To ask regarding COVID - what does 'we just have to live with it' look like in real life?

[Fay2121]

I keep hearing the phrase.

What is the reality of 'we just have to live with it'.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

Yup. The people who want to live with it are the first to complain that their public transport is cancelled, no GP appointments, their child is put into another class or taught by an unqualified teacher, the supermarket shelves are empty. Selfish.

You assume at lot don’t you , my family have had to isolate many times mainly when it was because if a close contact before that was stopped so tbh if I get symptoms I will isolate for as long as necessary but I still think we need to live with it as to stop altogether is not the answer .

@Oldlearner

yes, it doesn't seem like we will ever just live with it. my Dc's school on the back of no more tests have sent out a communication to say we can't send our children to school with ANY symptom of a respiratory tract infection, if they develop a symptom while they are in school parents will be called to come and collect with the child is supervised at a distance. Sounds reasonable until I read the list of symptoms .... a cough – you may bring up mucus (phlegm) sneezing a stuffy or runny nose a sore throat headaches muscle aches breathlessness, tight chest or wheezing a high temperature feeling generally unwell

my DC was sent home today and isn't to return until they are well enough to attend... they have a runny nose and a bit stuffy, no temp and other wise maybe a very occasional cough.

I work in social care so I still have tests, DC is negative so I called the school to tell them she barely has a common cold and the office staff just kept repeating my dc can't return until well again when I said she's fine.

This is absurd.

Complain to the LEA and to the governors.

[quote Invasionofthegutsnatchers]@WeddingFavour tell that to the parents demanding where I am or SLT in my performance management review denying me pay progression because my class haven't made sufficient progress.

If you don't teach you don't get it[/quote]
I would? If you were that unwell you're unlikely to have done any worthwhile work anyway so I doubt it made any difference to your class's progress. You're being a bit dramatic.

It's OK in principle. In reality, with cases as high as they are, schools are struggling to operate because staff have Covid and are too unwell to come to school. People don't seem to understand that schools can't magic up replacement teachers out of thin air, and agencies have run out of supply staff to send. It's all very well wanting to 'live with it' but then don't complain when your child is sent home because there are no adults available to babysit them, let alone teach them anything meaningful.

Treating it like any other contagious illness or virus surely?

I agree @Cornettoninja- its got as good as it's going to get at the moment.

We need to look at improving ventilation in public places and consider more research into covid, and support for those disabled because of the virus...if everyone is to have the freedoms we were used to.

without any empathy for those who are having an awful time

As in, no empathy for...

Toddlers who are haven't learned to recognise facial expressions?
Toddlers who were made to wear masks?
Teenagers who disengaged from education (they sure got message their education wasn't important)
Adults who couldn't get their HGV licenses?
Struggling businesses?
People locked into their care home not allowed to see family ,sometimes locked in their rooms where no one made sure they ate properly?
That whole MN thread about ppl in hospital not allowed any relatives to accompany them, lest covid be 'introduced' ? To an environment which is already rife with covid.

Covid controls cause a lot of harm, too.

Reading what is happening in Shanghai to control Covid, also makes me glad not to live there

Of course I "get it". Do you think you are the first to struggle in to work unwell @invasionofthegutsnatchers? 😂 Or the only person here to work in a school?

Agreed @WeddingFavour My child’s teacher was off the last few days of term, I just assumed she had covid. I didn’t demand to know where she was. Frankly it’s none of my business

@Biscuitsneeded

It's OK in principle. In reality, with cases as high as they are, schools are struggling to operate because staff have Covid and are too unwell to come to school. People don't seem to understand that schools can't magic up replacement teachers out of thin air, and agencies have run out of supply staff to send. It's all very well wanting to 'live with it' but then don't complain when your child is sent home because there are no adults available to babysit them, let alone teach them anything meaningful.

It's reasonable to point out what's happening, but that takes us back to the question of what could we do now to alter any of this? The evidence for anything other than lockdown controlling the spread of Omicron, and not even that really, isn't there.

I'm all for improving ventilation and air quality in schools anyway, it would be a worthwhile thing even if it did nothing for Covid rates, but what exactly is the alternative to 'living with it' as you describe here?

It means treating it like cold and flu. It means not incessantly testing at every sniffle (so getting rid of the testing culture)

It means (hopefully) investing in our health services to cope when pressures become high in hospitals.

It means a yearly vaccination much like the flu vax.

That’s living with it.

@Invasionofthegutsnatchers

right so when I sat up in bed and cried last week because I was too ill to come to work I should have phoned in sick rather than hauling myself into work

Yes you should have phoned in sick

It’s unlikely to cause this much chaos and this much illness forever. My basis for saying this is that we have several hundred other common respiratory illnesses, and many of them were very dangerous when they first crossed over into humans, but aren’t now.

I think people are right to say that viruses don’t necessarily mutate to be milder, but are possibly missing that most viruses do get milder over time despite this, because of greater immunity in the population. 50 million people died of the Spanish flu during that pandemic, but they didn’t keep on dying in those numbers every year since 1918.

The children would have been ok for a day or two with alternatives be they TAs or other teachers.

How about the parents are ok just teaching the kids at home for a 'day or two' instead?

@WeddingFavour
I would? If you were that unwell you're unlikely to have done any worthwhile work anyway so I doubt it made any difference to your class's progress. You're being a bit dramatic.

It's the ongoing grinding down that results in teachers being 'dramatic' because they dare to suggest that an unqualified TA with no knowledge of their class, in an unfamuliar classroom with half the class from a different class entirely (combined classes), no emotional literacy sessions, no interventions, would do a better job than the class teacher who has dragged themselves in with a temperature and feeling like shit but who knows the children, their targets, their families, their friendships. If you don't understand that then you don't understand teaching.

For me today it means having a mask available on standby as some businesses prefer I wear one, and in some areas I too might feel more at ease with one.

OK next time I'll phone in sick. Just don't complain. K?

How about the parents are ok just teaching the kids at home for a 'day or two' instead?

What about their jobs?

@HardyBuckette

You can have asymptomatic flu

How would anyone even know they had such a thing?

We've never routinely tested for flu in this country. And besides it's not pertinent to the conversation you quoted me from as that was in relation to someone who felt unwell and was there fore symptomatic.

That whole MN thread about ppl in hospital not allowed any relatives to accompany them, lest covid be 'introduced' ? To an environment which is already rife with covid.

Frankly the only covid-based reason for keeping visitors out of hospitals would be to protect the visitors from catching covid.

@Harridan1981maybe you don't work in a school that has had quite as shit a year as mine with quite so many families struggling
But it's all for the lols so yeah 🤣🤣🤣

We now have to live alongside a very contagious virus and people aren’t really prepared to acknowledge the bigger picture that it will impact quality of life in various ways. For example - to my knowledge there are no plans or encouragement for schools and workplaces to adjust their sickness thresholds despite covid clearly still making people ill enough to be in bed for a few days. This now exists as well as stuff we’re used to; flu’s, norovirus, etc. there’s no allowances for not threatening non-attendance fines, sickness policies that don’t trigger disciplinaries…

This is a good point.

At my business, with 20 of us, every single person has had Covid at least once just since November. Half of those were too ill to work - not 'can't come in cos positive', 'in bed shivering unable to sit up'. One of them meant we had to cancel a £10k event. It's all well and good that being the norm now, but staffing has been reduced a number of times - it's not a huge deal for us (although bad for the business), but this is why planes and trains are getting cancelled.

In flu or norovirus season, this many people don't get ill at once. This many people being ill with a cold doesn't have the same effect. This is before we consider long covid, a disproportionate level of disability as a result, the link between type 1 diabetes and Covid in kids, people like my dad who ended up having a giant blood clot due to Covid and ended up having surgery and will need ongoing treatment...

It is not just a cold. It may feel like it for a lot of people. But it isn't. And our society - poorly set up for disability, for sickness, for providing even basic healthcare, for mental health care - isn't set up to handle it right now.

If we had a superbly funded and run health system with excellent access to treatment for the effects, after effects and associated conditions; if we had businesses that weren't allowed to use pandemics to fire and rehire poorly paid staff resulting in chaos in airports; if we had a society that didn't treat sickness at work as a tickbox exercise; if we had a society where people could afford to reduce spread of any infectious illness instead of feeling financially pressured to go to work... then sure, we could live with it like we do colds and it'd be a lot easier. But as it is... we're having a hard time right now, and until the virus mutates itself into docility we're going to carry on having a hard time.

[quote Invasionofthegutsnatchers]@WeddingFavour
I would? If you were that unwell you're unlikely to have done any worthwhile work anyway so I doubt it made any difference to your class's progress. You're being a bit dramatic.

It's the ongoing grinding down that results in teachers being 'dramatic' because they dare to suggest that an unqualified TA with no knowledge of their class, in an unfamuliar classroom with half the class from a different class entirely (combined classes), no emotional literacy sessions, no interventions, would do a better job than the class teacher who has dragged themselves in with a temperature and feeling like shit but who knows the children, their targets, their families, their friendships. If you don't understand that then you don't understand teaching.[/quote]
You are being dramatic. I’m sorry but you are.

Plus you’ll have shared your germs with all those 4 year olds so covid or not covid excellent work!

@TheKeatingFive

How about the parents are ok just teaching the kids at home for a 'day or two' instead?

What about their jobs?

Not my problem. Maybe parents should've listened when we said there was no give in the system long before covid hit.

We're having to take some risks as my Dad is seriously ill with a lung condition and I do provide some care for him every day. Youngest is 11 and at a busy secondary school but too young for vaccine so he's more likely to catch it. We usually rely on tests. Happy to buy them but none available anywhere. .