Should pupils be required to wear masks to school ?

[worzelsnurzel123]

Iabu - yes children should be required to wear Masks -this should be compulsory.

Ianbu - no children should only wear if they wish to.

Obviously there are caveats here around children with asthma, anxiety etc but on the whole should it be the norm to wear a mask.

Our (US) school district has mandated masks K-5 (all going back!), unless there are physical or mental health issues (or possibly, parent choice). We don't know about secondary schools yet.
And speech therapy is my area, so no clue whether I'll have to wear a visor. The kids will have to remove their masks...
DC go back late August, so who knows if all this will remain true or not.
We wear them in public places where we cannot social distance. I hate them, but just ordered more. Hope they are more comfortable than the cloth ones we've been wearing. It's getting hot!

Yes. They are worn in schools in other countries. They reduce the risk of contracting COVID.

The advice from government is to WEAR MASKS in enclosed spaces, when in prolonged contact and when performing intimate care, EXCEPT for those when in schools. It makes no sense.
Children may not be so much at risk from dying or be super spreaders but they DO spread it as much as adults.
It would afford teachers/TAs the same amount of safety and protection as everyone else in the country. At the moment it seems as if their safety is being sacrificed.
Shop workers, care workers, commuters, office workers, hairdressers, bus drivers, everyone else can wear masks and are in-fact recommended to do so.
Teachers are real live actual people. They have homes and families. Why is their safety not considered in the same way as that of other workers?

There is lots of evidence to show wearing masks reduce transmission rates.

I would be interested in what additional protection masks provide if doing good infection control otherwise. My DC were taught at pre school to cough into elbow, to wash hands a lot and sneeze into tissue etc. If doing all this (which we should anyway) then how much difference does a mask make?

Of course they should wear masks, in general. Children in other countries manage it.

Flack the first article you link to says:
Note: The Ministry of Health said on June 1 that people should wear face masks, instead of face shields, following a review of an earlier policy in which either option had been allowed. Face shields are allowed only for some, including children 12 years old and below, and in certain settings such as in classrooms.)

No they're horrible to wear

@TwistinMyMelon

No they're horrible to wear

My dc also think that about their blazers and ties! Tough.

Those who can should wear them.

If 80% of people wear masks 80% of the time, the virus wouldn’t survive and we could go back to normal life. That’s the truth. That more than accounts for people who can’t wear masks due to disability. Everyone else should shut up and put up.

No, our mouths and noses are for breathing oxygen! NOT our own carbon dioxide. Adults can wear them but not kids.

No. I'm an ICU nurse and wear them for 12 hour shifts, but those are N95 surgical masks so actually work.

No point in kids wearing dodgy fitted masks with their breath leaking all around the sides anyway, completely ineffective. Masks just been made compulsory on transport here and all I see is people fiddling with badly fitting masks, hands up to face constantly much more than normally. Glasses steaming up a nightmare, which just shows how little of your breath they actually keep in!

So uncomfortable, I know my DD wouldn't be able to concentrate or learn in one.

@onedayinthefuture

No, our mouths and noses are for breathing oxygen! NOT our own carbon dioxide. Adults can wear them but not kids.

What's your age cut off?

@onedayinthefuture

No, our mouths and noses are for breathing oxygen! NOT our own carbon dioxide. Adults can wear them but not kids.

There's a Dr on Facebook today showing her oxygen saturation without any mask, with a surgical mask,, with an N,95 mask and with an N95 mask covered with a surgical mask - her sats and heart rate were the same throughout.

All these 'other countries where kids where them from age 3'..... how do deaf and hearing impaired students cope? Or is it that in those countries they don't give a flying fuck about kids with disabilities?

Comparisons with school children in countries like Hong Kong are pointless. The discipline and respect for teachers amongst young people in those countries is in no way comparable to the UK where parents phone daily to complain about 'unfair' detentions, 'unfair' uniform rules etc etc... The chance of many UK secondary school children wearing them sensibly is very small.

God no. We had a few children come back (primary) wearing masks. They fiddled with them constantly, sucked them, dropped them on the floor, left them in the playground. The novelty lasted 2 days at most and none wear them now.

Sleepless does that not also suggest that pupils will not comply with extra hand washing, coughing into elbows etc?

Quiz helper - I don't think it's that they wouldn't be prepared to wear masks, it's that they would just muck around with them, disrupt lessons etc. Not all but it only takes one or two in each class to create an issue. Hand washing is easier - you do it outside the class then it is sorted, it's not an ongoing issue though the lesson.

Oxygen saturations and Co2 are different things though.

Very possible to have normal oxygen saturations or arterial Fio2 (measure of normal arterial blood oxygen) and way high or low Paco2.

Spend my life doing blood gases on people with normal oxygen sats but wild PaCO2/respiratory depression.

No. I wear one for work and they get saturated with sweat within an hour. This renders them pointless. Especially in hot weather, masks are horribly hot, you feel like you can’t breathe properly in high heat. So no.

My biggest concern would be a child in my Ds class has hearing loss and lip reads . She already misses out on some conversations, it would be even more isolating for her.

They wear them in hospital over the age of 3 without issue. I think visors would be better and you can get some attached to hats now. I also think all teachers would be wise to wear one.

Yes the upside would be for teachers who have been shielding who need to come back might have felt a little reassurance through others wearing masks. It sounds like they’d cause more problems on balance

Teachers who are shielding are back already. We have no choice and have been told to get into work we are unable to protect ourselves without the risk of losing our jobs to be able to wear PPE.

I think a more pressing issue is making sure all teachers have access to toilet facilities. In my town some schools are making the teachers use the children's toilets with them as the allocated toilets for that bubble or they have no access at all as they can't leave their bubble.

Teaching in 33oC portacabins is tough enough in this weather without covered up faces.

The UK's policy on inclusion is probably quite different to many other countries. (Certainly there is a lack of provision for those who struggle with mainstream provision too and that has a knock-on to that individual and class dynamics).

My 6 year old would probably wear one with no issue. My 7 year old is deaf so really needs people around him not to be wearing masks so he can lip read. My 9 year old would probably fiddle with it constantly.