To wonder how schools can realistically reopen when there is still a killer virus about with no vaccine?

[JustCantShakeIt]

I’m not talking about them reopening now, in May or June or even September.

Who is prepared to send their DC into a school with hundreds of other DC, where social distancing and keeping a germ free environment is literally impossible, even with the best wills in the world, when there is a life threatening disease floating about which is highly transmittable and you have no guarantee it won’t make your DC severely ill or die.

Social distancing just between parents will be impossible at my DC’s school of over 500 where we all have to wait outside the main gates at pick up time.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m desperate for schools to reopen before my DC turn completely feral, but I don’t see how that can happen until we have a vaccine. We’re being told to stay home and keep our distance now due to the risk, the risk will be the same next month or in 5 months won’t it?

That's me told that my health and safety isn't important, as long as parents get to pack their children off to school.

Quit then.

My DS has a heart condition. His consultant says he has no more likelihood of becoming desperately ill with Covid 19 than his, healthy, friend does. However, it is a massive worry. Just like it is for every parent. When school finally starts I will be sending him in (and keeping everything crossed all the time) because he can't sit at home for the rest of his life - however long or short that is.

BUT, as I work in a school, I see first hand how utterly pointless it is to do social distancing WITH SCHOOLS SET UP AS THEY CURRENTLY ARE. So, IF we're to keep to social distancing when we start up again, schools cannot open as they were before the CV lockdown. Whether that's PPE for staff, staggered school hours, different years in different days we'll work with what we get. That's what schools do.

But just to give some insight into school life for those who work elsewhere. I work in a massive school - 2000 plus children. We have 40 minutes to get them all fed - that's not staggered; that's 2000 plus people including staff being fed between 1.00pm and 1.40pm, plus 15 minutes break during the morning.

70% of our students come in from outside the immediate area, by double decker buses that are rammed full. The kids sit 6 to a table - and that table does not change size from year 7 upwards. So imagine being 16 years old, sitting at a table that was squashed when you were 11 years old. Thirty plus people in a room that isn't big enough to move around in without chairs being shifted in.

School is like being on the London underground (which has been shown recently on the news) for 7 hours every day. 2000 people, quite literally cheek by jowl. Sharing equipment, sharing stationery (most of which has been in someone's mouth - and this is secondary school).

Kids are not sensible mini adults (mind you some adults take some beating for stupidity). Even our year 12 students have to be told how to behave sometimes.

I've already mentioned year 10s licking library books in the fortnight before lockdown when we were desperately wiping down everything with disinfectant. They think it's funny. Coughing in each others face 'just for a laugh'. Jumping all over their mates in the playground. One of our toilet blocks was out of action for half a day because some little angel had stuffed hand wiping paper down the all the loos then flushed until they overflowed. So that cut down on hand washing.

Children are not little robots, they are mucky, they don't think and to them risk is funny. That's why you see kids playing 'chicken' on the roads - it's 'funny' and they are invincible.

BTW our school is considered a good school! Which it is - but the kids are just that, kids.

Add to that teachers having to break up fights and deal with kids who shouldn't be in school because they are ill (in some cases puking up in the classroom). All without PPE and you have a big problem.

The point is that of course the schools have to open. Businesses have to get back to work. But businesses will have to understand that, if there is a Covid 19 case in a school, that school will have to shut for a day to deep clean (I'm assuming - that's what happened to two schools in our area before lockdown). And parents will have to deal with that.

The UK will open for business again - it has to - but it won't be the same 'open for business' that it was in February. That time has gone. And everyone, teachers, parents, children and business, will have to get used to that and come together to make it work.

This isn't about teachers not wanting to teach or parents being 'bad parents' because they want their children to go to school/not go to school.

It's not about businesses making a profit or taxes going up or down. It's about children needing to learn AND to be kept safe. That's the responsibility of everyone of everyone who comes into contact with them.

It can be worked out but everyone has to be prepared to compromise. Class sizes may need to reduce for a while to allow social distancing, business may have to allow parents some working from home to accommodate children not being in school on a rota system, transport may need to stagger buses to keep them less full, schools may need to stagger days for teaching. If that's what needs to happen, then that's what needs to happen. And everyone will just have to suck it up - kids, parents, teachers, the community and business.

@LaurieMarlow What a heartless post.

If they reopen in September, then the number of people who have already had it will be significantly higher than it is now. Meaning it won't spread as easily anyway.

@alloutoffucks but with diabetes though what are the stats on type 1 vs type 2 diabetes. Looking at those whose diabetes is well managed and those who isnt. And those from whom they died of coronavirus with diabetes but actually the fact they had diabetes was incidental. Yes in Italy 35% and New York it was 37% but 12% of 70-79 years old have diabetes. That and management of type 2 problematic in the elderly and that is seen as the risk.

The actual risk for a younger person with well managed type 1 diabetes isnt actually known yet and it is this that needs to be looked at.

We need to properly look through now the dataset that we have and really decide who is at risk and why. The shielded group was decided quite arbritatrily because there just wasnt enough known to say. We should be started to get enough through for those in charge to look at and really assess the risk.

So in that sense I dont think we disagree - most are low risk and some are high but we have to find out exactly who is high risk (and age is still the biggest factor here) and how best to manage it on an individual basis. But once June/July hits I think schools will start to thinl about reopening

I don't get it either. If one child is infected, it will spread to the classmates. Honestly, we think we have it bad, but it would be a lot worse if the schools were still open

@LondonJax I am glad your DP is not at an increased risk. The shielded group criteria does identify who is, because it is not always who people think.
I may actually have a much longer life expectancy than some people with health issues who are not in the shielded group like me. Because it is devised on the way this virus operates.

Im so friggin torn.

I desperately want to give my five year old her life back. Her teachers, friends and her routine. I want her to finish reception so she understands what happens next. I feel it's a crap first year at school. I'll be sad for her if she goes straight into year one. If she was further ahead and more confident I'd feel she was ready. But whilst she has loved school there are parts of her that simply were not ready to start so it's taken her longer to get into it. Just as she was picking it up this bluddy virus ruined it.

The other part of me does not want to gamble our health. I don't want to leave my children if my body can't fight this. They need me (as all young children need their parents and carers) and the thought of them not having me anymore is terrifying.

I think it's affecting young people more than the government first predicted. I've currently got a friend in hospital with it. 32 years old. So now it's close to home and I can see how it can cause severe breathing difficulties in people who o know are healthy. It's just terrifying.

To be honest the whole situation is upsetting and I try not to think about it or I just get sad. I wouldn't change having my kids for anything but I am sad that I've brought them into this world when it's currently a mess!

I can't wait for the day she's happy at school and we can all relax again. Our biggest worry will be the yearly sickness bug. It doesn't feel close yet.

The lack of testing isn't helpful either. Ideally we all need testing to see what's actually going on.

What a heartless post.

How is it heartless. I don’t have the choice. My business can only do about 5-10% of its usual revenue at the moment. How are we supposed to pay mortgages, buy food?

The second I can get out and work properly (risking myself life) jump at it, because otherwise we’re fucked.

You're right the risks will still be there. You're totally unreasonable thinking indefinitely stopping children going to school is proportionate. I think this brief break was reasonable to gather stock and assess things but we really need to be starting again once ITU cases are confirmed to be dropping.

@Quartz2208 I agree. And diabetes does not get you in the shielded group at all.
I remember though someone on MN sharing stats which showed the majority of diabetes patients do not have diabetes which is well managed. No idea of that is true as I know little about the condition, but if true it means a lot of people potentially are at risk.
It is also true that people with relatively minor underlying conditions are dying. Because they are all just reported as underlying conditions, we have no idea how common it is for someone to die if they only have asthma and use an inhaler. But I do know from news reports that people have died who only have this relatively mild type of asthma. Again won't get you in the shielded group.

@LaurieMarlow Of course it is heartless to tell someone afraid that a virus could kill them or their family just to quit work then.

As I said above, when the schools go back, if we as parents or teachers still feel the risk is too high, we have choices. The choice as parents to homeschool, or the choice as teachers to take a career break or to leave the profession.
Other people in other professions are also at risk, and they are having to make similar choices.

Also, @Floatyboat, I think we've all got to understand that this type of lockdown is likely to be a normal thing.

This isn't a break, it's the way the government can control the impact on the NHS. It's the only way (I think) that they can do that. So, as ITU cases grow again, which they will, we'll be locked down again. Whether that's fully or partly depends on the government.

But this won't be the only lockdown in the next year or so. The cases will rise, ITU will get close to full and we'll go into lockdown for a few weeks until the curve flattens again.

April, let's tailor our policy to maximally benefit your own circumstances shall we? All the other key workers need to carry on working of course though...

If society doesn't produce it can't consume. We need to get back to work. Some people will die. People die every day from poverty, car accidents, obesity, it's sad.

I don’t think @LaurieMarlow is particularly heartless either.

It’s a shit situation for everyone but this is a new disease and it’s out there now. What if it mutates every year? We’ll be reliant on a decent % of the population taking a vaccine every year (and we know vaccination rates are not good enough anyway) AND hoping that the vaccine is good enough every year. Some years the flu vaccine is next to useless because predictions were wrong. This is out there now and it’s not like we can just wait an extra few months and it will all be ok. At some point we will have to go back out into the world and face it.

Of course it is heartless to tell someone afraid that a virus could kill them or their family just to quit work then.

So you’re not going to engage with the issue of the many, many people who will not be able to put food on the table in the near future then?

What do you think a 35% reduction in the economy will look like?

Are you prepared to take unpaid leave so you can keep yourself safe, but ensure tax revenue is channelled where it’s most needed? (I’m sure I know the answer to that )

Telling people to quit work if they are medically vulnerable and do not want to die is heartless. Because most people need to work to eat. So what you are really saying is stfu and accept that you might die in the next few months. Because there is nothing we will do to stop it happening.

@LondonJax yes I agree it is not all or nothing

I don’t think it was a heartless comment. It’s reality really. And some people’s jobs will be more risky than others.

Because most people need to work to eat

Yes, like the people who need their children to go back to school at some point in the near future so that they can work to put a roof over their heads and food on their tables.

Yanbu. Im not sending mine back. I couldn't live with the worry/guilt. I'll happily keep mine off until a vaccine/better treatment.

Why is the food on your table more important than the food on other people’s tables?

@alloutoffucks I think people who don't know their absolute risk of death in the next year without covid don't have right to get high mighty about it now. Very few people have their risk of death in next 12 months more than double due to Corona

Because most people need to work to eat.

EXACTLY

and we can’t work because of lock down conditions and our children having to be at home.

Is our need to eat lesser than a teachers?