Is it really likely the schools will close?

[sqirrelfriends]

I've seen a few comments on other threads about schools and other childcare settings closing indefinitely to prevent the spread of Covid 19. Do you really think it's likely to happen?

@LoveFameTragedy yes she does. They've all had an email this afternoon from the Dean of Biosci and Dean of Medicine and has been contacted by her individual faculty (life science and medicine) with further info on exactly what online portholes they will require access to.

Business as usual means that at the moment the campus and library are open.

Thank you Twillow. I need to take my head out of the sand, now, and have a look at that. And at any possible options, instead of just panicking.

Before I saw this thread, I was thinking that self isolation wouldn't be too difficult for us as I am already very isolated (no family, no friends, zero social life), so could use up my AL. But that was my thinking for if we get the virus.

I know I'm not the only one this will affect, btw. I'm just thinking out loud, here.

If schools close and parents get grandparents to look after children (which is what usually happens in the country where I live) then that might only make the problem worse. Kids have to go somewhere - unless everyone stops working. I still think closing schools looks like a tough measure without necessarily being that effective.

Thank you, ElenadeClermont.

www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/does-closing-schools-slow-spread-novel-coronavirus
Might be of interest.

For kids on FSM the summer is not survivable
Really? I wonder how my children all survived to adult hood and mid-teens then?

Thanks @lumpy76. DD is far away but due to come home for the weekend. I’m wondering now if her visit home may be extended! Her Friday classes have been cancelled but no reason given afaik.

The parents when the schools shut in Italy were saying that, about the grandparents having to look after them, or parents in groups of us to 8...which would not help things

Anyone thought how this is going to pan out of teachers and school staff get sick?! Everyone crying out the schools can’t close but what if there isn’t enough staff to keep them open? We are really getting bashed at work in terms of guilt tripping that we can’t possibly be off unless we are at deaths door, despite suggestions advice may be anyone with symptoms needs to isolate. Schools advice is tough come in anyway.

If they won’t shut officially then they need to make it optional to keep children at home of the parents want to with the absence authorised
This is especially important for children with medical conditions

Ds has a private maths tutor who is a teacher, tonighthe told us that his school have told staff to prepare two weeks of lessons to be sent online, he expects schools to be closed for two weeks after Easter holidays.

Groups of up to 8 is rather smaller than a group of up to 32/33 in classroom and groups of over 100 in assembly.

There's no risk to grandparents if children are not infected- but they are more likely to get infected at school and pass it on to grandparents that way.

Confirmed case in a school near me. School has been closed today for deep cleaning and is reopening tomorrow.

One of the reasons closing schools is effective according to the Yale scientist ( in link I shared earlier) is because it takes parents out of circulation too. Obviously there are other consequences to that .

Well my DD in Germany has informed me today one of the upper sixth has tested positive for corona...school is still open. I just checked website, head is only going to do closure if Health authority recommend doing so after a risk assessment

Thanks Jewel that’s an interesting article. There’s not an easy answer. I suppose I was just pondering the fact that it’s not really a problem for children and young people - I mean lots of them might get sick, but they are not going to die. What can we do to protect old people? My comment about closing old people’s homes was tongue in cheek, but it feels a bit like those people are sitting ducks, if one goes down they all do down.

I just got an email from the school saying that in a case where the school has to shut they have made plans to do everything online.

If schools close eg for a month and the number of infected people goes down, what happens when they reopen?

Unless the virus is completely eradicated during the closure and everyone properly self isolates at home, once schools reopen won't people start getting infected again?

@LillianGish France have banned people from visiting old people's homes.

There is evidence from other pandemics that closing schools does make a difference. I'm not sure now is the right time yet, though.

@peeledplumtomatoes yes, but by slowing down the number of cases, it will help hospitals cope and that will mean more people survive.

There's a thread here from twitter about how Italian hospitals are (not) coping at the moment twitter.com/jasonvanschoor/status/1237142891077697538

It's a bit of a harrowing read, so do read with caution, but it's worth knowing how bad things could potentially get.

It said on the BBC news that the plan was if teachers got sick there were ways of combining classes and relaxing ratios so schools could stay open

Useful article thanks @jewel1968
I've pasted a couple of relevant bits here about closures before or after infected cases discovered.

"Reactive [after an infected case] school closures for a moderately transmissible pathogen reduces the cumulative infection rate by about 25% and delay the peak of the epidemic [in that region] by about 2 weeks. When you postpone the peak, you also typically flatten the epidemic and space out your cases. This has value. It means that the incidence on any given day is lower, so we don’t overburden our health care system. ...
Proactive school closures—closing schools before there’s a case there—have been shown to be one of the most powerful nonpharmaceutical interventions that we can deploy. Proactive school closures work like reactive school closures not just because they get the children, the little vectors, removed from circulation. It’s not just about keeping the kids safe. It’s keeping the whole community safe. "

With the elderly in homes etc there is some kind of 'cocoon' plan. Not sure exactly what that is though