When will our children get HEPA filters in their classrooms? I am so tired of my children constantly being ill and missing school!

[Annemcc32]

I can't believe we are still waiting for HEPA filters in classrooms, they were talking about this in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and STILL they have done nothing! What exactly are they waiting for at this point? There's tons of evidence that they work to remove viruses from the air.
My kids have had Covid 4 times so far and were both very ill. How can they defend doing nothing to prevent staff and children? They have a duty of care to provide a safe environment.
The MOST annoying thing is that clean air IS provided in the Houses of Parliament, many private schools and even the DfE!!
Other countries have already done this now and it reduces transmission of airborne viruses to offer a layer of protection and reduce illness/absence.
I noticed that one council has committed to it just recently (Herefordshire I think). Why is this not being sorted out ASAP before the kids go back in September?
Why are we so bad at protecting our kids?
Not to mention that IF bird flu takes off (no pun intended) this would help. Where did public health go? The UKHSA seem to have taken a sabbatical for the last four years.

I can't understand why anyone would be against cleaning the air in schools: HEPA filters don't just remove virus particles from the air, they also remove pollutants and allergens. I understand that money is short, but if we don't start with protecting children's health, then there isn't much point in anything else we do for them.

My child, or yours, may be able to shrug off infections, but what about the child with weak health? The one with a sibling with cancer? Ill parents etc? In any case, their health may seem to be fine, but there are hundreds of studies all showing that Covid damages the immune system, making us more susceptible to other illnesses after we've had Covid, and also that they'll affect us worse than pre-Covid, and that multiple Covid infections increase this impact. 4.5 years is simply way too soon to say our children's health is fine with repeat Covid infections - HIV took 10 years to become AIDS in most cases. Polio can cause awful effects decades after infection. We should be using the precautionary principle and cleaning the air - France and Belgium are already doing so. We already know Covid causes serious after effects for many people, regardless of how much people want to minimise it. "MY child is fine" isn't the argument people think it is.

There is just no good reason for NOT reducing infections in schools and, because we have better information since Covid began about how to clean the air, we should DO better. I wish I'd known about HEPA filters when I was a teacher, I would definitely have had them in my classroom. Those teachers who DO have them report far fewer illnesses, of their own and among pupils.

On a more cynical note: the Houses of Parliament and major Government departments have installed HEPA filtration. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for our children. And the World Health Organisation VERY QUIETLY installed HEPA filtration in their offices in (I think) May 2020 - while telling the rest of us that Covid spreads by droplets and to keep 2m apart from each other, while they KNEW it is Airborne.

So yeah, not a happy bunny that schools are infested with viruses and bacteria and that we know how to improve the situation, but we're not doing so. No doubt in years or decades to come, we'll wonder why cleaning the air was ever debated, it will be so obvious. The food and water we consume must reach a certain quality - why not the air we breathe.

If there's an afterlife, I imagine Semmelweis is raging.

We have a winner! 🏆
THE most idiotic post.
CHILDREN MUST GET SICK TO BE WELL. 🤦🏽‍♀️

I think you are confusing minor germs with major viruses. You certainly don't want to be encouraging your kids catching serious illness. Your immune system is better supported by good health, vitamins, clean air and clean water. Overuse of chemical cleaning products can be problematic but that's not what's being suggested.

HEPA filters DO remove virus particles. That’s the whole point….?🤷🏻‍♀️

Wow, for someone who works in pharma, you seem fairly scientifically illiterate when it comes to particulate matter size and the proven efficacy of air filtration (check out the Cambridge study on HEPA and healthcare settings).

The rest of your comment read pretty much as "there are some (surmountable) obstacles to improving our kids' health and therefore life chances, so let's not bother".

We have them in my daughter’s school. Her class gets a lot less of the mini epidemics that go round. They reduce asthma, pollution and remove bacteria, viruses and pollen from the air. Clean air is obviously a benefit especially where it’s very polluted. If you have a health condition more vulnerable to infections they also massively help. The NHS uses them as does the House of Commons and MOD. Recently brought into London primaries and already in many schools in Somerset. Why demand less for our kids?

I work on an elderly ward and we don’t even have them yet are still getting people dying of Covid so I don’t think schools will implement them when every year, we’re told of materials etc they’re having to cut back on that children need for education

You clearly know nothing about attendance in schools. In my experience, most kids are still in school with cold / flu symptoms with a dose of Calpol inside them. This that are not in school are usually persistent absences and are not generally ill.
Screening children from viruses / bacteria only serves to prevent development of their immune systems. Some people may end up with long covid, some people may end up with CFS, but the vast majority will have no side effects. We don't give children Calpol just in case they get a temperature, or antibiotics in case they get an infection.

Where did the school get the funding from?

Kids cough literally in each other’s faces. I can’t imagine that the filters would help this. FWIW the private school my ds has just left opens the windows for ventilation. No filters.

You clearly do not understand viral infections. Children do not benefit from repeatedly being exposed to dangerous viruses 🤷🏻‍♀️
There are currently 110,000 children (Eng & Scotland alone) living with Long Covid. This number has doubled in the last year. This number WILL CONTINUE TO RISE.
We don’t see that on the news do we? They are minimising the serious risk to children. As you are.
they deserve to be protected. The should be protected in all ways possible.
How would you explain the total lack of any mitigations to one of the 110,000 LC kids?
Not to mention the kids who aren’t counted in that. For example, all of those who now have Covid induced T1 diabetes.

I'd love to see HEPAs in my children's school. Each year the school hassles us about low attendance but my kids only have time off when they are genuinely too poorly to go in. I have health issues and we're very cautious so I know the viruses could only have been caught at school. This is an issue caused by school that I am in trouble for!

I've even offered to buy HEPAs but school won't use them. I have some at home and find they reduce the spread of infections at home and are great at reducing pollen, dust and allergy/asthma symptoms.

For places that educate our kids, schools are terribly lacking in health and scientific knowledge.

What choice do parents have? We are forced to send them in to unventilated classrooms. With teachers who don’t care about them being constantly infected and fellow parents who don’t bother to test their kids and just send them in sick?
How exactly can parents protect their children from constant illness?

They would reduce the amount of virus in the air. They would help.
I would hope that the kids who are sick would be told to stay at home…?🤦🏽‍♀️
I would hope that teachers and parents test. And that the windows are open. HEPA IS not a magic bullet!
But, ALL of these things together would make a big difference.
Why the hell aren’t we doing them?

I think they should be there too! And in healthcare settings.

110,000 children so far (in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 alone) have Long Covid.
That number doubled last year.
You should think about that.

gosh this is such a retro post - are you getting help for your health anxiety? You'd be better campaigning for schools to stop sending attendance letters every time a kid is off sick , there's no benefit to anyone sending poorly kids to school.

HEPA filtration is one of the public health measures that should long since have been put in place in schools, hospitals, shops etc.

With regards to schools the Bradford study already showed that the use of HEPA filters reduced absence by 20%.

Our children have Long COVID and are no longer well enough to attend school or take part in many aspects of childhood. As with many it has developed into Long COVID ME and anybody with ME knows it is debilitating, life ruining and diabolically neglected.

Just with the example of paediatric long Covid there are at least 112,000 children (March 2024 ONS) living that particular nightmare.

(As it happens we donated HEPA filters to their school years ago and they were only switched on sometimes - the school did not regard air quality or clean air as something valuable at all.)

I agree that children shouldn’t be in when they are ill.
I hope that you are able to use sone of the comments to educate yourself about the risk to long term health being caused by constant Covid.
Denial doesn’t solve problems unfortunately 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm chronically ill myself with ME and in groups with a number of people with long Covid - i still think you've got health anxiety to be posting in this way.

Yet you can't see the value in making the school air cleaner and reducing the chance of infecting others?! It doesn't have to be exclusively one or the other! And let's face it, many parents can't keep taking time off to stay home with sick kids.

I wouldn’t assume we would think the same way 🤷🏻‍♀️
Have you been reading about the ongoing risk of repeated covid infections? There are lots of ppl with long covid who choose not to keep up with the research.
I prefer to be informed and proactive instead of crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Why not understand what we are dealing with and use the tools we have that work?
We have 110,000 kids so far with long covid. That’s not OK. That number has doubled in the last year. It will continue to rise.
Why do nothing? What evidence is there that it will all be fine if we continue to ignore it?

This thread is bonkers.
Either there is a lot of name changing/sock puppeting going on or there is more neurotic people than I realised.
If you’re so scared your children are going to die from all the germs at school then best keep them home. You could maybe make up a makeshift vacuum to keep them in, bubble wrap or a giant Tupperware box perhaps?

Why were kids healthier when I was a kid do you think? No HEPA filters, no chemical hand sanitiser, no antibac spray, no shitty chemicals in food, kids playing outside all day building up their immunity.
These ‘perfect lives’ influencers have got a lot to answer for.

School is for learning, and I want the school budget to be spent on educational things not artificial air, thanks very much.

Are you getting help for your inability to deal with the reality of an ongoing pandemic?

I doubt the poster has anxiety about anything other than the mass denialism - doubtless fuelled by anxiety - how ironic! - still keeping us all exposed to a deadly and disabling virus. Do some research.

awaits scoffing noises

It's weird you're so triggered by people wanting their kids not to get SARS. Unless you actively want your kid to get SARS (and all the risks that carries) then I don't know why cleaning the air would make you so angry.