politics and perception of the current government too.

Is it any wonder that people are "making their own risk assessments" when it is so patently clear that such assessments as the Government are doing are flimsy, futile, and transparently obviously aimed at achieving the underlying objective - "getting back to normal ASAP"?

 

[Fruitloop]

Chicken pox is a good comparator for deaths, as it’s more deadly than COVID for children. If you want a comparator for other effects, how about glandular fever. There was a kid in my class at school who had to repeat a year because it totally wiped him out. Glandular fever is infectious for seven weeks before symptoms show, and is only transmissible by direct contact with bodily fluids such as through kissing or sharing drinks. No one ever dreamed of restricting those things for under 18s due to glandular fever’s long term effects did they?

We're just not talking about the same scale at all here. There have been 2000 hospitalizations of children due to Covid in the last two months. There are thousands of infections in children per day, of which it's becoming clear that a signifiant proportion will be affected in the long term in an immediate and obvious way, and we have no idea what proportion might be adversely affected in ways that may only become apparent later on, but honestly the indications at the moment are not good at all.

Genuinely don't know where you're going with this. Clearly there are obviously other diseases, and some of those diseases are also bad, but Covid-19 is the novel pandemic disease that we should be taking much more seriously right at the moment.

 

[Edie]

We're just not talking about the same scale at all here. There have been 2000 hospitalizations of children due to Covid in the last two months. There are thousands of infections in children per day, of which it's becoming clear that a signifiant proportion will be affected in the long term in an immediate and obvious way, and we have no idea what proportion might be adversely affected in ways that may only become apparent later on, but honestly the indications at the moment are not good at all.

Genuinely don't know where you're going with this. Clearly there are obviously other diseases, and some of those diseases are also bad, but Covid-19 is the novel pandemic disease that we should be taking much more seriously right at the moment.

What should we be doing then Fruitloop ?

 

[platinumsage]

Genuinely don't know where you're going with this. Clearly there are obviously other diseases, and some of those diseases are also bad, but Covid-19 is the novel pandemic disease that we should be taking much more seriously right at the moment.

Why should we be taking COVID much more seriously than other diseases? Surely we should compare the risks to other diseases and take proportionate responses.

 

[Fruitloop]

We should be taking it as seriously as any other disease that causes multi-system organ damage, including to the heart, lungs, kidney and brain, that we have 40 thousand cases of per motherfucking day at the moment.

 

[Fruitloop]

What should we be doing then Fruitloop ?

Vaccinate 12-15 year olds. CO2 monitors in schools, HEPA filters in classrooms. Mask everyone who can wear one. Stop forcing clinically vulnerable children or children with clinically vulnerable parents etc back into schools that aren't safe for them - provide some good online options instead. Drive community transmission down, and use the breathing space to build a functioning test trace and isolate system. Basically all the stuff we should have done a year and a half ago, that would have meant many thousands of people who are now dead would still be alive, and we wouldn't have suffered the social and economic damage that hoping it would all sort of blow over has caused.

 

[Badgers]

Hate to be a misery but looking at the NI and Scotland number pre/post schools opening and that give some scale

That said, this week I have tested over 1000 sixth form students and only logged 9 positive tests.

 

[platinumsage]

Vaccinate 12-15 year olds. CO2 monitors in schools, HEPA filters in classrooms. Mask everyone who can wear one. Stop forcing clinically vulnerable children or children with clinically vulnerable parents etc back into schools that aren't safe for them - provide some good online options instead. Drive community transmission down, and use the breathing space to build a functioning test trace and isolate system. Basically all the stuff we should have done a year and a half ago, that would have meant many thousands of people who are now dead would still be alive, and we wouldn't have suffered the social and economic damage that hoping it would all sort of blow over has caused.

Aside from vaccinations which a separate issue, none of these measures would reduce the number of children who catch COVID, only the rate at which they do so.