Anyone taken their kids out of school?

[mac12]

My husband wants to take our 3 kids out of school (ages 8-13). He’s involved in an international study on the incubation period (he works on comms side) so has lots of access to clinical data, which means he’s read some scary stuff & often sees worst case scenarios, which maybe skews our thinking.
I am v conflicted & worried, what is the process, will we get into trouble with the local authority, can heads have discretion at times like this? Has anyone else done it or thinking of it? Or are we mad to be even thinking about it? The eldest definitely would hate it as loves school (yeah, strange)
I was hoping the govt would follow Japan & shut schools for early containment but that doesn’t appear to be on the cards for now.

We are tempted to take our children out - hubby has a heart condition so worried they will bring it home. We will await news today although if I take them out of the oversubscribed school that we love I doubt we will get them back in!

I find it hard to understand how our government is suggesting increasing class sizes to cope with a lack of teachers due to the coronavirus. Are they seriously suggesting children should continue to go in to school when the virus becomes so widespread that there aren't enough teachers? China, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and parts of Italy have closed schools. If it becomes widespread surely we will too?

We are in Italy, fairly south so not near the outbreak, but the schools are closed. Honestly I'm feeling happier they are at home right now.
I'd take them out. I think it's way more prevalent in the UK than anyone wants to admit. Lots of the people who have tested positive in Italy are asymptomatic. Some people they have tested post mortem for the virus in cases of pneumonia and they are also in the Italian figures. I'd love to know how many pneumonia deaths have been tested for this virus in the UK.
Italy are looking after their residents and citizens, they are actively looking for cases, and in my opinion, the UK are not.....so look after yourself!

The reason people are suggesting that there may be no residual immunity is that in a small number of cases (perhaps as few as one), someone has tested positive, then negative, then positive again. This might mean that you could be reinfected, but it could also very likely mean than the negative test was false. As opposed to the sparse evidence for reinfection, there is plenty of evidence for faulty test results.

I get a lot of my information from Dr John Campbell. His take is that it's highly unlikely for there to be no residual immunity, as this only usual happens when the virus has mutated since the last infection. We know that this virus is still basically in its original form and seems relatively stable, so the chances of it being able to reinfect people seem very low.

Sorry but this is just anxiety at its best. I work in a hospital and we are slightly concerned - imagine if we all decided to take our kids out of school and not come to work! There is risk to everything in life. Theres a risk of contracting meningitis from carriers but you don't keep them in for that and that is a lot more dangerous for children. Also the comment about the people being reinfected is just speculation at this point as the test can give false negatives. It could have been relapse not reinfection.

You absolutely should do what you think is best for your family, you have every right to do so. Personally I would not go to this extreme as my children would hate to be cooped up at home for the next year to 18 months (realistically that is what you are looking at until a vaccine comes along), I know it would be extremely detrimental to their physical, emotional and mental health. I couldn't put that burden on them to protect more senior members for the family. Obviously every family is different though. If one of the children had a serious health condition, I may of course think differently.

Unless you are in an area with a high number of cases I think you are being a little bit ridiculous.

I have an immunosupressed dd who is on chemo and she is still in school. Both the school and I have sought out advice from her specialists and public health and they have classed the risk as low.

Utterly ridiculous. You need to see your gp about your anxiety and stop passing it on to your children.

Taking dc out of school because 40 people out of 6 billion have a virus is completely batshit.

It'll be interesting to see the report that we're supposed to be getting from the outcome of Cobra yesterday

Of course you shouldn't take them out of school.

Unless of course you take them out of school and stay in your own house for the next few months? Year maybe? Equal chance of catching it anywhere you go. Not just school.

Forty people ffs. Honestly calm down.

I completely agree with you decision! but only because the more people that do this the smaller the classes will get and the more they can focus on learning rather than fear and panic.

Just standby until the end of the week. If numbers continue to multiply considerably each day this week emergency measures will be put into place which may well include school closures.

I think taking kids out just now is very extreme!!! If it spreads rapidly and thousands come down with it then yes we need to isolate but for forty people is just crazy thinking!!!

There is NOT an equal chance of catching this wherever you go.

Are you more likely to catch something by using a bannister rail which up to 1500 children have run their unwashed hands along, or by staying in your own home? Seriously? Does anyone honestly think these two situations are equal in terms of risk?

I really need to stop engaging.

HerkyBaby, that's where I am at right now as well.

If you do you have to be prepared to keep them at home for weeks if not months. That means not going to shops, libraries, parks and basically anywhere other people go. The risk to their mental health will be huge and I’m not sure how you can mitigate against this.

If 40 people had the flu in the whole country would you take your kids out of school? Your answer must be no because far more people have flu than 40 right now.

You are totally overreacting.

No child has died from covid-19, have they? But of course they could merrily spread it to other less fortunate. However, this could rumble on for decades months, you do realise?

The risk to their mental health will be huge and I’m not sure how you can mitigate against this.

I agree. Lack of fresh air, exercise, social contact, not to mention education. Plus the anxiety generated. I imagine the health experts are factoring these things into their advice to the govt about closing schools etc.

Cases in Italy on 22.2.20 = 20
Cases in Italy on 2.3.20 = 2036

That's a rise of x100 in less than 10 days. Now, I think that number is due to uncovering a pre-existing cluster, and I don't think the rate of increase will maintain at anything like that level. According to the best figures available, this virus is supposed to double every 4-5 days. I'm working on the basis of x8 per fortnight, because it's easy to make rough estimations that way.

So, let's look at the UK. We have 40 cases now, and we'll likely have 320 by the end of the fortnight, and roughly 2,500 by the end of the month.

Except, there is a fortnight's incubation, so we probably really have that 320 now, and will really have 2,500 in a fortnight, though we won't see them yet.

These are all just rough calculations, and the risk at this point is still very low. But let's play out the next month in the UK...

6 weeks time: 2500 x 8 = 20,000
8 weeks time: 20,000 x 8 = 160,000

And those 160,000 will already be infected in 6 weeks time and incubating, waiting to be confirmed. Do we still think JUST 40 cases is nothing? Do you want to wait until there are thousands of cases confirmed (and potentially 8 x more that number still incubating) before you pull your children out of school?

As a maths teacher, I will always tell my students, "interpolation is reliable, extrapolation is not." If exponential growth in diseases continued unchecked, we would all be dead of ebola by now. But people are not being idiots for looking at "just" 40 cases and starting to get concerned.

What measures have you taken at home @nellodee ? If any

its all very well de registering from school, but have you considered OP HOW youre going to go about home education? The school will have a duty to inform the home education officer at the council that you have done this. The the council home ed officer will get into contact to see how youre going about home ed. People looking at doing this, fine.... but PLEASE look into it first!!!
DS is home schooled (since last September, nothing to do with corona) and its a big step to take. Its very time consuming even if you are a SAHM like myself.

OP go and talk to home educators on the home ed page.

@nellodee your figures sort of ignore the fact it’s really slowing down in China.

No, they don't ignore that fact at all. It has taken herculean efforts to get that rate to slow down in China. Full credit to them, but what they did NOT do was sit around saying, "It's only flu" and "I'm just going to carry on as normal."

I very much think we CAN bring down that rate of doubling, but not without action and not without cost. It did not just happen in China. This virus did not burn itself out there. The Chinese government are going through a process currently of gently lightening up on restrictions, and in some cases, reapplying them if the rate of growth seems to be coming back up too far.

For me, at home, I'm not doing anything much yet. I think that even with my model, the risk of infection for anyone in the country is still extremely low at this point. But I think that can, and probably will, change rapidly. I am not going to cast scorn on people who for their own reasons, set their own point of doing something a week or two before mine.

That's the whole point, China closed schools in the WHOLE of China as soon as it became apparent that the virus was out of control in Wuhan. It was by then far too late for Wuhan where health services were overwhelmed and the mortality rate was much higher than it could have been. I don't think wash your hands and sing the national anthem is really going to cut it. Take a gander at this article:

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/china-s-aggressive-measures-have-slowed-coronavirus-they-may-not-work-other-countries