Infection control doesn’t seem to be working on colds!

[justfinefornow]

I had just assumed that given all the measures we we were taking In schools etc to limit the spread of Covid - colds etc would be limited too but it feels like the infection control doesn’t seem to be working very well against colds - which loads of kids at school seem to be suffering from at the moment.
If colds are spreading freely what hope do we have that the measures we have put in place will work against Covid, especially if we are indeed in the second wave with limited testing and no effective track and trace?

You can't really blame them though.
They know it's all a pointless charade.
Everyone has just bloody given up.
I'm disgusted with this country.
We'll just have to hope that this herd immunity thing works.

I think the surfaces thing is a compete red herring designed to make people feel they can have some control.

Is there any actual evidence of people catching it that way? I understand that it's theoretically possible but does it actually happen? Someone with the virus has to cough into their hand, touch the surface before cleaning hands, transfer enough virus, in a viable condition, to the new surface to enable a transfer, someone else has to touch the right spot and transfer it to their face without hand washing in sufficient quantity and with it remaining viable....

Nits and colds are like Covid canaries.

Colds spreading within a class group shows that if covid comes into that group then it is going to spread through that group. If the cold then spreads to other groups then you can see how the groups are linked. Perhaps in ways you hadnt thought about.

Nits spreading shows that there is no distancing at all (nits pass when heads are close together).

Well if there aren’t any measures in place our HT has been making quite a bit of a fuss over nothing! One way systems, hand sanitizer before and end of class. Kids aren’t allowed in school unless being escorted by a teacher. Desks facing forward. 2m distance between pupils and teacher. Quarantined work to be marked. Face covering on school bus. Year bubbles.

Your HT is wasting everyone's time if masks are not required at all times both inside and outside the school building.

'Nits and colds are like covid canaries'
That's excellent
I'll be using that!

I agree OP. I thought with all the 'bubbles', social distancing, extra hand washing and hand sanitiser, we would've at least seen a reduction in the number of colds. But my two came down with a nasty cold on the second week back (a record!) which has spread throughout the years. We don't stand a chance against Covid!

Utterly astonished that masks are not mandatory in classrooms. Science is quite clear at this point that spread from airborne droplets is the bulk of how CoV2 gets from person to person

Because infection risk is higher if they are fiddled with (more can be found on the outside of masks after a few hours), or dropped and touched by others, and they are far less effective if damp being worn for long periods or improperly fitted and worn. So yes, they are highly effective if worn properly for a bus ride but much riskier in a class of young kids.

And while there is now evidence of airborne transmission it is still mainly by droplets (partly why it's still less infectious than colds).

Just because masks can sometimes cause problems doesn't mean that they are highly effective when mask wearing is mandatory.

...doesn't mean that they are not highly effective...

A diarrhoea bug has spread around my child's class. No temperature and otherwise well but on the day he was struck down, he informed me there are people off every day with it.

We've managed to avoid covid so far in my school but we have 'proper' flu spreading instead. Kids and staff dropping like flies for a week at a time, and obviously all having to test for the temperatures.
It's still spreading.

And while there is now evidence of airborne transmission it is still mainly by droplets (partly why it's still less infectious than colds).

But the droplets hang in the air for periods of time, it’s called aerosol transmission and that’s mainly how this virus spreads.

It’s not purely airborne like measles which can hang around well after an infectious person has left but that’s irrelevant if you’re in a classroom with one or more people infected with CoV2 for several hours a day.

It's not the same thing though. Colds are incredibly infectious and there are loads of them. When a person gets a cold they generally don't isolate, so it spreads further. Currently in my DDs class there are at least four DC that I know of who have a cold, they're all in as usual, so will spread it. That wouldn't happen with children known to have Covid-19.

YABU not to have posted this on the CV boards where there are already several of these threads.

All the handwashing /surface sanitising in the world won't protect you against someone coughing or sneezing near your face

I've got my fingers crossed that the cases of cases of d&v will go down though.

Why not just scroll on by Erin.

@CastleCrasher

It's not the same thing though. Colds are incredibly infectious and there are loads of them. When a person gets a cold they generally don't isolate, so it spreads further. Currently in my DDs class there are at least four DC that I know of who have a cold, they're all in as usual, so will spread it. That wouldn't happen with children known to have Covid-19.

There is limited testing so we wont know who has Covid and there are plenty of kids going into school with Coughs apparently certain they are are just colds - no one knows because getting a test is proving quite a challenge.

Our immunity is shot to pieces after not seeing anyone. I have colleagues working from home, don't have kids who are sick!

Colds are airborne. Covid is airborne. There are masses (dozens, maybe even hundreds?) of cold viruses but only one Covid-19, so it's far more likely people will get regular colds... but someone in a class is infectious with Covid, it's highly likely others around then will get it too.

I'm at home. My dh and the kids are all in schools. I was the first one to get a cold, first week back. Everyone followed suit. There's no hope

The thing I'm frustrated by is that the government are now saying unless a child is symptomatic they don't need testing, yet apparently up to 60% of children are asymptomatic. I'm a secondary teacher and we've had a few confirmed cases so far but now no one can access a test. My MIL looked after my 9mo baby daughter last Friday and has now been ill for four days with classic covid symptoms yet can't be tested. DD has been a little poorly but again, we can't test, but whatever MIL has picked up (almost certainly from DD) has hit her pretty hard. Chances are it isn't covid but it's worrying. I can't work if DD can't go to nursery and MIL is out of action and school won't give staff time off if they're just needing to isolate because a family member has been contact traced. It's a nightmare.

32 children in a classroom and no masks. Child one sneezes and doesn't put up a hand, children 2-17 breathe in the droplets. My friend's DS went back on day 1 with a cold. By the end of week 1, his classmates were dropping like flies. Same as every year.

I think it is perfectly clear that once Covid is in a school it will spread like wild fire despite any measures in place- as the spread of colds throughout schools shows.
Where I work we have a cold going round with exactly the same symptoms in every class, some of those classes are in a separate building on a separate site (we are an amalgamated primary with the infants and juniors still on separate sites) absolutely no cross over.
So it is clear that infection control measures in place don't work. Despite being in a local lockdown area with a high case rate we have had no covid. Every test done so far has come back negative.
I honestly think we should scrap the measures that are just making things a pain in the arse and having no effect (TAs cleaning the loos three times a day when they should be supporting learning).
If covid is confirmed in school then close for two weeks otherwise school life as normal. Covid is not inevitable.
We have no schools in our cluster with any cases. I think I know of 1 school within 10 miles that has had a bubble shut now.
I think this website is full of people with an inability to assess risk and understand statistics. Some of the worst of the offenders being people who should know better (maths teachers for example) who are obsessed with scaremongering.

I think the thing people struggle with is that none of these measures are intended to stop the spread or to protect individuals, which is obviously hard for the individuals concerned (I'm one of them). They are simply designed to slow the spread to a manageable level, whilst allowing society to continue as something resembling normal.

"They" have decided masks in schools is one step too far from normal and TBH the vast majority of school staff I know agree.

I was back at work for less than a week before I got a sore throat. This then developed into a cold, finally ending with a sickness thing. So just Over 2 weeks back and most of it feeling ill! Most of our staff have had a cold of some form at the very least.

I guess I've had 6 months out of the classroom though, so it was always going to happen. The ' Covid secure' measures in schools aren't going to stop it happening when you've kids sneezing, etc over their hands, tables, etc.