To ignore BJ's COBRA advice to send kids to school whilst Rep of Ireland has closed schools for 2 weeks

[100percentSunshine]

Just interested to know how others feel....

We are all expecting the exponential growth of the Covid 19 to take place in the next 1- 2 weeks.

I was gobsmacked by today's news that following the COBRA meeting, BJ has resolved to keep schools open.

Is anyone considering keeping their child/ren off school despite government briefing?

No and we will continue other activities as normal.

I will be sending mine in until the advice changes. I think it's important for children to still have a sense of normality for as long as they can. There are a lot of scared parents, (me being one of them) there are going to be a lot of terrified children and suddenly being lockdown at home is only going to cause them more distress.

We will of course Wash our Hands

Nope.

Kids will just meet up elsewhere.

If the schools close, parents who work will probably have no choice but to turn to elderly grandparents for help with childcare.

Some poorer families rely on school dinners for their kids, that should continue for as long as possible.

My two are asthmatics and I’m considering it.

@ChrissieKeller61 don’t get too stressed, chances of your children becoming poorly are v unlikely, there are more kids suffering from anxiety and this can be passed on from anxious parents, I only ask you and parents alike to seek support from those in the community who have a rational view of the situation.

Anxiety doesn't seize up your lungs like pneumonia and kill you. HTH, i think people arw right to be anxious, my fear is the government will do NOTHING to help its people, Italy has suspended mortgages etc, i know we won't, people would relax more if we were taken care of, but we know we wont be. like another poster said you can't always rely on the government.

@calpolatdawn I’m not anxious. I’m prepared.

OP, I am sure the school will not mind you keeping your dc off unless they are Year 11 or 13? Our school has had mandatory isolations for people who've travelled to various places so I should think schools are used to it.

I don't think you're being hysterical, I think it is a very very difficult situation and it's so hard to know the right answer. We have to hope that those people advising Boris have taken the best decision for us all.

I posted this (below) in response to another thread bit earlier and she will remain off school for now as she had over 30 admissions to hospital with life threatening condition etc in 1 year .

Child in my family has loads of serious life threatening risks to her health anytime of year.
Mum kept her off school last week or so as she got viral infection had to have antibiotics as precaution
School eventually authorised this absence but will be expecting her in next week more so now after this bloody announcement.
Maybe they should have said healthy people go to school but high risk with autoimmune conditions stay at home now.
I really dont know, but I know her mum will not be sending her in to school so will probably get taken to court, dont know why we are always different to other country's.

@Littlemeadow123 during the teachers strikes in the 80’s children could go into school and collect a packed lunch, but seriously are you prepared to throw your kids under a bus because someone children won’t get a dinner. I’d rather pass them a run of beans through the letterbox personally

If we’re going to ‘flatten the curve’, those parents in a situation where they can have their children at home are likely helping in delaying the demand on the NHS. Why make the assumption that kids will be meeting up and hanging around out of school? That probably only applies to teenagers who are allowed out by parents - if they are. Even then, they won’t be hanging around in large crowds.

People who are not experts need to chill big time. I'm Irish, I live in London and I'm a medical doctor. I think the Irish government has pulled the trigger a bit too soon on the school issue. People need to realise that the peak is unlikely to occur until May/June and may be later than that. Having children off school for the entire remainder of the school year is really not ideal for a number of reasons, the most important being that people have short attention spans and will become complacent after a couple of weeks (i.e. will have become bored/frustrated/unable to cope with their kids when the peak is actually occurring and the chance of catching the virus is highest). This needs to be timed properly. I hate the Tory government but I think they've been sensible here. Wait a week or two and then do it. However, not cancelling sporting gatherings is another question though....

• No, because I don‘t believe I know better than the experts."

But you believe the British experts know better than the Irish experts, the Italian experts, the Danish, Czech, South Korean and Japanese experts, the experts from the Lancet, the experts from the WHO

Rule Britannia and all that. Lets not listen to the foreigners, all we need is Mr Cholmondly-Warner from Eton with a degree in "experimental psychology" to tell us the unwashed masses of the UK can't handle crisis measures cos they'll get bored and break the rules

No.

I work in a primary school. We will stay open until we're told we have to close. Many of our children will struggle for meals at home without us, as they already do, and we provide vital wrap around childcare for many families who are already struggling in so many ways. When we do eventually close, I suspect many parents will lose their own jobs trying to provide childcare.

it's not that simple.

Unless you are planning to keep them off for several months I'm not sure what you achieve by doing this. Unless your child has health conditions which would make them vulnerable they themselves will probably only have mild symptoms anyway.

I live in Ireland and my children will not be attending activities outside of going for walks or cycling. They will not be meeting up with their friendship groups. All of the parents I know are sensible enough to understand what social distancing means. People are taking this seriously here. We realise that the school closures will go on for much longer than 2 weeks. Unless we change our behaviour now our health service will soon become overwhelmed. It’s a small price to pay when you are looking at a pandemic. I am a front line healthcare professional so I will not be at home. Fortunately my husband is in s position to work from home. Not ideal but necessary.

Maisie you talk sense-i do agree with the big gatherings being called off aswell

No.
Because having watched both Nicola Sturgeons press conference and The PM and Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientist’s press conference in full and pausing and rewinding to make sure I understood correctly. The peak will be circa beginning June. Schools will not just close for a couple of weeks so I suspect schools will be close sometime after the Easter holidays until going back in Aug/Sept.
So I will definitely be sending them to school especially as I two in Y11.

@Leaannb, what’s closing school for two weeks going to do. I know, right? Imagine those stupid idiot government elsewhere doing it. They obviously aren’t following any sort of scientific advice and just doing it to have a longer Easter break. But we are obviously privy to super duper top notch scientific expertise that says otherwise.

Like fuck.

They’re not closing schools because it’s too fucking late and it’s already been spreading.

No, I could keep them at home as they are teenagers, but I won’t. One of them has an autoimmune condition but is still going in. It’s not time to panic yet.

The peak will be circa beginning June. Schools will not just close for a couple of weeks so I suspect schools will be close sometime after the Easter holidays until going back in Aug/Sept.

Yes, I think/hope that will happen. They need to close for several months rather than just a couple of weeks.

People need to realise that the peak is unlikely to occur until May/June and may be later than that.

And how much worse and higher will that peak be if as much as possible social distancing doesn't happen? I'm not talking about schools being shut but all the in between things that some people can do and not others, but which they won't recommend or suggest because not everyone can or we might get bored and give up.

@ChrissieKeller61 I feel for your children having to live with such anxiety. Your reaction is extreme. It's a given most people will get coronavirus at some point. It may be something that never gets eradicated if the researchers can't make a vaccine. Are you going to self isolate forever?

Aggressive measures need to be taken now. I’d feel better about not closing schools is other low economic impact but far reaching social distancing like big events were cancelled. And tracking and case locating, and huge scale testing quickly was also implemented.

Even if there is ‘another surge’ around Winter, without actually seeing this model and having a raft of scientists check its validity, then we have no idea what relevant factors have been costed in.

Going against the grain in the Uk, and basically doing far less than other countries that are being successful like China, Singapore, S Korea, Italy, Taiwan, needs some serious evidence to back up its reasons. And ‘trust the scientists’ is not open, accessible, transparent evidence!

The free school meals issue could be solved- it has been all around the world, by charities, by giving vouchers, by allowing someone to pick up meals.

I read in an American newspaper last week that 290 million children were being kept home around the world, that was before Spain (Madrid), Ireland and so on announced their school closures. How come they can all do it and we can't?

That said, I'm happy to be one of the only ones keeping them off as even if only a few parents think like me, there will still be less crowding and contact which is a good thing.