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?

Lol, not ture

Just stating what the WHO report on the initial Chinese outbreak suggested.

Where are you getting 18%?!

I can find figures of around 3.8%.

How about we get the teachers to do it as it is actually what they are paid for?

Teacher are paid to teach children.

Let’s say 50% of a class stay off because of worries about CV. No point in teaching stuff that half the class will miss out on. Couple that with a number of staff being off and it’ll just be watching films in the hall rather than teaching.

@Teateaandmoretea
I am interested in the figures for children in China who have died of starvation. Where did you get this from?

I am not, I am pointing out that you can stay away from others if you wish.

But of course you don't. You want others to do so so your life can continue as before.

Oh fuck off. You don’t have a fucking clue about my life. This is the second time I’ve been a carer for someone I love who is incredibly unwell. The first resulted in me becoming a widowed lone parent. Now I’m doing it all again, thankfully remarried so with some support, but nonetheless I’ve already sacrificed all social life, self care, income over the past 6 month.
Now there’s another risk to her life I’m self-isolating as much as I can alongside her, and spending hours every day trying to keep her entertained and with some quality of life.
But if tens of thousands of others of vulnerable people aren’t going to be put at risk then everyone needs to be careful. Cut out all unnecessary travel and interactions; check in on elderly neighbours to keep them from needing to go to the shop; stay at home if unwell in case it’s covid-19.

The country needs to be kept going and the vulnerable groups need to be really really careful, that is how it is.

Of course the country needs to be kept going. No-one disagrees with that. The disagreement is how best to do it - China took seemingly drastic steps in the short term but their population - and economy - look to be bouncing back already. Italy didn’t respond fast enough and now, with their hospitals full to bursting, have to take the drastic steps anyway.

I have a child sitting A levels this summer, and friends who are both GP’s with 5 school age kids - I can see the problems thrown up by closing schools. But every seriously affected country has had to do so, and their numbers infected haven’t lowered until they have.

Well, Boris will be discussing all this today so we will see what the experts think.

I agree, OP - seems the wrong focus

I agree OP. Selfishly or not I am worried about what will happen if school closes, as a single parent I need to go to work, if I have no income I can't pay my bills.

Surely putting restrictions on travel is a better idea.

Well, Boris will be discussing all this today so we will see what the experts think.

You put Boris and experts in the same sentence.

All the countries that have managed to get on top of the numbers have closed the schools. South Korea has kept schools open only for children whose parents need to work in essential services or absolutely cannot work from home and are too young to stay at home on their own.

abcnews.go.com/International/south-koreas-drastic-measures-coronavirus-offers-glimpse-us/story?id=69383034

^*
How about we get the teachers to do it as it is actually what they are paid for?*^

Teachers are not paid to provide child care for your children.
They are their to teach children what they need to be taught, according to the curriculum laid out by the Government.

If schools do close teachers and other teaching and admin staff from schools won't be sat with their feet up drinking coffee whilst their own child play around them.

Based on what is happening in China and elsewhere they will be producing, uploading and monitoring learning materials (in the form of worksheets, video lessons, presentations, slide shows, etc) that parents and children can access online. They will then be monitoring the responses, marking and assessing them online and providing feedback, plus keeping records of what and who is doing what. Many will be doing this kind of thing on limited tech resources (lots of people no longer have computers at home; my ex colleague who is doing this for her school in China says many staff are having to do all this in just their smart phone) and many will have limited experience of using online learning platforms at all, especially at primary level. Take a look at what's been happening across the globe for examples of what teachers and TAs may well be doing. And they'll be doing all this whilst having their own children at home quite likely, and whilst supervising their own children doing their home based learning.

If you really think teachers will be sat doing nothing you're very naive or quite possibly just being goady tbh.

How about we get the teachers to do it as it is actually what they are paid for?

A good Facebook page has set up recently with teachers across the globe sharing ideas for teaching remotely during this crisis.

We will, I’m sure, be teaching-but someone else will also need to be there to look after young children.

"kept schools open only for children whose parents need to work in essential services or absolutely cannot work from home and are too young to stay at home on their own."

So... all the teachers (who need to teach) they must be essential... right?
The 1.5 million people who work for the NHS: I presume they are all essential. How about the epidemiologists, everyone in emergency services, the people staffing supermarkets & delivering to supermarkets. The home-carers, the folk developing a vaccine, the farmers or people running animal shelters. Are rubbish collectors essential? I think folk running corner shops might be. Would we like to treat anyone who works for newspapers or broadcast media, politicians, civil service in dept of health, who ever scrubs the police toilets.. aren't they essential?

All this teachers aren't paid for childcare nonsense.

Children are at school while parents work so the technicality is irrelevant. Fine, pick at me but what do you suggest people who do really important jobs while their children are at school? Pay for childcare perhaps as in the school holidays ah hang on that won't be allowed I assume either 🤷🏻‍♀️. Put older relatives at more risk to look after them is the only and illogical option.

Quite simply closing schools will mean lots of people can't work and those who can wfh won't be able to actually work as in do their job properly because you can't wfh and look after children as parents are always reminded sternly on mn (and I agree with this totally as someone who wfh about 50% of the time.

But the Cheltenham festival went ahead while it's all going on, you actually couldn't make that up, but I guess there were no children there so that's okay.

A death in China from neglect:
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/30/disabled-teenager-in-china-dies-at-home-alone-after-relatives-quarantined

A lot of the reason behind not closing schools is economic. Keep the worker bees working. It also contains people to areas, otherwise kids will be sent all over the place for childcare.