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?

Unemployment even

Maybe the schools can come up with another way of drop off and collection. Maybe staggered so that not all parents are standing together at the same time.
Apart from that I have no idea.
Alls I know is if my kids were in school and it was announced that the teacher had contracted it I would be very scared

The problem is that people have got caught up in the thought that the virus must be stopped at all costs without actually thinking through what those costs actually entail.

Literally, this is exactly what we all do every single day.

The risk is incredibly low for children and even people in their twenties and thirties (so lots of teachers)

And the rest of the teachers?
Plus all those in their 20s and 30s who are in the greater risk categories?

Before shut down more than 1/3 of our teaching staff were sent home as there were at greater risk due to medical issues. Even more of our lunchtime assistants were unable to work.

@alloutoffucks the problem is though if 70% of deaths are over 75 and 92% over 60 (in England) then many are doing to be dying with underlying conditions because very few of us get to 75 without one. That doesnt mean that for younger people with the same underlying conditions is the same.

We just dont know at the moment to what extent these increase your risk for those who are young, and for the most part the younger cases seem to potentially be cykokine storm/viral load or just a general bad luck to have such a reaction.

Others are I suspect due to not resting properly (Boris Johnson for example) or receiving treatment

Now for me schools should remain shut until the end of the 12 week period. At which point enough data should be collated to actually properly identify the vulnerable (outside of age which is clearly a huge factor) should be done with a proper understanding of what those risks actually are.

Then decisions can be made as to risk.

There will come a point, before the vaccine is ready, when enough people have had it already that the risk is low.

@sobeyondthehills They are all part of the leisure industry, hotels, entertainment, etc.

@LaurieMarlow Why do you feel the need to be so insulting and patronising?

@bookworm14 Yes I know what the 80s were like. I lived somewhere that was devastated by unemployment in the 80s. Some areas were largely fine.

It's also not just a case of certain industries affected and the rest carry on fine, it all has a knock-on effect and plenty of people working from home just now in jobs that are currently safe will be at risk of redundancy as well if this continues.

It's shit, there are no good choices really but the cure cannot be worse than the disease.

So it’s fine for other people’s income to be affected alloutoffucks, just not yours? And people you know are still working, so the thousands that aren’t are irrelevant, because they’re not in your circle?
You said it yourself, people need to work to put food on the table. Approx 10% of the population will be unemployed.

As I said @alloutoffucks I think you are massively underestimating exactly how many people this is effecting and more importantly have no idea how many people have slipped through the net, because they are classed as a limited company, because they are freelance, because they started the job in March, because they haven't been self employed for more than a year, so will get fuck all help

Yet because everyone you know is working, thats ok?

Check how many children have died from domestic violence during lockdown compared to how many children have died from Covid. Not to mention significantly worse life outcomes in the lot in the longer-term the longer lock down continues.

Burney They will be in a worse position if the virus in unchecked, there will be no money for anything else

@HoffiCoffi13 I did not say that at all.

@dancemom I think that is unlikely. But we don't know.

No, but you were completely horrified at the idea that you could quit your teaching job if you felt it was too risky to return, as you need to put food on your table. When people pointed out that other people have lost their income due to the lockdown, you said ‘everyone I know is still working’. Completely disregarding all those who aren’t still working, and are struggling to put food on the table due to the lockdown.

I'll go back to work once I'm provided with some sort of decent PPE.

I have a career of over a decade teaching reception age children.
I am ROUTINELY coughed on, sneezed on, have noses wiped on me, children directly in my face EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY.

Yet, when I've been into work the last few weeks we have literally nothing provided to protect us.
I went into a Boots last week. Every single member of staff had masks and face shields.

Small children are quite literally the worst humans on the planet for observing personal space (let alone social distancing) and general hygiene practises. They spend large portions of their day with their fingers either up their noses or in their mouths, or indeed the noses or mouths of their friends.

Honestly, people need to think about how their 5 year olds behave at home and x30.

@HoffiCoffi13 I am not a teacher, you are mixing me up with someone else. I said someone was insensitive to a poster who is a teacher.

@CleanUpWoman I think you are right.

I feel like people are blaming the whole economic situation on schools being closed. More is at play in that 35% drop in GDP than just school closures. Lots of business could operate more safely for the public and their employees than schools can but they are also closed. If GDP is so closely linked to parents being able to work because their children are at school we need to recognise that huge economic input education has.

Ok well my point still stands. Many many people are losing their jobs due to lockdown. Parents who believe it’s too risky to send their children back to school have the choice to homeschool. Teachers who believe it’s too risky to go back to teaching at the point that schools reopen, and with the level of protection available, have the choice not to return to work.

Boris was right in the first instance. I'm no Tory and certainly no fan of his, but he was right.
People are going to die.

Sadly, the hard of thinking who don't understand statistics, risk, or life bleated out at him and he demagogued his way into the capitulation of lockdown (aided by the non-peer reviewed study by Imperial College - are they still refusing to release the algorithms they used...?).

Then, it became the frightened and hard-of-thinking who determined the course of action. And their voices were loudest in calling the others selfish.

It is not the frightened who are virtuous, it is the ones willing to risk their own lives to keep things going who are
Throughout history the above has been recognised, but now through social media the frightened, non-understanding can speak as never before.
They've shaped a course of action never seen before.

Not so long ago, voices of dissent were pounced on and shamed.

This thread has given me hope that the brave and the critical of thought are now finally able to speak.

Lockdown for a long period is suicide. It's madness. And it must not come about.

I'll go back to work once I'm provided with some sort of decent PPE.

Actually, i will go back to work WITHOUT PPE if someone shows concrete evidence of planning, backed up with all resources needed, for the significant mitigation of risk for all adults in school.

So I might not need PPE if:

• Cleaning regimes are massively stepped up

• Numbers within classes and within the whole school at one time allow for proper social distancing, and arrangements of equipment, furniture and new screens etc are created to physically enforce this where children are not of an age where instruction works

• Routines for the start and end of day, playtime and lunchtime are set up such that social distancing is maintained at all times, by all members of the school community

• Screening, quarantining and self and family isolation procedures are stringently applied

• Testing is available for anyone within the school community who presents any symptoms

Heck, no, I'll go back if someone who really understands schools shows me a well-worked through plan that takes my safety even vaguely into account...