Schools closing for flu

[Busydoingsomething]

A school near me has partially closed due to staff shortages. Another has cancelled all performances. Some of the children will have been vaccinated but I suspect, lots of the staff won’t have been. I was listening to 2 people today, on the train, discussing whether school staff should be vaccinated, to prevent the staff being off and impacting on education. Wondering if this would be a good move.

If you think that someone does not have £15 to spare (especially this time of year), then you do not live in the real world.

I guess you should consider yourself lucky that this is so inconceivable for you.

Yep, this.

I remember being pissed off that my SaLT relative had got the Covid vaccine as she worked for the NHS so needed to be prioritised, yet she'd worked entirely from home since March 2020 and hadn't seen a child in person for months. School staff were not prioritised at all, yet were still in school with children, whilst the media was flooded with stories saying children didn't spread diseases so teachers were perfectly safe. There was some very important woman on the Covid daily updates (I can't remember who she was) saying that children eating lunch all together was fine because children never share food from their lunchboxes.

You can order/buy tests kits for A and B flu in supermarkets or online.
I buy covid tests too.

Your post reflects how little the majority of people know about the flu vaccine.If you get the vaccine every year, it builds up your immune system against the flu virus. The virus mutate easily and develops new strains to bypass our immunity defences. It's the reason why getting the jab every year is most effective.

The new vaccine may not completely protect you against the new strain, but your own immune system will recognise it and protect you against the worst the virus can do to your body - from feeling like you're at death's door for 1/2/3 weeks to a simple bad cold.

FGS ITS JUST FLU

The flu vaccine is not, and never has been, that effective - it is formulated against a virus sample often 2 years out of step with the current mutation and therefore generally only gives protection against severe symptoms.

It cannot prevent transmission, in theory it can heighten it, because a teacher with flu sick in bed is unlikely to cause much transmission, one slightly under the weather at school is merrily spreading like typhoid Mary.

Its a respiratory virus, and if 1918 and 2020 taught us anything is they are nigh on impossible to control.

School staff didn’t get the Covid vaccine earlier than anyone else. So I can’t see why the flu vaccine would be any different.

What’s your point?

Most people aren’t well enough to go to work with flu and so what’s your point?

This thread is about school closures due to staff shortages due to flu.

The schools here have been giving the nasal sprays way too late. DS was given it 10th Dec!!, It takes 2 weeks to be effective. Unfortunately 50% of his year group (yr 11) are currently or have recently been off with flu. The symptoms given on class whats app are awful. 2 boys have fainted, 1 on a train home. 2 have been in A&E.

It does work. Please stop with this dangerous claptrap.

New data published today by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides clear evidence that this year’s vaccine is doing a good job of preventing severe flu. So far this winter, children in Scotland are 78% less likely to be admitted to hospital with flu if vaccinated; with vaccinated adults in Scotland aged 65 and over 37% less likely to be hospitalised.

You can definitely control respiratory viruses of you want to. If everyone wore an N95 mask starting today then they wouldn't be transmitting or catching flu, or covid. Combine with other airborne mitigations: ventilation and HEPA air purifiers.

If for a start the NHS implemented proper airborne infection control, rather than relying on flimsy, baggy surgical masks, and mixing COVID infected patients with non-infected ones on wards, then we'd be in a much better place.

One reason this flu wave is severe is that it comes straight off the back of a COVID peak in October in the UK, and we all (should) know (by now) that COVID infections disregulate your immune system, leaving you more vulnerable to other infections.

Until people take airborne mitigations then we are doomed to repeated waves of infection.

Edited to add the flu vaccine isn't based on strains common two years ago. Every year the WHO holds two meetings to determine what to include in the Southern and then Northern hemisphere vaccines. Based on what is currently circulating and what is predicted to circulate. They don't need a two year lead time. Sometimes the northern one is different to the southern one based on the latest information and modeling.

We offer vaccine vouchers at work. It is easy to book appointments on Saturdays and Sundays.

Yes, I was talking to someone who said she wasn't eligible and was under the impression it was expensive to buy privately. It's £16!!!

That’s not correct. If you simply don’t fill in the form you haven’t given your consent and your child won’t get the vaccine.

A local high school closed at the end of November because of the number of cases of flu. The NHS flu vaccinations for the children only took place this week.

Perhaps if the vaccinations were earlier, this could have been avoided.

Exactly. If you wait until there’s a crisis to get hold of something then it will obviously become scarce. The vaccine has been available since September.

I think a lot of it has to do with a lack of trust between the public and the government, which isn’t surprising considering all the lies we were told and wrong decisions we had to live through during Covid. I’d think about taking the vaccine if it was offered free during school time, but Im not going to pay for it and I’m not going to waste my time finding a pharmacy that will offer it locally or trek into town and pay for travel and parking to do my employer a favour.
If teachers being vaccinated was that important, we would all be given it for free and we would be given the time to get it done. My school did have some free vouchers to offer, but only enough to cover around 10% of the staff. They don’t get to complain about closing classes and staff absence, especially when we aren’t allowed to send children home when they obviously shouldn’t be there because of attendance.

Surgical masks have no effect whatsoever, N95 masks, you are correct, they work if properly fitted, but their useful life is fairly limited and many find them difficult to wear for long periods.

HEPA filter units like the cross-rosenthal design do work up to a point, they would be effective in a room with few occupants, but a small classroom with 35 children in, the rate of air change would not be enough.

My business is supplying and installing electrical equipment in schools and hospitals, we are an agent for a large manufacturer of vacuum cleaners, at the end of the covid years we looked at the possibility of manufacturing a HEPA system to fit in schools, and even came up with a design, but the project went no further as we found that the rate of air exchange would not be sufficient in a crowded room and there was basically zero interest from the education sector in taking it up.

Good luck. I've been trying for a week and can't find one in a 15 mile radius.

A school in our area has closed due to this.

Our school vaccinated far too late. During Oct half term the news was telling people to get their children vaccinated as there was a surge in cases then. Yet our school still waited until the end of November.

My DC was actually ill with it on the day of the vaccinations - it swept through the school before they took place.

I still want them to have the vaccination as it covers various strains, however the only catch up clinic is during the school day in a location a half hour drive away - and I don’t have a car so it would mean missing a few hours of school.

The GP surgery won’t help as they say it’s ‘nothing to do with them’. The private pharmacies in this area won’t vaccinate childen.

I think this is a bit... weak? DH is a teacher who gets a vaccine voucher. He is indeed often/usually in work until 5, but it wasn't that hard for him to find one particular day where he could go get the vaccine at 4.30. Just like I had to find a time that worked around work to have my own (paid for) vaccine done, and make the time back later - this isn't some unique challenge for teachers. Obviously having it done on site is even more convenient. He did do it in October though - realistically, of course December is a bit late to start trying to book an appointment for a flu vaccine...

I work in a school we are offered vaccinations however the vaccine does not prevent you getting the flu, it only lessens the symptoms, so vaccinated or not it can still have an impact.

I suspect it depends where you are.

Only one of the 4 pharmacies in my small town has vaccines available. My nearest pharmacy had used up all theirs by the end of October, although that might be connected with the fact that it's the only pharmacy you can park anywhere near, so will have been most people's first choice.

The one that still has some is really busy though, the first available appointment was a week ahead when I rang them on Tuesday.

The next nearest place with availability, according to the NHS website, is an Asda pharmacy 12 miles away and a nightmare to get to if you don't drive. There must be at least 10 pharmacies closer than that.

I mean, they say flu but there will be some with normal run of the mill issues, some who’s kids are also ill, and a plethora of other things going around. In our area there’s a sickness bug along with the flu and my kids nursery had a case of croup and hand foot and mouth.

In a children’s setting it’s so hard to get rid of while people are in and out. Especially
younger children who don’t wash their hands and probably still out things in their mouth. I would
hooe the school would perhaps do a deep clean of the parts that are shut.

I was actually offered the flu vaccine at my school but due to childcare was unable to find a time
to go get it.

I'm not antivax, my children have had every other vaccination, but I stopped giving permission for the flu one because every year without fail it made them unwell for several days.

Since they stopped having the flu vaccination they've had 100% attendance.

I'm a firm believer in vaccinations as a general rule, mine have had all childhood vaccinations, the full standard schedule other than this one.