AIBU in agreeing with the NASUWT that masks should be worn in schools by over 11s?

[DomDoesWotHeWants]

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/28/unions-call-for-teachers-in-england-to-be-able-to-wear-face-masks

Given that they have to be worn almost everywhere else indoors by over 11s it would be the right thing to do. Adults working in schools have as much right to be protected as bus drivers and shop workers.

So AIBU in agreeing with the NASUWT that masks should be worn in schools by over 11s?

"Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus."

@Orangeblossom78

I wonder what he thinks about the latest news that the WHO think young people might be driving the current spike.

Obviously there is a difference in young People and children. But the proposal is for young people at secondary school (so 11-18/19) to wear the mask

[quote Orangeblossom78]More here

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/no-known-case-of-teacher-catching-coronavirus-from-pupils-says-scientist-3zk5g2x6z[/quote]
Same hypocritical scientist

@Orangeblossom78

In case any parents do not agree with the mask wearing, you can look at this site, they have information etc and advice, and campaign as well

usforthem.co.uk

And there’s your true colours!

A reminder that it is the GOVERNMENT who sent children home from schools and who restricted those able to return.

Teachers have done everything the government have asked of them, despite unsafe working conditions for themselves.

Teaching staff have continued to work throughout, working unpaid through their Easter and half term holidays, in order to keep schools open for vulnerable children and key-worker children.

Don't blame teachers for children being at home in lockdown- blame the government if you must as they ordered it - but remember they did so to SAVE LIVES.

People seem to forget there is a pandemic killing many many thousands of people and instead seem to think it's teachers fault their children have missed some time at school.

It's a case of "I'm alright Jack,"
Many people don't care about older or vulnerable people dying - they just care about themselves and as they may be at low risk they just want everyone else to carry on as if there isn't a virus going round killing and disabling many many people.

Death is it - the end. It's goodbye for ever and far too many people have had their lives ended as a result of this. We need to keep the rates of people dying down as low as possible. Education, finances, mental health can all be recovered from but you cannot recover from being dead.

Everything else is secondary to keeping death rates down.

Howling at the moon craziness.

Same hypocritical scientist

The Times has a bank of go-to mouthpieces happy to spout whatever the Times agenda is. Sian Griffiths has Alan Smithers on speed-dial.

I find it incredible that a swathe of society dislikes us so much that they are happy for us to die in our hundreds just so their darlings don’t have to wear a face cover.

I am 100% on the side of those calling for children to wear masks at school and my mind is genuinely boggled by people insisting that they shouldn't and coming up with ever more creative reasons for it being an unreasonable thing to demand of children. However, I don't think you're going to win over people opposed to schoolchildren being masked with a 'well clearly everyone HATES us and wants us to DIE' type approach to this conversation, not least because most people against mask wearing seem (weirdly) convinced that masks serve no protective purpose and that refusal to wear them isn't increasing your risk of death.

I meant the silly website.

@Iwalkinmyclothing

I find it incredible that a swathe of society dislikes us so much that they are happy for us to die in our hundreds just so their darlings don’t have to wear a face cover.

I am 100% on the side of those calling for children to wear masks at school and my mind is genuinely boggled by people insisting that they shouldn't and coming up with ever more creative reasons for it being an unreasonable thing to demand of children. However, I don't think you're going to win over people opposed to schoolchildren being masked with a 'well clearly everyone HATES us and wants us to DIE' type approach to this conversation, not least because most people against mask wearing seem (weirdly) convinced that masks serve no protective purpose and that refusal to wear them isn't increasing your risk of death.

I’m not bothered about winning people over. Is that what I’m meant to be doing?

I find it incredible that a swathe of society dislikes us so much that they are happy for us to die in our hundreds just so their darlings don’t have to wear a face cover.

I don’t hate teachers at all but really, quit the melodrama.

If you weren’t “dying in your hundreds” before lockdown when 1 in 40 people and rising had the virus and there were no SD/face covering measures anywhere why would it happen now?

Melodrama is tedious, isn’t it? Like all those people throwing themselves about over the unspeakable trauma their child will suffer if they have to put a bit of cloth over their face for a few hours a day.

In Japan where I live, all kids over six wear them for school when indoors. They take them off for outdoor breaks. It works fine. Don't understand the resistance in the UK. It's far better than keeping kids off school for months on end!

The headline on that Guardian link says “Children’s Covid symptoms are usually mild, but a lack of education can be severe”. But children aren’t alone in schools. What about teachers’ Covid symptoms? Do children need an education if it’s at the expense of teachers’ lives? (I think most parents and policy makers would say yes and teachers would say no). Basically it’s a case of: I need childcare and I don’t care if you die providing it.

In case any parents do not agree with the mask wearing
I don’t give a shiny shit what parents want. My priority is my own safety and health. Do you really think I’m going to go “Oh well, if these complete strangers don’t agree with mask wearing then I suppose I’d better risk my life to satisfy them”? Get real!

It would be great if state schools could go to compressed days like Nat6999 or the part-time learning like welcometohell and others have suggested, it seems like the government wants both to look like it's doing something (like finally making face coverings mandatory) and like everything should go back to normal. I do worry that the worst will happen that will force these things -- my DDs' school has been very specific that while they're to be used on public transport, they cannot wear them in the building (and no word on what they're going to do on the bus they're using to get to the PE fields this autumn...)

I'm still thinking visors, at least as an option, rather than mandatory masks specifically, but it's been interesting reading some of the information from others.

Anybody notice how articles about secondary schools reopening in England show a socially distanced classroom as their stock photo? I think it's why so many people think that the teacher can simply have a 2m area where children can't approach .

It would be great if state schools could go to compressed days
This is all a result of the situation where schools have been used as free childcare to enable parents to work. Parents won’t accept a reduction in school hours because who will babysit their children?

[quote redbushtea]@mumsneedwine - surgery rooms are oxygen enriched environments. And nobody wears a mask for 16 hours continuously.[/quote]
I'm an ODP in theatres, theatres are not oxygen enriched environments, wtaf? We do have compressed gas pipes, including O2 and Air, but they are sealed and supply the anaesthetic machine which also has a scavenging system so any expired gases (in a sealed circuit) are vented away from theatres. We only use a small amount of O2 mixed with an anesthetic gas during each aneasthetic, equivalent to what's pretty much in the surrounding air.

We also use diathermy, an electric current used to cauterise wounds in most operations we perform. Diathermy + O2 enriched environment = a very big boom!

I'm all for secondary school pupils wearing masks, most days I wear a mask, visor, hat, scrubs, lead gown, lead thyroid protector, scrub gown over the top, two pairs of gloves when scrubbed and sometimes stand there for hours!. I work in orthopedics/trauma, so mask wearing is pretty much the norm even when not scrubbed. Its not nice but we do it and you get used to it, we don't keel over with hypoxia, we just get on with it.

I'm a secondary teacher. I would absolutely feel much more comfortable if the 30 faces facing me in a confined space were wearing masks.

No-one is saying they 'want teachers to die'

It seems seems a bit futile putting masks on children if transmission is from adults and other teachers, rather than said children

There's a teacher on here, on the gyms thread saying oh, well I might as well go to a gym class (full of huffing puffing gym goers) because soon i will be back at school with a class of children anyway

Doesn't seem that teachers are limiting their outside interactions does it really?

I work in an office, and I have to go back on the 1st of September with no SD, no PPE, no perspex screens etc. Because I work in an office in a school. The office I'm in is literally an old corridor, there is no room to distance, and various people need to access that office throughout the day as lots of things essential to running a school are stored there. We have no space whatsoever to put things or people elsewhere.
There is no earthly reason why I could not wear a mask all day, I am not pupil facing, I'm not going to fiddle with a mask or flick it at my colleagues, but we have been told no masks in school.
Oh, and the windows don't open at all.

The pupils have been told to walk or cycle to school as much as possible, but we have onsite storage for ten bikes, and lots of pupils live 2-3 miles away so get the (decent in our area) bus service, thus mixing with the general public (many of whom work at the hospital near school) and pupils from other bubbles before and after school.

Even with zones, bubbles, and extra cleaning/hygiene practices I cannot see how the return of full schools will not lead to massive rises in the rates of transmission.

This article looks at evidence from a number of countries regarding opening of schools, some with masks, some with distancing, some with no measures in place.
What it drives home is that there is still so much we do not know about this virus and its effects.

Anybody notice how articles about secondary schools reopening in England show a socially distanced classroom as their stock photo?
I have noticed this actually. People think classrooms will be more like the first photo which shows 10 students in a huge room. In reality I’d have more than treble that number of students in a room half that size. The second photo is more like my classroom. To space the students out I’d have to send 2/3 of them home (which would mean reducing contact hours from 25hrs a week to about 8hrs a week).

in agreeing with the NASUWT

And that is your true colours OP, a union rep of some kind perhaps. Like the dramatic poster of doom ClimbDad perhaps

Nothing wrong with being in a union. Across a number of threads on MN posters are being advised to get support from unions to deal with work related issues.

The post is aimed at secondary schools which have young adults who can transmit/catch the virus.

There has to be a new normal in schools .

Unions reps will be aware that the press can look to places like MN to gauge public opinion I suppose

hence the hassling parents over masks