To send my DC back to school with Covid?

[TheChemicalsAintGotYouBaby]

DS tested positive on Sat, and was still a glaring positive last night.

He's due back at high school tomorrow. V few symptoms apart from a snotty nose, and DH and I seem to have swerved it.

He's desperate not to miss the first day of term, and I'm aware that official guidance means that you no longer have to isolate etc if you test positive, if all reasonable steps (masks, distancing etc) are taken. However, I wouldn't be confident he'd remember to do this (little scatterbrain!)

On the flipside though, I don't want to unleash a new infection that will no doubt spread through the school like wildfire.

WWYD?

YANBU - send him. Covids going nowhere and we need to carry on

YABU - keep him off until he's negative

So do you test if your child has symptoms of covid? Even if just a sniffle?

So do you test if your child has symptoms of covid? Even if just a sniffle?

Not usually, partly as I'd be testing at least 50% of the time over the last few months. Do you?

I think the thing is your not required to test. So that's your moral baseline from the government.

My 14 year old was sick which isn't like him. Sore throat, not eating, vomiting, diarrhoea etc. Tested after three days because he's never had covid. Still not eating on day five so tested again and he was positive. By that time we all had it.

Dh works in a school and his boss told him to go in. He was sweating with a fever. When he said he was too unwell hr phoned and said not to come in for five days. Re test and wait another five if its positive. That's also the NHS advice ( stay at home five days from positive test)

But all the time that overstretched bosses want their covid positive feverish employees in, I can't see the point to anything. D&v no please don't come in! Covid with d&v? Yes get your explosive arse back in and infect the entire school.

If ds hadn't been so sick we'd not have tested or known and dhs boss would have excepted fever as a valid reason for a few days off. The answer is not to test really

I tend to assume when people say they always test if they have a symptom that could be covid, most of them are limiting that in some way. Probably respiratory stuff, obvious fever and perhaps bad shits, rather than meaning they test they or their DC every time they have a headache for an hour, one looser than normal shit etc. The range and severity of symptoms is so wide.

But you said you wouldn’t send a child in if you knew they had covid. If they have a sniffle or whatever, how do you know they don’t have it?

Is it a Schrodinger's cat type of approach then? If you don’t test, as far as you’re concerned it’s not covid - even if there are symptoms? But confronted with a positive test, you’d not send them in as there’s no plausible deniability?

I’m really trying to understand this as it’s hard to come to terms with. I’m seeing every week vulnerable people who are having to downsize their own lives to allow others the space to do whatever they want. Not just my daughter, the many children in her hospital clinics and groups. Their families.

As with the comment above about even teachers going to school with covid. What is the solution here? If we can’t even guarantee that teachers are going to be careful with the lives of their most vulnerable children, what should we do?

The options are either:

• Take the risk. But for some, the consequences of taking that risk could literally be life or death. It’s not fair to ask parents to send their children day after day knowing they might not be safe. But it’s also apparently too much to ask that people stay home if they’re unwell?
• Opt out. It feels like this is the option most people would prefer vulnerable people to take. Opt out of school, cinemas, soft play centres if we can’t cope with the risk because absolute freedom at any cost for everyone else is more important. If you think that vulnerable kids shouldn’t go to school if we don’t want their lives to be at risk, that’s not much of a choice and so this is effectively advocating for segregation of vulnerable people.

I know a lot of people via the hospital and support groups who have profoundly vulnerable children and I’ve not encountered anyone who wants indefinite lockdowns or social distancing. We literally just want people to stay at home if they are potentially contagious.

And yet somehow, even though that could save a life, it’s too much to ask.

Cannot remember the last time I tested, why would you be testing 50% of the time...

Batshit crazy imo!

Okay, so as above - is it a Schrodinger's cat type of approach then? If you don’t test, as far as you’re concerned it’s not covid - even if there are symptoms?

I just can’t think of another example where this ‘if I don’t test, I don’t know’ approach would be acceptable when it potentially risks another persons wellbeing.

If for example, somebody had unprotected casual sex and later developed non-specific symptoms that could be an STD but could also be a number of other more benign things would it be okay for them to continue sleeping with other people because they don’t know they have an std? Or would that person have a responsibility to get checked out before potentially passing something on?

The idea that a person has a moral obligation to test before merely existing in public is a sufficiently dangerous one that it needs to be resisted. Because given that everyone who interacts with other human beings is potentially contagious and that there's no guarantee any test will pick an infection up in time even with the usual caveats about a person having access to them etc, that's what it means.

But most people probably no longer have free tests at home and at the moment have other priorities for their money. I only have tests (that I bought) because of visiting care homes and my mum who has a blood cancer.

With regards to DD and school I'll keep her home if she feels ill Covid or not but as far as her school is concerned, if she feels OK, she should go in.

I’m talking about the people who show symptoms of covid and don’t test or those who know they have it and still mix with vulnerable people.

I’m not suggesting that everyone tests every day forever, that’s pointless. You’d never be able to test for every condition and knowing there’s a risk is part of life.

But people knowing or suspecting they have something and going ahead anyway? That’s different.

But surely you can see my point then?! You test because your mum has blood cancer and presumably you’d hope that anyone visiting your mum would do the same.

I feel that same way about my daughter. Surely - given your mum and your job - you’d know better than to put others at risk? Given you can’t possibly be sure nobody at your daughters school is vulnerable?

But you said you wouldn’t send a child in if you knew they had covid. If they have a sniffle or whatever, how do you know they don’t have it?

I don't. But I don't think testing for a sniffle is a reasonable benchmark. We tested on holiday as we were on a cruise and all had coughs (we were negative).

Honestly, I don't think we're alone in not testing for every possible symptom. For one thing, we'd get through multiple tests a week if we tested for every runny nose.

It’s also sufficiently dangerous to expect that a certain demographic must choose between risking their lives or going to school/work. That’s far more sinister than asking people to stay at home when they know that they are ill.

Clearly you’re far from the only ones.

I can’t pretend to get it, though.

Can I ask you something please? If it was your child, for whom covid or norovirus or whatever was life threatening; would you not want people to show a little bit of consideration? Not even so they could go on a cruise or on holiday, just so that you could send them to school knowing that nobody would knowingly put them at risk?

But surely you can see my point then?! You test because your mum has blood cancer and presumably you’d hope that anyone visiting your mum would do the same.

Well I test because I'm staying with her and I would hate to give it to her but she certainly doesn't expect me to and certainly doesn't expect others visiting her to. If she's fine with that so am I. I offer to do shopping for her when I'm there but she likes to come with me after all the shielding. She wears a mask and has had all her vaccs but figures life has to go on.

@SnowqueenOfTexas colds and flu risk some peoples lifes , people only stay home when actually sick
Have you never gone out or to work with a sniffle or sore throat or cough ? Because technically that is a risk to someone you unknowingly may have come into contact with
I think most people are just only staying home if actually unwell as before now

@dockspider but it does sometimes happen with what we would consider a routine illness, it happens more than we know we just don't always hear about it

Ok, in that case what you said before about only wanting people to stay at home if they're potentially infectious isn't accurate. Because that is literally everyone. You are of course free to make a moral distinction between people who have a certain level of observed symptoms and people are asymptomatic/don't identify any symptom as possible covid, but this is a quite separate point from potential to infect.

I’m aware. My daughter is vulnerable to colds and flu too, so we try our best to limit our exposure to these things and thankfully our friends & family are careful. So as you can imagine, things are already very difficult and we have to think carefully before attending crowded indoor events depending on her bloods and the time of year.

But for school, for work - I would hope that given how essential these things are and that it’s not as easy to simply opt out if we don’t want to put her at risk, yeah - I’d hope that people would be more considerate.

Foolishly, I thought that the pandemic might have actually made people more considerate towards others and the impact illness can have on vulnerable people.

The problem with this argument is that the value judgement you make here is based on an abstract definition of what ill is that doesn't necessarily correspond to either what covid symptoms can be or what people might identify them as. So even if I trusted that it would only be applied to people who met that standard, which I don't because that is not our lived experience of the last two and a half years is, the symptoms for covid are so wide in range and severity that people can be showing symptoms and not consider themselves ill at all. I don't think most people would consider themselves ill simply because of having a headache, an off stomach, a runny nose for a couple of hours, and yet these are all common enough symptoms of covid.

Can I ask you something please? If it was your child, for whom covid or norovirus or whatever was life threatening; would you not want people to show a little bit of consideration? Not even so they could go on a cruise or on holiday, just so that you could send them to school knowing that nobody would knowingly put them at risk?

Fair question. Honestly, I wouldn't expect school kids to do a covid test every time they have a runny nose (particularly ones that suffer from hay fever in the summer).

It's where you draw the line and, given that tests are no longer free, I'm guessing the government don't expect others to be testing for runny noses either.

I'm not trying to be heartless, I'm just answering the question honestly.

But surely most people are aware that even if for them a bad stomach or runny nose is fine, it might not be for others. You’re right in that we can’t test for everything, but if you’re symptomatic why wouldn’t you err on the side of caution in terms of potentially infecting vulnerable people?

And by erring on the side of caution, I mean being careful when you know that you have symptoms that could mean you’re unwell. Why wouldn’t you try and avoid making others ill? And for something as essential as school or work, is it so much to ask that you’d try your best not to make it a dangerous place for those more vulnerable?

I don’t understand what you want. I don’t understand why it’s unreasonable to ask that if you’re symptomatic, you think twice before potentially spreading something around.

Expecting people to test/miss a couple of days of school or work when they know they are unwell or contagious is far more reasonable than expecting vulnerable people to risk their lives to go to school or work.

Thank you for your honesty.

Testing seems like such a small kindness given that the alternative is potentially putting a child in hospital. When my daughter caught covid in the summer, she was in hospital for a month and has been in and out since. The trauma, the fear, the disruption and loss of earnings. Having been through that and knowing that we’ll go through similar again is really, really tough.

If I could save somebody else from going through that by testing if I was sniffly, staying home if my tummy was ‘off’ etc - it feels like a no brainer.

I’m so sad. It’s incredibly painful to feel like it’s unreasonable to want my child to be safe at school. In the parents group I am in, there is an overwhelming feeling that our children are a nuisance.

*Okay, so as above - is it a Schrodinger's cat type of approach then? If you don’t test, as far as you’re concerned it’s not covid - even if there are symptoms?

I just can’t think of another example where this ‘if I don’t test, I don’t know’ approach would be acceptable when it potentially risks another persons wellbeing.

If for example, somebody had unprotected casual sex and later developed non-specific symptoms that could be an STD but could also be a number of other more benign things would it be okay for them to continue sleeping with other people because they don’t know they have an std? Or would that person have a responsibility to get checked out before potentially passing something on?*

Would flu be an example?

I don’t know anyone who would go out mixing with others if they had the flu. As in, the proper flu.