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.

Someone asked why people are resistant to vaccines. But on the same thread, it has been pointed out that this year's vaccine does not contain the strain that is making everyone sick and there is a study from last year showing that the vaccinated are more likely to catch the flu

School tend to offer flu jabs to staff but uptake is mixed. Same with adults in other workplaces. Some can’t have the vaccine.
Many parents are opting their children out of the flu vaccine. It’s flu season, it spreads, schools close when sickness creates a safeguarding issue (or health issues)

Interesting that you found no interest in HEPA purifiers because the Dept of Education did recommend Dyson (perhaps the vacuum cleaner brand you represent) air purifiers in 2021 I think, but independent analysis showed they were really not good value per money in terms of annual cost relative to CADR at 45dB noise.

Purifiers do work at limiting long range transmission, obviously not for kids sitting next to each other. Which is important because a new Nature study shows that every doubling of time spent in poor air quality in classrooms substantially increased the risk of transmission, so it's not just close contact that drives many infections: "Indoor air quality emerged as a critical risk factor for transmission within classrooms, with more
transmissions in school classes with lower air quality throughout the study. Most infections occurred in the
school class where CO₂ exceeded 1,000 ppm". There is value in cleaning the air. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-66719-3

Also London is rolling out/has rolled out purifiers across 200 schools so there is definitely interest from an air pollution perspective and that shouldn't be limited to London. And they've chosen SmartAir purifiers which perform well in the below chart.

The other technology we should be investing in is far UVC which is safe for skin and eyes and can kill viruses.

N95 masks can be worn much longer than a surgical mask, their shape means they don't touch our mouths so remain cleaner and you can rotate them for use over multiple days. I wear one to work and on public transport, planes, healthcare, stores etc, and as one gets older/more used I transition it to use in lower risk environments.

Surgical masks aren't great but if tightly worn then they are better than nothing.

Do you honestly think schools - staffed by people with no medical training - are responsible for the roll out of the vaccine? Really? It's the NHS. Schools just provide a venue.

Hello there!!!

👋👏👋

The melodramatic virus patrol is back.

Didn't miss them but here they are ready for the next epidemic.

OMG. Those threads. Didn't some posters refer to them as dementors?

Referring to dc as plague spreaders.

Just saw my neighbour leave the house to buy milk. Milk. We are literally in a pandemic and she wants to enjoy her tea. How many grannies have to die so she can avoid UHT.

There’s a man on my street who has walked his dog 3 times today. Unless that dog has a job in the NHS, this is outrageous.

A woman SAT DOWN on a bench. I’m shaking. Do people not understand what ‘stay home’ means???

Saw someone buy wine, crisps and flowers.
Absolutely disgusting. Selfish. Some of us care about society.

Those were the days on Mumsnet.

My DOI link above seems not to be working. So for people interested in recent, rigourous research in the UK context full reference below.
Just put the title in google scholar. In short, the vaccine has an impact & is effective against clinical disease.

Kirsebom FC, Thompson C, Talts T, Kele B, Whitaker HJ, Andrews N, Abdul Aziz N, Rawlinson C, Green RE, Quinot C, Gardner N, Waller E, Allen A, Watson CH, McDonald SL, Zambon M, Pebody R, Ramsay M, Hoschler K, Singanayagam A, Lopez Bernal J. Early influenza virus characterisation and vaccine effectiveness in England in autumn 2025, a period dominated by influenza A(H3N2) subclade K. Euro Surveill. 2025 Nov;30(46):2500854. doi: 10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2025.30.46.2500854. PMID: 41267661; PMCID: PMC12639273.

I have a free vaccine and was vaccinated back in October.Last year My Doctor said there was "some left" when I visited in November .Shouldnt everyone have theirs before now? As far as School staff are concerned, it's difficult to get an appt I realise .Our Chemist actually offered a Saturday Morning Appointment though!Also as a sidenote NHS staff have a low take up rate ,something like 37% in some areas?

I know exactly where my monitor is, it's still where it was in COVID and just like in COVID it's never around 800, more like 2000, but what good is a monitor if nothing is done about it? Most schools have windows that barely open and some classrooms have no windows at all. It's laughable to think schools have anywhere like the funding to deal with issues like this without investment.

The flu vaccine is incredibly effective if you get it every year. Every new strain goes up a strong immune system used to the virus. It's the reason why Covid was a pandemic when flu isn't. Flu is endemic in our societies, while Covid was a new virus our bodies had never faced and our immune systems had no respond to. It took the most basic drastic measures against a viral pandemic, isolation, to keep deaths down until a vaccine was developed in record time.

Respiratory viruses are the most serious health problem we'll be facing in the next 50 years. Viruses kill and human populations only need a strong mutation between animals and human transmission to create another pandemic.

Viruses can't reproduce on their own, but if they invade, they'll kill. They will mutate and develop against their host immunity. Our only defence against it is research and following basic vaccination and isolation measures. Nothing else works against them.

I find unbelievable how many people still live in la la land regarding vaccinations.

Perhaps schools shouldn't be telling parents to send their kids in when they are unwell

Schools wouldn't be forced to do this if the government weren't obsessing so much about the attendance and telling them all children had to have x% attendance!

Our school vaccinated far too late.

Schools don't decide when to vaccinate, do they? The school nursing team tell them when they can come in.

People are blaming schools for things that they have no control over!

I thought the science established pre 2020 were that surgical masks were for the benefit of those around us, and that the evidence did not support the idea that they protected the wearer

@AussieManque does that mask protect both wearer and others ?
Where could I get some at short notice

@Shinyandnew1 absolutely it doesn't make sense ! Nonsensical then people don't buy into it

@Alondra that's interesting re getting vaccinated every year helps the immune system

As is evidenced by this thread, there are both psychological and practical barriers to vaccination uptake.
In some areas it may be difficult to book a free vaccine if you are eligible and/or a paid one if not. However, please try if you do want one. I am eligible and could book covid & flu jabs using the NHS app at a local pharmacy. Evening & weekend slots were available. My child had the vaccine at school, but it was later than planned due to staff shortages.
There is a lot of vaccine sceptism. It is really hard to combat this. People are quick to forget how vaccines have improved our lives. Think back to the devastating impact of so many communicable diseases (diptheria, small pox, TB ...). We know how vaccines offer protection. There is deades of scientific research. Flu vaccines are not 100% effective because of virus mutation. They do offer some protection & reduce severe disease and hospitilisation. That is why those eligible are envouraged to get them.

So either way it's not the fault of the parents as originally said by a few posters on here

But why, even if they had the vaccine they can still get it and pass it on.

Some facts to counter all the finger pointing...

Vaccine uptake figures for this year are only available (on gov site) for the month of September, but they show September uptake among primary age children is in line with the same period last year (slightly higher in fact) with 32% this year vs 30% for the same period last year. So overall on track to have a similar figure for vaccine uptake among primary children as last year of 54%. The highest vaccine uptake has ever been in this group is 60% in 2019/20, and pre pandemic was only 44%. So this year's flu being worse likely has little to do with the number of children having their vaccines.

I havent checked all other groups in detail, but the ones published on the gov sites show other at risk groups (age 2&3, pregnant women, over 75s) are getting vaccinated at similar or higher rates than last year too.

Theres no figures that I can find easily for the number of teachers vaccinated as its not a specific group monitored by GPs/NHS/gov. Maybe that has had an impact of the number of teachers off sick, but they certainly can't be to blame for the severity of the flu and increased numbers alone.

The more likely issue here is the fact, already stated by a few posters, that the flu vaccine only covers specific strains of flu. The vaccine manufactures do their best to predict which strains of flu we will need protection against for this particular year but this is by no means an exact science and the virus can mutate/change to a new strains at any time.

Its most likely just a bad year for vaccine effectiveness and a particularly bad strain or strains that haven't been covered by the vaccine have managed to take hold. It happens. Its not great, but it'll pass, and next year will probably be much better because everyone that had it bad this year will have built some natural immunity on top of whats covered in the vaccine.

I know its nice to have someone to blame but in reality vaccine uptake hasn't changed significantly and is in fact higher than it was pre-pamdemic.

It does. It builds the defences against the virus and new strains.

I remember when I was at school, there would be occasions when large numbers of children and teachers would be off sick. On at least one occasion more than half the class. No one would have dreamt of suggesting the school closed. And this was a time when sick bays were still needed as parents would be uncontactable for most of the day, so children falling sick in school had to be nursed there.

I have worked in the medical industry for some time. A lot of the drs I have dealt with say they only ever started getting the flu after they started the vaccination for it. One of them refused to have it and never had the flu.
So I have never been one to get it after the percentage that said they only ever got it after the vaccine.

But then if you ask anyone who's had a cold they'll say I had the flu. The real flu isn't as common as people would have you think because a lot of people say they've had the flu numerous times a year when all it was, was simply a cold. So it's fine to say they should all be jabbed but I don't think it will prevent a lot of them from getting it anyway resulting in the same outcome.

There is, but people can still get the flu even if they have been vaccinated. it doesn't solve everything and if the children are not being vaccinated then there is a much higher risk of this happening.

Teachers are people too, they get sick

why staff? why not the children? less than half of my form took up the offer of a free vaccination (up the nose thing) in school for flu. I'm vaccinated - I am considered 'vulnerable' but had to travel 10 miles to a pharmacy that had a slot at a time I could attend. If I can manage that, why can't the parents sign an online form and get their kids sorted?

I mean what you're saying is we're just childcare, and that shouldn't be interrupted at any cost. This is a jigsaw. If you want compulsory school staff vaccinations then it's also compulsory for the children.

Isn't it obvious. A few children off and the classes carry on as usual. A few teachers off and the children have to be sent home. See the difference???

I don’t - the system is to blame, not the school.

But that doesn’t change the fact that our school was far too late getting the vaccine.