Poll on if you would send your (primary) aged dc back to school on 11/5

[THATscurryfungeBITCH]

Would you be happy to send your primary aged dc back to school on 11th May?

Yes - YABU
No - YANBU

@THATscurryfungeBITCH undecided and unsure. Why can’t I see the voting options any more 🙄 have I changed a setting without realising?

Brogley are you in Wales?

No, but that might be due to our individual school.
I think we had it in January. I called into the office to explain we were burning up with a temperature, horrendous cough, just very unwell. After day 3 they called me and wanted an update including why he hadn't seen a doctor. I explained it was clearly a virus and there was nothing a doctor could do. Day 5 I get a call from the attendence officer telling me they look forward to seeing him on Monday. Stupidly I felt pressured and sent him. By this point he's on the notorious day 11 and I now have it. You could have fried an egg on the child. They called to ask me to bring him down some calpol. I arrive he's sobbing, tells me he's been telling them all morning he wants to go home and they didn't call me. I took him there and then. I got another call from the attendance officer threatening all sorts. I just have no trust left in them that they actually care about the children's welfare. Calpol is not magical and children are people who when they aren't well ought to be in bed.

No no no

As kids and young teachers are likely to get none, or very mild symptoms, this becomes a breeding ground for spread back into other parts of the community.

It’s not about how sick your kids may not get, it’s the fact everyone starts spreading it again silently.

No no no.

Yes

Yes

It's hard to say at the moment. I haven't got primary age children and I don't know how things will stand in 3 weeks, but as someone who works in a school, I think it will possibly be too soon. Social distancing will still need to happen and that's impossible in most schools, especially primary. I think after the May half term sounds more sensible and safer at the moment.

How are people suggesting potential dates when we haven’t hit the peak yet and it can take several weeks for peak numbers to start reducing.

Definitely not!

For a start my whole house has had covid - my daughter first, then me then my son. Pretty sure my daughter got it at school, by the time lockdown was announced 50% of her class were out with covid symptoms. Kids are often silent carriers. Studies are showing that people who test positive, recover and test negative are being found to test positive again over a month later. They don't know if this is reinfection or that it lays dormant and resurfaces. That means herd immunity could be a complete failure (not exactly a good plan to start with!)

Secondly - schools reopening breaks the no mass gatherings rule. We have nearly 1000 kids at our primary plus staff. Then at pick up add at least another 500 people (average of one adult per child and younger sibblings) that's twice a day every day - that's a melting pot of spreading right there.

Thirdly - the 1918 pandemic of Spanish flu killed more during the second wave than WW1! People were in lock down just like us (only no food available due to the war as well as hoarding) they broke lock down to celebrate the end of WW1, that sparked the second wave and masses of deaths.

So the faster you try and get back to normal the worse the end result will be.

Just stay home, stay safe and ride this thing out. We aren't at war, we aren't dying of famine, we aren't living in slums... To be bored at home when you are surrounded by tech and family is a massive privilege!! We aren't at all hard done by. I'm not saying it's easy, but it could be a whole lot worse!

@SmileEachDay No, why?

My kids are in secondary now. But if they were in primary I wouldn't simply because I think it's pretty impossible to have them following rules such as handwashing and not touching their face. When they were in primary they were always bringing home some virus. So I think we should wait at least until June when there will be less kids with colds around making easier to spot Covid-19 cases.

When people talk about riding it out, or waiting until July/ September, whenever, I genuinely don't understand the reasoning: what do you think is going to happen to make it safer to send your children to school then? No one has suggested that it's possible to eliminate this virus in the UK (or in any other society that has open borders, no matter how tight lockdown is, how efficient contact tracing is).

The safest day to send your children back into school would be the first day back after any long period of lockdown. After that the virus will start to spread again and if the infection rate is high enough we'll have another lockdown. So personally, yes, after seven weeks of lockdown I would be keen to send them in.

Also, immunity is debated but the consensus at present seems to be that having the virus gives you short-term immunity (months) and behaves in this way like the other endemic coronaviruses, which we may all catch every year or two but not every few months. Pretty sure my children have had it, so they are least likely to infect others as carriers or get it again themselves in the next few months.

Pretty sure my children have had it, so they are least likely to infect others as carriers or get it again themselves in the next few months

There's no evidence of immunity as yet.

When people talk about riding it out, or waiting until July/ September, whenever, I genuinely don't understand the reasoning:

You go on to give the reasoning....

The safest day to send your children back into school would be the first day back after any long period of lockdown. After that the virus will start to spread again

The virus will start to spread again. I do not want to die. It's quite simple.

No no pointless exercise that would be way too soon

No. It would be the end of social distancing. I have one with asthma who's already had pneumonia twice from common colds...

No I wouldn't. News is reporting social distancing is likely here to stay for a while following some of the restrictions being lifted. Until someone can confidently explain how my youngest will be able to maintain a safe distance from her classmates and how my oldest in secondary school can do the same on the multiple public busses he uses each school day I'll be keeping them home. I'll deal with any possible repercussions if it comes to it.

YANBU I’m a special needs assistant and I’d love to go back to work asap as I’m missing the child I currently work with and ‘some’ of the other children in class so much. My husband is in the extremely vulnerable group and I’m asthmatic so I’m actually quite scared to go back from fear of putting hubby's health in danger.

My dgs has no choice as his parents are key workers. My ddil would love to keep him safe at home.

No. I'm high risk, two of my children are high risk.

@perniciousdot. You misunderstand me. 'Riding it out until July or September' implies that it will be safer to send your children to school at that point than in May. There's no evidence for that being true. There will not be a vaccine by then. We will not have eradicated the virus via extensive contact tracing. In fact, if schools were to reopen in late May, and if lockdown gradually started to ease then, a parent who waited it out until September would be sending their child to school at a point when the infection rate had already increased. So it would be 'safer' to send them for the first week or two and then pull them out again.

The problem with 'riding it out' is that there's no visible end point. Unless you plan to keep your kids off school and locked down in the house for a year or more (until an effective widely available vaccine, though there are no guarantees one will be possible) home-educating them, refusing all playdates, all trips to the playground, all meals out, holidays etc, you might as well send them back as soon as schools reopen. Given that the second strategy has a low chance of protecting them (because the risk of them becoming seriously ill from this disease is so low), I also wonder why you would even consider the substantial, perhaps lifelong psychological and social problems it would produce. Besides, one of them is likely to get ill with some other problem and need to see a doctor or dentist before the year is up, and as soon as you venture to the GP surgery you'll be likely to expose yourselves anyway.

Agree with @hopsalong

It won’t be any safer in July or September or October etc etc.

Unless you are planning on keeping kids off until there is a vaccine?

Also, whilst I don’t agree with the herd immunity plan. Isn’t it beneficial for some of us low risk people to get it? Then (and I know immunity isn’t guaranteed) the more people that have had it the less likely it is to be spreading around so much.

You misunderstand me.

Oh, ok. Sorry.

I won't be sending mine back before August simply because it gives a lot of time for things to develop and understanding to increase. I will make a decision then based on what's happening at the time but while the risk is large I will be taking mine in. Not riding it out.

And on immunity. It's no good throwing up your hands and saying that there's no evidence of immunity as yet, as if it's a 50-59 question. You need to inform yourself by reading what the research shows. This is what Marc Lipsitch (a widely respected Harvard professor) said in an article in the NYT this week. It is likely that most people will have some immunity, just not very long-lives. Hence anyone who has had the virus and recovered is 'safer' from reinfection a couple of months after the original episode than a year later.

After being infected with SARS-CoV-2, most individuals will have an immune response, some better than others. That response, it may be assumed, will offer some protection over the medium term — at least a year...