To be cross at asked why i am letting my DD infect people.

[katiestar]

DS1 secondary school has closed for a week after one of the children contracted swine flu.My DS1 has been in contact with her and is taking Tamiflu.When I took my DD to playgroup this morning I noticed evrybody was being handed a leaflet about swineflu and overheard one of teh staff say it was' because of one of the children's siblings.'
On the way out a woman approached me and said wasn't I worried about DD infecting the other children.
I pointed out that she was not got swine flu or had even been in contact with anyone who had and I had no intention of keeping her ,or any of my children under house arrest.
When I got home I realised that my DD is the only one at the playgroup with a sibling at the secondary school in question.
Now I can sort of accept that people are stupid and bitchy and overlook the comment from the mad parent.But I am a bit annoyed at the playgroup .

There is going to be an awful lot of people getting very stressed about it I'm afraid. But the fact is, soon it will be everywhere. The gossip will get horrid. I'm not normally one to follow what 'Institutions' say blindly. But I think people just need to be sensible and follow HPA advice.

Whole families are not supposed to quarantine themselves if one of them has been in contact with a flu case. Can you imagine how quickly the country will shut down if we all did that in a few weeks/months.

If someone gets symptoms, then yes, they should stay at home as advised. Otherwise we just all need to be sensible about it.

Just to clarify the HPA advice is for everybody who is neither confirmed as having swine flu or being tested for it , to carry on as normal.
I wouldn't have had a problem if they had just given out the leaflet and said nothing.I don't think they had to mention about a child having a sibling at the affected school.

YABU, sorry - I can see where you're coming from but actually it wouldn't have killed you to stay away for just one week.

I'm resigned to swine flu being out there and most of us getting it, and most being fine because it's mild, but all the same if a family member had been exposed I'd avoid mixing for a week - it's just being considerate.

Not many people seem to get what it means, this being a new disease. OK it might be mild with a low hospitalisation rate but when many many more people end up getting it at once hospitals will struggle and all that intensive care and days and days of days of respiratory support just might not be available to everyone who needs it.

I wouldn't worry about being one of the tiny minority of asthmatics hospitalised with normal flu in a year - that's what the system's built to cope with. I wouldn't fancy being the twentieth person in one week to need it because it's a new flu and twenty times as many people have caught it that week than ever have normal flu at once. (Even chicken pox would be a lot more lethal if suddenly hundreds of times more people than usual were getting it all at once.)

People being extra cautious in this sort of situation might really matter. Maybe it could help us to slow this disease down as it goes round so the peak pressure on hospitals is more manageable. In the OPs situation I think it makes sense to stay away from playgroup for a week, even though it's annoying.

Also isn't there a chance Tamiflu can mask symptoms so they don't show up as much if someone taking it does get ill?

allthewayhome- you presume to have a greater insight than the HPA do you ?

we all had swine flu. now confirmed cases.

dd1 was the first to fall ill so i reckon it was in her nursery passed it to her, because she fell ill a fortnight ago tomorrow.

i think the panic about it all is dying down so hopefully people will stop being so silly about it.

dd1 was the hardest hit, but only because when she first went in to the out-of-hours doc (a fortnight ago next Sunday), it was not our regular GP and she was fobbed off. DH took her and that doc said she had a UTI when i fecking knew it was swine flu and had to go through the NHS24 protocol just to get her the appointment about her illness.

we went through it again the following day, still, got fobbed off.

the upshot was was that she missed the opportunity for Tamiflu to really help her.

when she was finally officially confirmed through swab tests, it was too late.

the rest of us had relatively mild cases, myself perhaps excepted. i had normal flu, which is far, far worse, about 13 years ago. i tried to get back to myself too soon, got pnuemonia that landed me in hospital for a while and after that my lungs were never the same.

this has settled in my lungs.

and although i went for a walk today, i was sucking wind and slow.

I'm in a similar boat Katiestar - DS's school has had a case confirmed tonight - his school will be shut next week and DH is out now getting the antivirals from school.

Do I keep DD away from her school? - no indication that DS is infected at all.

and there are lots of children with siblings at the junior school, not just mine.

HPA website guidance is carry on as normal if no symptoms - if my work (also connected) decides that staying open is the right thing to do what do I do?

not an easy decision to make, and do not want to spread hysteria, or spread disease either!

the OP did nothing wrong.

She followed HPA advice

The evidence is that her DS is not infected with Swine flu let alone her and her DD.

Yes people stinking to "quarantine" advice is going to help contain this disease - but if you want to quarantine someone who knows someone who has been in the same room as a confirmed case we might as well all stock up our cupboards for a 28 day national 24hr curfew - because TBH the amount of people that have been in contact with people that have been contact is actually probably going to be around 1,000,000 (1,000 people affected, each with 10 contacts, each with 10 contacts). Highly unrealistic numbers TBH... but demostrates the point.

YANBU at all imo... How ridiculous for the nursery to send out a letter that implicates you without discussing it with you first!
I absolutely agree that if your dd was at risk she would also have been prescribed tamiflu and as she hasn't, then you should carry on as normal.
If there are children at nursery who have suppressed immune systems or other conditions that put them at risk, then a discussion should have taken place and you could have taken her out...this... is just paranoia

Well if we all were worried about coming into contact with someone who may have come into contact with someone, then no-one wouldbe leaving their house, would they?
Kaiestar, you have my sympathy. We've all had information through the door about Swine Flu - there is no need to try and make someone feel excluded or guilty for doing nothing wrong.

and YANBU.

I'll phone my DD1's and DD2's nursery on Monday to see if they want us to still keep them home, because both are up to full speed as far as energy levels now, BUT, they were swabbed on Wednesday and their results still came back positive when read out today.

DD1 was knocked for six, fobbed off by two out of hours docs who were not our GPs. She could have really used that Tamiflu when it mattered.

Various (unverified) websites are suggesting that children can shed virus for up to 10 days from onset Expat - if that helps. I can't recall when they were hit.

I'm not presuming I know better than the HPA - they have to have a big general plan and have to give out one-size-fits-all advice that will give them the best average result without causing counterproductive panic. There's nothing stopping us using our common sense on top of that though.

'Carry on as normal' is general advice. Deciding to avoid totally optional mixing at a playgroup just for one week when you might be a bit more than averagely likely to be infectious is just tailoring what you do to your particular situation.

It's like speed limits, deciding to go at 20 if you see a reason to do that somewhere where the limit is usually 30 isn't presuming to have a greater insight than the highways people when they put up a 30 sign there. It's just being a bit thoughtful about what's going on.

This is from the Department of Health yesterday:

"The UK strategy of providing anti-virals for those who have developed the disease and their close contacts, and using school closures where appropriate has so far been effective in slowing the spread of the disease."

They want the spread to be slowed down, it gives everyone the best chance of managing it. There's no reason for any of us when we have a choice not to help with that a bit, if we think that us staying away from somewhere might help.

Out of interest ,how did you know it was swineflu Expat , had your DD been in contact with someone who had it or been to Mexico ?

PerfectPrefect - your numbers demonstrate the point that quarantining everyone who has that kind of indirect contact wouldn't work. They don't say anything about individual people's choices in situations where they can actually avoid mixing quite easily without any great cost to them. Just because something wouldn't work as one-size-fits-all advice doesn't mean it can't ever be the right thing to do.

Glad you are all ok Expat.

YANBU OP.

OP did nothing wrong. Would not bother me for her dd to be in the playgroup. Swine flu has been overhyped.

But if everyone made that decision to avoid mixing there would be 100,000 people sat twiddling their thumbs at home...(actually it would be 111,000 if you include the sick).

The point in this case is that it would have been wrong for her DS to go to playgroup (although that is potentially debatable and that is in my mind a bit more of a grey area IMHO).

There was NO EVIDENCE that her DS was infected - and in all likelihood he would have been symptomatic by now - even with tamiflu. Therefore there is no reason to quarantine his family. Again it could have been a slightly more grey debate a few days ago.

Yes the public adhering to quarantine and isolation guidline is going to have a MASSIVE impact on the spread of swine flu. But in this case there really was no real reason to quarantine - and that is based on a number of independant factors (i.e. contact of a contact and the timeline)....

'how did you know it was swineflu Expat , had your DD been in contact with someone who had it or been to Mexico ? '

I just knew.

No, she'd not been in contact with anyone who'd been in Mexico, that is the silly tosh of myth that needs to be swept aside because this is worldwide now. As it is, this is a small town in Western Scotland.

I collected her from her nursery on Friday, and normally she is tired then, as she has dyspraxia and tires easily. But she is a girl who is pale as milk and her cheeks flush in the sun. But they were very flushed that day.

And somehow I just knew. But I have tendancies like that.

The next day she woke and said she had a sore head so I gave her paracetemol and in no time at all she had a 39.8 degree temp.

I just knew then.

But you're scaling it up again and judging what it would be like with 100 000 people sitting at home, which isn't the point. It would have been pretty cost-free for her, and probably a good community-minded decision to make, that was my point. I do sympathise actually with her feeling singled out by the leaflet but if she and her child are a link to the known cases that's just bad luck isn't it?

Yes, the less likely her dd is to be infectious (the more time it's been since her ds was last exposed), the less difference it makes her staying away - so from that point of view I wouldn't really argue she should stay away after a certain point.

What's annoying me in these threads is the idea that it just doesn't matter if people spread swine flu around because 'it's only mild', 'it's no worse than seasonal flu' etc. It does matter, this is a different animal because it's new, so if lots of people get sick at once it could be pretty crap, especially for asthmatics and pregnant women. Maybe it's because I'm one of those that I have a different point of view!

MaggieBee...but chickenpox can lead to all sort of complication if a pg lady is not immune...so...it doesn't really than make a difference....so, by that standard, letsjust all stay in our houses 24/7...just in case....

op...on your behalf I will say...ffs people get a life....such hysteria....yeah. do preventative action as and when...but...tbh, people really need to educate themselves and stop the DM hysteria-behaiour...

Trust me - I am NOT saying it is OK for people to spread it around. I am firmly behind the idea that people need to stay home where appropriate to limit the spread which will reduced the chance of a deleterious mutation....

What I am saying is that there was no rational reason for OP not to go to playgroup IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES DESCRIBED.

On the matter of scaling up. I don't see why - on your reasoning it is fine for 999,999 people to go about their normal daily lives...whilst singling out the OP.

Yes we need to use common sense in addition to the HPA advice. In this instance - IMVHO common sense says that there was no risk compared to Joe Bloggs on the street in that community.

But, alltheway, what can be done about it?

I will take our area as an example.

This is a rural area. There is one 'town', if you will, between here and literally 100 miles.

There is one secondary school for a relatively big geographical area (such a large area, that some students must board as it is too far to go and come in one day).

There is one dinky sort of supermarket.

Otherwise, you have to travel in a car very far or use a ferry boat full of people.

There's no online delivery.

There is not much to do. There are no theatres, one small leisure centre. That is about it, other than pubs and venue halls which hire out for ceilidhs, basically pubs with live music.

People hang out here. In each other's homes.

How do you stop this?

Many people meet their lifelong mate in the secondary school, or even the primary school.

They close the school, the students all still hang out together in close quarters.

How do you stop it then?

You can't, and that is why it is now one of the largest outbreaks in the UK.

You can't stop folks from needing milk and medicines, especially when you have little or no public transport to serve them.

But now we have had it, I am happy to offer to our neighbours and friends, if they fall ill, would be happy to travel to them and theirs to help.

You could spin this round and say that it is the perogative of the hysterical uninformed indiduals who want to quartine all the people that have ever had contact with a confirmed case to qurantine themselves to prevent exposing themselves....