Should teachers be extra vigilant to infection in their every day lives to reduce school transmission?

[WhyNotMe40]

As the latest PHE report states that in June there were more staff than students affected by the covid19 coronavirus, there are suggestions that teachers should take measures to reduce bringing the virus into schools.

Voting: do you think teachers should change how they behave out of schools to protect the school?
YABU yes
YANBU no

Also - what activities or behaviours do you think teachers should avoid or do to further this aim?

Sorry but coffee breaks?! There are no coffee breaks now. Mentioned this earlier. Some teachers now doing 8- 3.30 on a twenty minute break.

Why are we not asking office workers, nurses, car salespeople (and everyone really) to stay home? They spread it too.

Why teachers?

@FrenchItalian, There are a gazillion threads and posts explaining very clearly why that article is wrong. I'm not going over it again. Advance Search them if you want.

Oh French you have brought a banana to a gun fight. Go back to Facebook.

@frenchitalian
rubbish! - why do you think Scotland have introduced masks?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-53907035
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8658065/Huge-Covid-outbreak-shuts-Dundee-school-17-staff-test-positive.html
news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-wales-to-review-face-mask-use-in-schools-hours-after-scotland-takes-action-12056307

I'm a teacher in an SEN primary. Children are in bubbles of a fashion but their school transport bubble and their class bubble may not be the same. Adults need to work across the whole school and do so. Just as we did from June 1st when we reopened our school site (we were working with children in other locations before then).
DH is a secondary teacher and will be teaching upto 150 students per day.
DC1 is in Y11 and a cohort bubble of 150.
DC2 will be in Y7 and a cohort bubble of 120.

None of us will be going out to jam-packed raves and licking people when we come home from school each day but we won't be taking on responsibility for living by a different set of expectations from those everyone else should be upholding.

situations and generally staying at home as far as possible. I don’t see an issue in asking teachers to take steps like having groceries delivered and not going in and out of relatives’ homes,

Look that's not going to happen. I know that for certain.

Unless the rest of the population has to do the same the men school staff won't.

I've already seen three close relatives die since April this year. Right now I need to be seeing my family, I can't deal with not.
Dd is soon due to stop being one of our household next month. Not a chance I am not going to keep seeing my 18y daughter.

I already do online shopping but if I want to have my dinner out once in a while, it pop in to th shops in my way home then I will do so as I, and everyone else, are allowed.

Are you going to encourage someone to financially compensate me for not being able to live my life, or for lost money due to your extra rules?

In the next two months I have a number of engagements out of the house that I intend to do for a range of reasons. They'd also cost me money not to do them, including a holiday at half term which - if possible - I will still go on. If I don't I'm set to lose hundreds of pounds.

All the evidence shows that children do not catch the virus or transmit it in any significant way.

We don't know that.
The government and the science doesn't even know this yet. There are signs that children may be less affected, in that if they get it they are often symptom free and less likely to become ill. If someone has no symptoms they don't get tested, so how wide spread this is is impossible to tell right now.
Plus schools have not be running in full capacity as yet so again no one really knows I'm the affect of returning is. In some countries schools have had to close again.

And we don't really know yet if children do spread it. They pass on almost all other bugs so this would be quite unusual if they don't./can't.

And are you forgetting that in secondary schools some of these children are already legally adults, many not far off. What is it about a school wall that stops these young people from being an adult still?

@FrenchItalian
There was large study (65,000) in South Korea that showed although young children (under 10) transmit the virus much less often than adults do, those between 10 and 19 spread the virus at least as well as adults do.

It still comes down to the same argument:

If school is safe and Covid secure then staff should be fine to follow the same guidelines as everyone else.

By suggesting they need additional restrictions - more than anyone other adult in the country - then clearly schools are not yet safe.

If school staff need to follow additional rules that the school environment is not yet Covid secure, so more work needs to be done IN SCHOOL to ensure that it is. If that means the government needs to provide additional funding or make in school rules stricter than that is the answer.

Therefore teachers and school staff are clearly the biggest risk in catching and spreading virus to children, parents and other staff.

Why are teachers more likely to pass it to parents than parents to teachers

@CallmeAngelina

So, if teachers are such a high risk to have on the school premises, maybe they should stay away. Oh, wait...

[quote FrenchItalian]@EveryDayIsADuvetDay

What teenagers do or don’t do in their free time is pretty much irrelevant to the transmission of the virus- they will not suffer serious symptoms and will not transmit.

The bigger issue is the teachers and their behaviour. There is no evidence anywhere in the world of anyone catching Coronavirus in school- it is far more likely to have been transmitted in supermarkets or pubs.

Teachers therefore should be taking precautions and staying at home as far as possible during term time- certainly avoiding indoor visits to relatives and bars and restaurants.

The biggest worry the Deputy Chief Medical Officer has is teachers gathering in staff rooms for coffee breaks and not social distancing![/quote]
Over 12 it's been evidence everyone transmits the same - hence WHO recommendation of masks for all over 12's.

There is evidence of CV in schools globally. Easy to google but our own PHE reports show the ones in England too.

65 education staff have died of CV by April.

Teachers aren't using staff rooms etc because they are limited numbers, closed or teachers down all day in classroom with their bubble.

I can understand you have your own agenda - it's fine you don't agree. But it's dangerous to spread such incorrect information about a virus that is highly transmissible.

The recent PHE England report mentions 6 (probable, so it could be more) pupil to teacher transmissions In England alone, let alone worldwide. No one knows where Mark Woolhouse plucked his 'fact' from , but the fact that it has not been repeated and hardly any of the press ran with it shows that everyone except Mark Woolhouse realised it was a ridiculous statement.

I think there is clearly a big difference between primary and secondary. Primary age kids seem to be of very little risk to teachers whereas secondary are as risky as adults.

From a primary perspective, my child went back in June on a part time basis. I was so scared of him going back because I was worried that the teachers would try and implement social distancing which would have been pretty traumatic on a child that can’t put on his own shoes well.
On one of the first days I saw him fall in the playground and his teacher rushed towards him. I was so grateful that she didn’t think about the virus and just thought about a crying 4 year old. So from my perspective, I don’t want the teachers being more on guard at all. But then, they pose little risk to my small child and he poses little risk to them. As the children get older I guess the teachers can act differently if they wish.

My best friend teaches in a small market town primary school.
Just before the Summer break in one of the two year six bubbles there was an outbreak.
The bubble was 12 children and one teacher.
The teacher tested positive as did one pupil.
How did this happen?
We all 'know' that children don't pass it on.
So was it the teacher who gave it to the child?
Or was it a just a coincidence?

Well if it was the teacher it would have been all the adults in the school since teachers passing it betweeen themselves and bring reckless in the community is the cause of all school outbreaks!

[quote FrenchItalian]@HipTightOnions

Yes, DC are asymptomatic and very unlikely to spread the virus. The risk in schools in terms of transmission is from the teachers, not the students.[/quote]
Fundamentally untrue. The prevailing theory amongst the scientific community is that asymptomatic and presymptomatic people are responsible for half of new infections. There is no evidence whatsoever that asymptomatic means non-transmitting.

@FrenchItalian I would want additional pay as compensation for following an enhanced set of rules which are stricter than the rules the rest of England has to follow unless in lockdown. Incidentally what would you do about part time teachers especially those with caring responsibilities?

Hi all, and thanks for the reports. As it looks like @FrenchItalian is a previously banned poster, we've closed their account and removed their posts.

@ElizabethMainwaring you can’t know she got it from the kids unless she was hermetically dealing herself into her house each night. I agree it seems likely but surely the fact that 2/13 people in that bubble tested positive and not 13/13 is a reassuring thing.

@mangocoveredlamb
I don't know what happened about the other pupils; whether they got tested and their results etc.

@MichaelMumsnet

Hi all, and thanks for the reports. As it looks like *@FrenchItalian* is a previously banned poster, we've closed their account and removed their posts.

Thanks for being so quick to respond.

Indeed. Particularly since “school staff” got their first mention in connection with this. “School staff” are much more poorly paid than teachers.

Wrong. I deliberately refer to school staff in general, unless I'm specifically talking about teachers.