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?

The Iceland study is not definitive.

There are other studies that unfortunately suggest the opposite.

There are also studies that unfortunately suggest immunity is often not conferred with having had the virus.

Not true. I live in France, my local school is open for key workers children

Interesting. My sister lives and teaches in France and they are closed entirely, across the region and - she was lead to believe/ nationally.

My son’s best friend’s parents are both hospital staff. She is being looked after at school.

I’m not saying you’re wrong Burney. Perhaps there is some regional variation?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.france24.com/en/20200327-what-public-service-is-about-french-schools-open-to-children-of-health-workers-battling-virus

www.actusoins.com/325770/des-lundi-les-ecoles-seront-ouvertes-pour-les-enfants-des-professionnels-de-sante-qui-ne-disposent-pas-dun-moyen-de-garde.html/amp

It is country wide.

@Iateallthecookies000 yes sending kids to school might mean that others catch the virus of them, same as going to a shop means the shop workers may catch the virus of the shopper, same as going to a hospital means you might catch the virus from a patient or a bus driver might catch it off a passenger. We all might catch it as part of our day to day lives at work and home but we can’t stop living when we are through this peak.

Try to think on a bigger scale, worldwide people need to farm to grow food, process and move that food to shops and sell It so we can eat. People need to drill for oil to power the transport system, to man power stations to keep the lights and the ventilators on. Clearly healthcare staff need to work. The military need to work to both help with this crisis and also stop Russia getting any odd ideas. Transport needs to run to get people to these jobs. Banking needs to work so that people get money in their accounts. The internet people need to do whatever magic stuff they do to support the vast increase in online use. We all need to pay taxes to pay for all of this, And teachers need to teach both to get children’s parents back into work to do the above stuff and also because if we want people to care for us when we’re old then we need to educate this generation.

Fully agree that the way schools work will need to change to minimise risk as much as possible, ideas like teaching in the summer and having the long break in the winter at a possible future peak, allowing shielding teachers to teach from home - there will be shielding children that could do with this. Bigger classrooms to allow more spacing - unused spaces in the community like village halls could be used maybe. It’s going to have to be outside the box thinking. Some of the quality standards that are currently adhered to may have to be relaxed for the duration, much as the medical regulators have had to do. For example it should be 1:1 itu nurses to patients, it’s nearing 1:6 in some areas I hear, students pre qualification have been drafted into front line work, it’s not ideal but in these circumstances It’s the best we can do, school examples would be a flexing of class sizes to allow for people being off sick and using trainee teachers as teachers (more likely to be younger and so less at risk). It won’t be as good learning as it was before but very little is going to be as good as it was before for a long time

There are posters on here claiming some sort of moral high ground by suggesting that they somehow care more because they're going to keep their children at home, possibly for years, until the risk is zero.

The reality for many is that there is no such option. People have to work in order to feed and clothe those children you're intimating they don't really care about.

No one wants people to die. No one wants children to be ill or infect others in their families. It is simply ludicrous to suggest however that the entire population can stay at home for 18 months on the off chance a vaccine will be found. Oh and if and when there is a vaccine you know who will be last to get it? Your children.

Finally just remember when you're ordering your home schooling materials and groceries online to shield you from the world that some poor bastard is picking, packing and driving it to your door and that doesn't seem to present any kind of moral dilemma for you.

If you ever thought the lockdown was until there is a vaccine you have seriously misunderstood the intention. I mean they say it every 5 mins at the briefing - this is to protect the nhs from being overwhelmed by slowing down the transmission. Not to stop the entire population from getting it.

Merci beaucoup! Tres bien!

I’ve obvs been misinformed by my pesky soeur. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Tasty you are being so stupid, there is a massive difference to volunteering for the NHS to deliver stuff, which was the main point of that to standing in a classroom filled with teenagers trying to teach Macbeth.

I lasted a whole 3 days with homeschooling before my partner had to take over the whole lot because I can't get my head round how to teach an 8 year old maths. (It is stupid)

I am up for doing my bit, but that is not going to be it.

there have been some very sobering threads in cancelled medical appointments

This is the biggest red herring of the bunch.

1. Do you have any idea how many medical appointments will be cancelled if the NHS has to deal with increased numbers of COVID-19 patients? If you have a medical appointment and want it to stay there (and to have a live Doctor available) lockdown is your friend.

1. Lockdown is preventing NHS from being bled dry and it is working. They're open for business on other issues because the number of COVID-19 patients have been capped. Without lockdown, we wouldn't have an NHS that could cater to other illnesses.

1. Many appointments have been cancelled because the treatment would render the patient more vulnerable to COVID-19 or bring them into contact with it. The only way to fix this issue is to get on top of COVID-19 through treatment developments, research,contact tracing and testing. And lockdown measures. Not having a lockdown would not stop chemotherapy being cancelled and would make it more likely that it was.

Feed the world - Bono's part:

'Well tonight thank God it's theeeeeem' (NHS staff, supermarket workers. healthcare assistants, bus drivers, tube drivers, warehouse workers, council sanitary workers. etc)
'Insteeeeeeeeeead of uuuuuuuuuuusssssss!' (teachers)

Just like the nurses who've refused to do their jobs (which keep society going) without PPE.

And they have, quite rightly, complained loudly about it.

I'll say it again though. Teaching staff are still going into school and working with keyworker children without PPE and they are just getting on with it. Including me. Thinking that reopening schools too soon is a bad idea does not mean that I am not prepared to take some risk and do my bit. Just that I think the balance of risk needs to be right.

Teachers have a raw deal though. Supermarket workers don't come into contact with a variety of bodily fluids on a daily basis. It's gross being a teacher.

Tasty

Are you not too busy volunteering for the nhs at great personal risk to be on here trolling teachers?

While heaven forbid people who are young and well (and will face much lower risk) should go back to school and work and save the country from poverty and longer term ills. Do people not realise how hypocritical this all is?

I must have been imagining all the stuff I've seen from NHS staff begging people to stay at home and not spread the virus then? I don't think it would be in their interests to have more people getting sick. Isn't that the whole point of the lockdown?!

I think you’d find lots of teaching volunteers in the extensive ranks of the newly unemployed.

Would you like to volunteer as a doctor too? You do realise teaching is something you need to be trained to do? It's not something you can just walk in off the street and do.

Finally just remember when you're ordering your home schooling materials and groceries online to shield you from the world that some poor bastard is picking, packing and driving it to your door and that doesn't seem to present any kind of moral dilemma for you.

I have worked in warehouses, call centres, offices and shops to name a few and can categorically say that none of those roles involved anywhere near the amount of extremely close social contact that is required for teaching small children.

You know how your 5 year old is up in your face constantly?? x30.

You do realise teaching is something you need to be trained to do? It's not something you can just walk in off the street and do.

I actually have teaching experience, though not a PGCE.

I taught for a year in a private school after a longer spell teaching undergrads at university following a PhD.

So I wouldn’t be exactly walking off the street, no. That’s just me speaking for myself.

Volunteer teachers? That's funny.

I think I might volunteer to be a truck driver. I can't drive but what's the worst that could happen?

Children are not great at social distancing and are little germ hoarders.

My 6 and 4 year olds aren’t actually up in my face, they respect my personal space in the main and are great at covering their mouths when they cough and sneeze and washing their hands regularly (in fact too regularly, all the emphasis on hand washing before schools closed means they’ve both become obsessive and I’m having to slather e45 on throughout the day), but I have met some disgusting children so I get your point!

Unfortunately I haven't been able to go into school as I have Coronavirus!

I got it a week before the school closures. I've only just started breathing more normally again in the last few days. I felt very guilty not being in school that last week, the staff who did make it through to the end were beyond stretched.

Hope you feel better soon.

I can confidently tell you that the vast majority of small children are TERRIBLE at observing personal space.
Particularly when there are 30 of them vying for the attention of 1 adult.

I have lost count of the amount of children who have produced poo from their pants as their way of telling me they've had an accident. I wish I was joking.
Actual poo. In their hands. Being shown to me. Usually close to my face.

So yeah, I would quite like some PPE.

But, I shall reiterate again for those wilfully ignoring what we're saying.....

I'll still work. I STILL AM.

But some very important conversations need to be had before we invite a full school population back in.

Just about the same for me, caught it before we closed and just coming through the other side, coughing, breathlessness and chest pains. I'm the lucky one, a family member has been in hospital with it for over 2 weeks now.

Should the kids get PPE too! Not joking think they should wear masks like other countries are doing . The teachers could pass it to the kids too it's not a one way street .