Primary school seems obsessed with covid

[Lightswitch123]

My children's primary seem obsessed with covid.

We had a few cases in school before half term (??20 positive tests in the whole of the school?)

Now we are back, because 2 parents emailed the head over half term to say their child had a also had a positive result, the school have cancelled all in person events, after school clubs, parents not allowed in playground, reintroduced bubbles, staggering drop offs, minimising lunch and play times, kids not allowed to use class pens or pencils, no water provided etc

We get at least 1 parentmail a day "updating" us on the situation.

This is in spite of no one actually being unwell- just positive lateral flow / pcr results off the back of being named contacts. And we've all been off for ages for half term as well.

It all seems so bloody punative and OTT.

I'm beginning to think I'd rather the kids went elsewhere or just stayed at home away from this crazy.

Aibu?

YABU - School response sounds reasonable

YANBU - School is OTT

Also any advice as to how to tackle this with the school? It's doing my head in.

@Lightswitch123

But all the points everyone is making to keep restrictions going could be applied to other illnesses . Vaccine efficacy / feeling unwell etc etc

Flu being the easiest parallel. Feel rubbish. May need a couple of weeks off.

School doesn't shut down because of it though.

2020 - yes was proportional

Coming into 2022 - no. It's not proportional. It's just the easy argument as you dont need to weigh up the other harder / impossible to measure costs and impacts . You just need to shout "but you don't care if someone dies!"

Flu is a shit comparison. It kills an average of 650,000 people a year. Covid has killed more than that in the US alone.

Flu killed less than 30,000 people in England and Wales in 2018, less than 27,000 on 2019. Covid has killed over 140,000 in England in less than two years.

Things are being done differently because covid isn’t flu.

I agree with you OP. The vaccine was sold to the public as a way out of this mess and yet here we are with the vast majority vaccinated yet still nothing has changed and now the booster jab is the way out.

Kids have been massively hit by the disruption since it started and I feel for them missing out on so much, especially things like prom etc that they won't get the chance to do in the future.

I know people will say X amount have died but young children don't understand this and don't understand what is happening when they can go to an theme park or on holiday as normal yet are still under restrictions in school.

Schools are full of adults as well as children.

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@Lightswitch123

Errr cases are falling!

Cases have fallen a little over half term because the kids weren't at school. They'll start rising again now kids are back mixing in school, unless there are some mitigating measures taken. Better those than more onerous measures having to taken in the new year, surely?

@PurpleDaisies

You are quite right OP, we need to keep our children in school.

With all the staff off?

Why would all the staff be off? I have a business that has not been closed at all. We are mixing with 100's of customers on a daily basis but funnily enough, even though some staff and customers had Covid we have never had to have 'all' our staff off.

The school my children go to seems to manage to stay open despite the odd infection too.

Why would all the staff be off? I have a business that has not been closed at all. We are mixing with 100's of customers on a daily basis but funnily enough, even though some staff and customers had Covid we have never had to have 'all' our staff off.

Here in the local schools, so many teachers are off that bubbles and year groups are about to be closed. We can’t get enough supply to make it work. It’s a nightmare for those people who aren’t off…yet.

The school my children go to seems to manage to stay open despite the odd infection too.

It isn’t the odd infection here.

"The vaccine was sold to the public as a way out of this mess and yet here we are with the vast majority vaccinated yet still nothing has changed...."

"The vast majority" of children are NOT vaccinated and the issue raised by OP was about the impact of Covid measures being implemented in schools where all of the unvaccinated children go!
How can you say that nothing has changed as a result of vaccinations? I would argue that hospital admissions being way down and many Covid related deaths being prevented is a massive change for the better.

Well in Scotland we still have staggered start and finish times at primary, bubbles were reintroduced when we had Covid cases, and after schools club and football was cancelled. It was really really difficult, not helped by the absolute hysteria of some parents. I cannot speak about this IRL any longer and the sooner Covid is treated like any other illness ie no lateral flow testing, off school if you are ill and for 48 hours after recovery, the better.

Yep I agree - it’s crazy. And actually, no, in this case I don’t agree with taking action before “the shit hits the fan”. If the government, or schools or whoever made us live our lives in a constant state of catastrophe preparation then our quality of life would be terrible. Children in bubbles/no after school clubs/potentially school closure for that number of cases is insane. Measures like that should be taken IF deaths rise dramatically and the NHS becomes overwhelmed.
(I say this as someone who is vulnerable to covid, and whose children have tested positive.)

@PurpleDaisies

Why would all the staff be off? I have a business that has not been closed at all. We are mixing with 100's of customers on a daily basis but funnily enough, even though some staff and customers had Covid we have never had to have 'all' our staff off.

Here in the local schools, so many teachers are off that bubbles and year groups are about to be closed. We can’t get enough supply to make it work. It’s a nightmare for those people who aren’t off…yet.

Well you are very unlucky to have so many teachers ill with Covid at the same time. That is not the case for the OP's school.

@PurpleDaisies

I appreciate some people are still scared and have sympathy, but a middle ground needs to be sought.

Who is scared? I’m so unwell I couldn’t get off the sofa to teach a class if I tried.

I’m sorry to hear that, it’s very tough. I suffered from ME/CFS for 8 years and I know how awful it is to be ill in that way. Hope you recover soon.

Also - imo case numbers are irrelevant. There’s loads of lots of viruses circulating right now! I’d rather catch covid again than yet another cold..at least I’m actually vaccinated against covid!!! It’s hospitalisation numbers that we need to keep an eye on, and the nhs is nowhere near being overwhelmed or too full.

@Peanutbuttercupisyum

Yep I agree - it’s crazy. And actually, no, in this case I don’t agree with taking action before “the shit hits the fan”. If the government, or schools or whoever made us live our lives in a constant state of catastrophe preparation then our quality of life would be terrible. Children in bubbles/no after school clubs/potentially school closure for that number of cases is insane. Measures like that should be taken IF deaths rise dramatically and the NHS becomes overwhelmed. (I say this as someone who is vulnerable to covid, and whose children have tested positive.)

I quite agree.

@PurpleDaisies

The school my children go to seems to manage to stay open despite the odd infection too.

It isn’t the odd infection here.

It seems very variable. There aren’t many in my DC’s school. We’re in an inner London suburb which generally has had quite high numbers but the primary schools don’t seem to have much of an issue.

@Lightswitch123

Fair enough if this was still 2020.

But it's not.

Kids don't get ill from covid.

This obsessive testing and disrupting does not happen for the flu or rsv or other communicable illnesses that actually make children and adults of parental age unwell.

We are almost 2 years down the line.

Everyone who wants to be is vaccinated.

At what point does this madness end?

Actually you're wrong about kids not getting ill from Covid. My friend has a little girl of 10 who was desperately ill with Covid. A month on and she's still struggling. It is wrong to assume children "don't get ill" or indeed to assume they won't be affected long term. This is a child who is normally fit and healthy with no underlying conditions. Quite frankly it frightened the life out of me.

Are people still parroting this bullshit that kids don't get ill from covid yes your schools response seems OTT but seriously? You would need to be under a rock or spectacularly dense to truly believe kids don't get ill from covid

If kids really got that ill from covid they would all be vaccinated now as per adults.

Yes kids might have symptoms but they don't get seriously ill unless they sadly have other medical problems

The mortality amongst children is teeny. Hospitals are not full of kids with covid. Stop exaggerating.

How are people managing to be this vacuously uninformed still?

No, it's not equivalent to the flu.

Actually, children do get ill, as do the adults who teach them.

@Theunamedcat

Are people still parroting this bullshit that kids don't get ill from covid yes your schools response seems OTT but seriously? You would need to be under a rock or spectacularly dense to truly believe kids don't get ill from covid

The vast majority of kids don’t get seriously sick with Covid. A tiny and very unfortunate minority do. A tiny and very unfortunate minority get very sick with other illnesses, like RSV and many others. A few even die each year from chickenpox, which is incredibly mild for most.

Teachers have been vaccinated and boosters are coming on line.

I don’t want anyone to be seriously ill or die from anything. But we need to draw a line somewhere, otherwise normal life will never resume. And we can’t afford that.

Its nothing to do with the kids - its all about protecting the doubly vaccinated and maybe even booster vaxxed adults.

We are at a point now where adults who may have had THREE vaccine shots are putting the responsibility on to children to stop them from catching a virus they could pick up at the shops/bars/resturants ect.

@charliesbookmarker

Its nothing to do with the kids - its all about protecting the doubly vaccinated and maybe even booster vaxxed adults.

We are at a point now where adults who may have had THREE vaccine shots are putting the responsibility on to children to stop them from catching a virus they could pick up at the shops/bars/resturants ect.

Exactly!!!

Well you are very unlucky to have so many teachers ill with Covid at the same time. That is not the case for the OP's school.

So should they wait until it is the case before they put any measures in place?

A recent study showed that 75% of children have already had covid. In that context I can see very little rationale for damaging and disruptive measures which slow down but don’t stop the spread in the other 25%.

And flu is more dangerous than covid for young children and those comparing covid and flu death rates are looking at covid deaths pre vaccination. With the vaccine covid deaths are likely to be comparable to flu.

I agree op. I think all of these measures are damaging to children for very little benefit. They aren’t going to stop children getting covid in the long run but might slightly delay it. It seems very unfair that adults can live their life normally while children are still subjected to this. I think children have been the lowest priority for the last 18m and the measures we’re continuing to subject them to are much more damaging covid, which they will all get anyway.

@coffeerevelsrock

Well you are very unlucky to have so many teachers ill with Covid at the same time. That is not the case for the OP's school.

So should they wait until it is the case before they put any measures in place?

Exactly. If schools had proper (any!) mitigations, we wouldn’t have so many staff off.