Just in case you don't know - if kids in school refuse to take lateral flow test NOTHING HAPPENS

[LaurieFairyCake]

They just go into lessons like normal

Schools not allowed to send them home

Dh has had 30 parents so far email in to say they don't consent for their children to be tested

And as for masks (compulsory now) - yeah, schools are allowed to make it a rule but they're NOT allowed to exclude them if the don't

Are we all reassured by this utter bullshit?

Nope, thought not

@minchinfin

Yes so round here. They've finished group 6 and are well into group 7 so yes so for all the teachers that are 60+ and many that are 50+, unless they have refused the vaccine of course.

My son is autistic spectrum and also extremely squeamish (faints at blood tests etc). He's just arrived home from having a test as school and found it "fine"

There is no region where all of even Group 6 (by age) have had a first dose. www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/COVID-19-weekly-announced-vaccinations-4-March-2021-1.xlsx Neither is there a region where all the clinically extremely vulnerable have been vaccinated. www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/COVID-19-weekly-announced-vaccinations-4-March-2021-1.xlsx

Therefore I’d be surprised if there were any region where all Group 6 had been done.

May as well get a test then.

Gives you a better picture of the future childcare options you may need to organise if your kids are still Year 7 and maybe not old enough to stay home alone yet, as it’s looking likely kids will still be having time off as contacts this year.

My eldest (13) had one yesterday and this morning we’ve been informed ‘due to continued high Covid cases in school the following restrictions will remain in place’.

Must mean a large proportion of secondary school kids there tested positive on LFT days.

Youngest (11) due for LFT at a different secondary later today.

Whether they’re unreliable or not isn’t for us the uneducated non-scientists to know, but the LFTs could give parents a more rounded idea of the situation in their child’s school so the more kids that test, the better.

minchinfin

Yes so round here. They've finished group 6 and are well into group 7 so yes so for all the teachers that are 60+ and many that are 50+, unless they have refused the vaccine of course.

My son is autistic spectrum and also extremely squeamish (faints at blood tests etc). He's just arrived home from having a test as school and found it "fine"

There is no region where all of even Group 6 (by age) have had a first dose.
www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/COVID-19-weekly-announced-vaccinations-4-March-2021-1.xlsx
Neither is there a region where all the clinically extremely vulnerable have been vaccinated.
www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2021/03/COVID-19-weekly-announced-vaccinations-4-March-2021-1.xlsx

Therefore I’d be surprised if there were any region where all Group 6 had been done.

If you mean there is nowhere where 100% of each group have had at least 1 dose of vaccine, then yes, of course, they will never reach 100% as there will be some refusals and a very few number of people who cant have the vaccine for medical reasons.

There are many regions where they have finished inviting group 6 though, here are the stats for my particular GP practice who are now midway through group 7. this means potentially that all teachers in my children's schools will have had the vaccine, or been offered it, by the time they go back next week - though admittedly some of the younger ones will only be a week or so in and wont have yet developed the 3 week average full response from the first dose.

I know through my work that most GP practices in this areas are also either finishing group 6 or on group 7 this week. I imagine there are other parts of the country not as far ahead, but they will be on group 5 at a minimum so, yes, all 70+ vulnerable people have been offered a vaccine.

In addition, my dc school tested the entire school today over the course of the day (except year 13) which is approx. 720 pupils (minus the odd refuser) and have just reported not single positive case on the lateral flow tests - which bodes well for next week,

Bear in mind that some group 6 people in that list will have been vaccinated at national centres as well and wont yet show up on the list so the 72% for group 6 will actually be higher

If you mean there is nowhere where 100% of each group have had at least 1 dose of vaccine, then yes, of course, they will never reach 100%

No, I didn’t mean that. I meant what I said, that not all Group 6 had been done, so the assertion that all vulnerable staff would have been vaccinated was incorrect.

So if the LFTs pick up a load of positives, (from kids who have had Covid asymptomatically sometime within the last 90 days) then they and their close contacts and households will be off for 10 days.

Will those kids be exempt from testing after isolation is finished? Otherwise it seems like they'll end up sending the same kids home repeatedly until they eventually test clear.

Yes, they have, where I live. Why is that so hard to understand?

Yes, they have, where I live. Why is that so hard to understand?

It’s not. But your implication was that it is so everywhere. I was pointing out that it’s not.

I had an email from DDs secondary saying if you've had Covid in the last 90 days do not do the LFT. I assume that's to prevent false positives preventing a return to school (fair enough).

DD has been in a keyworker all through and recently had her first lateral flow. She was extremely nervous.
But it was reassurance that when she got to school she could change her mind if she really felt she couldn't do it. And that's why I consented.

Schools are not going to pin your kid down to swab them - if the child doesn't want to go through with it - that's that. But the adult consent has to be there to get to that stage.

DD is 11 so an adult had to do it for her. It was fine. She gagged a bit. She'll have another one at some point next week.

In our school (I'm a primary TA) we've been really glad to have LFTs twice a week for the adults (none have refused). The TAs at our school have been manning the fort, so we have been glad to know that we aren't spreading it to our pupils or our colleagues.

With regard to getting a void result, we've been told its unlikely.
I have accidentally touched my tongue and cheek in the last 8 weeks, a colleague with a strong gag reflex has done a quick tonsil swab then gone straight up the nose, etc. None of us have come back with an invalid result.

People are going to have to reassess their individual rights/wants vs the general good to society.

It might come as a shock to some but you cannot make teachers teach. You don’t taser them if they feel unsafe and stop attending. Yes, you can discipline them and (eventually) sack them, but it takes time and, in scarcity subjects, you might replace them with semi qualified teachers, or those qualified in another subject (bio graduate teaching physics (badly) for instance).

And, if a pupil refuses to wear a mask, do you really think teachers will pass close to them to check that they are working?

Mask exemptions aren’t shields. I recently waited in a supermarket queue for a masked checkout person, when there was a free unmasked checkout person in the next aisle. I was told she was exempt but got no answer when I asked ‘how does that protect me?’

If we want schools to work, we need to embrace testing and masks, at least until after the Easter hols.

As a healthcare professional I am expected to deal with patients that are exempt from mask wearing or even just refuse. If we all refused to work then there would be a serious problem. Well we just wouldn’t. Why should teachers be any different?
It’s time we started seeing education as a necessity and not optional as we do healthcare.

@Carycy,

I see your point but there are levels and levels of necessity. I would not expect a health care professional to have to see someone with a minor complaint face to face without a mask, especially if they were older (say late 50s) and unvaccinated.
Nothing wrong in delaying the appointment a couple of months.

I think schools are the same. Education is a necessity but keeping pupils who won’t test or wear a mask home until after the Easter holidays makes sense to me.

It won’t happen. They have a right to come in. But I have the right to feel they (well, their parents really) are being selfish.

I was told she was exempt but got no answer when I asked ‘how does that protect me?’

How awful of you.

@LaurieFairyCake

I didn't think it would be compulsory - have to have bodily autonomy

I thought the teachers would be able to send refusers of tests and masks HOME - to exclude them

And they can't 🤷‍♀️

It is utterly baffling that anyone would think this might happen, let alone the scary prospect that some people might actually think it should.

@Barrantsvidal

Good. The tests are unreliable and the masks are germ-ridden sodden rags by break time.

50% pick up of asymptotic cases is better than zero. Masks transmission by 67% so grow up.

If your child doesn’t wear a mask - don’t send them to school.

You have no idea which children are untested/unmasked because they're unable to take a test/wear a mask.

TheReluctantPhoenix many children with additional needs ( who are refusing testing) are already at a disadvantage to their peers. Keeping them home and allowing their classmates to return, would widen that gap even further.

My understanding is, its about keeping kids in school so if there is a case in a class instead of the bubble going home for ten days the opted in kids will be tested everyday and those opted out will have to go home for ten days???????

I do ultrasound scans in pregnancy so I don’t get to turn anyone away. I get their partners too now. That’s about 30 people a day I am exposed to. The older sonographers don’t get to be exempt either, they are treated exactly the same. I am also back to scanning routine general ultrasound stuff that could probably wait. Obviously we have been vaccinated now but we have been doing this since day one, back when patients were not wearing masks and I was sat face to face with them for 20-30 minute at a time.
So it does all get on my nerves just a bit to be honest. Children need to be educated. This has gone on long enough.

@Howmanysyllabasisthat

If your child doesn’t wear a mask - don’t send them to school.

Because someone on Mumsnet said so?

I'm pretty sure this must be obvious to every parent of a secondary school child given we have had to either sign or refuse a consent form knowing our children will return regardless.

There will be a strong correlation between children with SEN and/or disabilities and children who have not being tested snd/or are not wearing a mask. Excluding them would effectively be denying those children an education and that's discrimination.

Either schools are as safe as they were last term - or safer seeing as numbers are dropping - in which case additional measures such as masks in classrooms and twice-weekly testing of pupils shouldn't be needed, or they're not as safe/safer in which case they shouldn't be opening to all pupils.

@Carycy,

I am shocked that partners are allowed. It is totally unnecessary.

But two wrongs do not a right make.

We need to get society back to normal for everyone, which means aggressively driving transmission down.

In the same way that it was ‘tough’ to be old or vulnerable during a pandemic and risk hospital or death, it should be ‘tough’ if you cannot take the safety measures to integrate at school. You can wait a few weeks.

It does seem totally hypocritical to believe the physically vulnerable have no right to be kept safe by others behaving sensibly (witness December) whereas every accommodation has to be made for the mentally vulnerable.

And, if children need education, we need to keep schools open and safe.

whereas every accommodation has to be made for the mentally vulnerable

Mental health conditions can be just as debilitating as physical conditions and, just like physical conditions, can be disabling.