Why do people think closing schools is going to help?

[Bearbehind]

• Evidence suggests children are far less susceptible to Coronavirus than adults

• Unless you plan to quarantine them in the house 24/7 then they’ll be in contact with their friends anyway

• Very few working parents could cope with no childcare during school hours

• There’s been stories on here of parents who want schools to close but have no intention of cancelling other plans / holidays

What is it designed to achieve?

I think its really still to be seen how effective school closures are.

China did it, but it was there it started.

We don't know yet how effective it will be long term.

Will China be able to stay relatively virus free long term when it is spreading rapidly through rest of world.

I know they are quarantining people from certain areas going to the country- bit again how long can that last.

There are so many people scraping by on zero hour contract and implications for them are huge if school are potentially closed for months (like China).

And it makes the economic shock that we will get from Brexit seem small.

I will trust the experts on this one.

Because it fits their obsession with a pending apocalypse. Funny that they are not wanting to close schools when seasonal flu is doing the rounds and that’s passed in the same way. Many more die each year from the flu and we have a vaccine for it (imagine how many would die if we didn’t). But life goes on as normal and those at risk just take precautions.
Some people just love the drama. It makes them feel brave that they are surviving this. They love an “I almost died” story. Read some of the threads on here and you’ll be amazed how the UK survived 2 world wars when people think that 2 dead from a virus and no toilet paper in Tescos means the end of all civilization.

Bearbehind, I just don't think thats true. Yes the economy will suffer but that going to be a global issue now anyway. Yes most people with covid19 do recover but it takes time and 10% of people infected require intensive care to survive. If this virus spreads like it has in China or Italy then our NHS will not cope and many more will die due to lack of care. Its our duty to do all we can as individuals and as a country to slow the spread of this as much as possible.

ShanghiDiva is right that as difficult as the shutdown in China has been or the situation is Italy now its the right thing to do.

Schools are absolute disease factories, everything going, even worse in recent years thanks to punitive attendance policys , i totally appreciate the working parents aspect but yeah, they should imo have done this sooner.

There's also the issue of children in Y10-Y13 who will be doing or preparing for exams. It would create chaos for them if schools closed.

Could schools close to other year groups? But 10-13 stay on?

Things is, we will be ok.

I work from 4-8am so someone is always here for childcare but thousands of parents can’t suddenly take parental leave to take care of their kids because the school has closed.

It's to slow down transmission rates so that hospitals don't get overwhelmed. Even slowing it down a bit should help.

nolite but travel within Italy hasn’t been restricted

Flights are still operating

People travelling to schools also make up a fair proportion of public transport users so would help with that too.

Italy are imposing major travel restrictions from one part of Italy to another. That we are still flying in says vastly more about our lax travel restrictions than theirs.

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/08/leaked-coronavirus-plan-to-quarantine-16m-sparks-chaos-in-italy

You must not have children, when we had our first we was all ok, then school started....we constantly kept dropping like flies as they don’t get too sick themselves...but boy can they spread it around a family home quicker than eating cake!

That’s why schools should close.

People are ill in hospital for 3w+
there is 30K from china not yet recovered.
they built hospitals and shut down the whole city
our death rate will be many times there one

It's a moot point tbh as if staff catch the virus, and have been teaching, the way things are now schools will close anyway for a few days. If lots of staff are off, it'll have to close, potentially for longer.

So it's either close them in anticipation to halt spread as a part of a wider clamp down, or wait for them to close haphazardly.

They've already been closing here and there.

But just closing schools seems utterly pointless to me

It won't be just schools; this will be part of a huge containment effort. And won't be taken lightly.

I hope they do close them-anything to slow the transmission rate is a good thing.

Because children carry and pass it to mothers recovering from cancer or siblings with asthma.

Because they can pass it to grandparents. The death rate for them is 14%.

Schools are known to be super spreaders like norovirus outbreaks.

Can’t believe the selfish attitude of this whole thing. Happy international women’s day.

@BritWifeinUSA I think one of the reasons is that the vast majority of School children are given the flu vaccine in schools each year. They are not the ones most at risk from Flu, but we vaccinate them as they are a high spreader risk.

The situation we are in now is that children are a high risk for spreading a disease, but unlike flu we dont have a vaccine and can't vaccinate the most vulnerable people

Why is it selfish to worry about how families will cope if schools close?

It’s ok if they get paid, but I know a few places who would manage to fudge it slightly so that they won’t have to pay and benefits are difficult to get on to nowadays.

So how are families meant to cope if they can’t go to work?

How are families who live pay check to pay check, therefore have no savings, suppose to live?

@Awkward1
They didn’t just shut down Wuhan, the measures effectively shut down the whole country.
I live 280 miles from Wuhan and nothing was open in my area except supermarkets and pharmacies. We stayed at home as there was nowhere to go and nothing to do outside the home.

Presumably because it will force people out of offices and into their homes to care for kids

Lotus seriously?

Just because someone doesn't want schools closed they are not a parent?

My children being at school has 0 effect on my immune system.

How did the UK survive 2 world wars? By not whingeing when they were asked to do things which were inconvenient. Can you imagine Mumsnet these days?

"How can my Billy go to war? I can't possibly find daycare if he gets conscripted."

"How am I supposed to work in a munitions factory? My florist shop won't run itself."

If we’re not going to have a vaccine for a year, there is no point closing anything, it’s just delaying the inevitable and will lead to poverty in most cases.

Everything would grind to a halt, these days the only parents who would cope with schools shut would be those on benefits and the rich. Everyone in between would be shafted as usual.

If we’re not going to have a vaccine for a year, there is no point closing anything

^^ This

If someone said CV would die out on 31/3/20 I’d get it

But it’s here to stay until a vaccine is found

So how long do we close things down for?

There is also an attitude of their old who cares ( I’m not btw just making a point).

Well you should all not be so sure of yourself. A 29 year old female GP died in China. Also 8 hospital doctors have just died in Iran. Check it out on Twitter.