Furious at school

[bailey999]

So a child at my sons secondary school has been confirmed to have coronavirus. They emailed us before school started today to tell us there would be an update late morning and not to ring the school but to wait for the update. The update comes telling us about the child and that they are now self isolating. They are closing school at 1pm for a deep clean and will re-open Monday as normal.

Why on earth have they allowed the students in today BEFORE the clean has taken place. They knew about this last night too as one of his teachers emailed me to say that my son wouldnt be able to hand in his GCSE coursework today as planned because his lesson wouldnt be going ahead. He didnt reply to my email asking why!

I

Essential workers in France are having their children taken care of, like Germany. Not in schools as such, but they have a plan in place, region by region.

Only the very idiotic will be sending children to Italy. Whatever individual idiot it is that came up with that idea is unlikely to have any backing.

My DCs go to a smallish school of around 250. I can count to my knowledge at least 10 parents who work in NHS/ healthcare and at least one that I know that are both nurses. If schools close who are we expecting to look after these children? Surely we need a back up for these families? Also after listening to BJs full briefing yesterday I got the feeling schools will be closed the the Chief Scientist explained they had to time it right- if we close schools now they'd have to be shut for 14 weeks(?) to make it effective- this would absolutely destroy the economy and make those in jobs we need to deal with this crisis imobile.

School trip to Italy I don't think so the borders are closed , only residents can enter this is until APril 3rd

No doubt there are carefully calculated & monitored tipping points where the UK public health needs outweigh the needs of the UK economy, & a vital substrata of that is the need for the UK public services to run well enough.

If schools need to stay open a while longer to get to that tipping point, so be it.

None of this is easy.
None of us have been in this situation before.
Every country differs by population size, age distribution, health service provision & densities of population - no single country has completely nailed it right first time.

Not UK here,
im my region schools are closed from Tuesday until after Easter vacations. Exams will take place under special conditions.
Childcare is provided up to year 8 (14y) for DC of parents who are considered 'essential workforce'
Universities incl. libraries are closed from tomorrow - everything that can be diverted to online will be, deadlines are extended (one of my DD's prof is stuck in italy).
All major events are cancelled at least until the end of April.

People are COMPLETELY MISSING THE POINT. We are not able to contain this virus. It is a global pandemic. Almost everyone in the country WILL get it. That is a FACT. We are no longer trying to contain the virus as due to it's nature (infection way before symptoms, extremely easy transmission), this virus was always going to become a pandemic.

We are not trying to contain it (stop it spreading). It can not be done. We are trying to control the rate of spread. Stretch out the time frame in which people catch it so that the NHS has a chance of coping. If we close schools etc now, people WILL lose vigilance (proven behaviour so don't try to say this won't happen) and there will be a massive upsurge in the future. A massive surge will cripple the NHS and there will be MORE deaths. By taking the approach the government is taking, the hope is that the virus will spread in a manner that is more gradual than it would be if people isolate and then everyone stops isolating at the same time, there will be an unmanageable problem.

Surely the most sensible thing at the moment is for people who can work from home to work from home, parents who can have their children at home do so.

Teachers planning to be emailed to those at home so parents can ensure their children don't miss too much.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Smaller numbers at school will give more flexibility to the staffing and less people travelling to work and school will reduce the spread.

Those who have to work and need their children in school continue to do so, but with less risk.

Saying well you still have to go shopping is a ridiculous argument, if you have restricted all other contact by 90% it's still going to help.

We have to protect the most vulnerable in our society. We have to be aware that even if we don't have it seriously, our actions could kill someone else.

It's common sense. The Government should give parents permission to keep their children home and do what fits their family best.

People have disabilities which effectively mean they have self isolated for years. Most people aren't stupid. Home schooling isnt the easy option, staying home isn't the easy option. It should be a choice for those who want to do it before it becomes essential, hopefully it will be prevent it having to become essential.

Of course families can and are doing it now, and are being accused of being hysterical and panicking. They are also unsure of the reprecussions. It should be presented as a vaild choice.

damntheanxiety thanks for explaining it in a good way. Tbh i think Boris kind of missed telling us these facts in detail so i can understand why myself and most others didn't quite grasp why he has chosen to not lockdown

Why would they want children to get it?

There is an obvious answer to this question. If 60% is needed for herd immunity and children are either symptomless or have mild symptoms then they are the obvious people to form as much of the 60% as possible.

You can’t get immunity from it China says you can catch it again as it’s flu like. I’m calling bull shit literally.

You do get immunity to one strain of flu, just not the others. Flu is not one illness.

We are not trying to contain it (stop it spreading). It can not be done

Actually the who have just said it can be done during their press conference . China has done it. They have directly contradicted what Boris and the officers said last night. They want countries to take aggressive action. Test everyone and to turn it back and fast and say China etc have proven it can be done

The kids were told at school today school may close very shortly and given things for online access and parents evening cancelled on 19th March "to prepare for school closure though officially we are staying open". DH's work is also preparing to close in a week's time and go to all wfh. Nothing official yet but am wondering if we are close to a lockdown. Got a thatched roof being redone in March / April, which could be interesting if they lockdown when they just taken old bit off, hope we aren't left without half the roof

Heard back from teacher re school trip to Italy. He doesn't understand why Head has sent a message saying it's going ahead as apparently plan is to cancel it but insurance currently refusing to pay off as FCO hasn't end dated the advice and trip not until first week of June. It's predicted to peak around then. He said they are dealing with March / April now. Quite different from Head's message that everything is going ahead, we know Italy advice is don't travel, we will consider again just before we go and parents should pay full amount by Friday. I paid in full months ago, obviously pulling out though may wait a few days to see if insurance situation develops. If not will write it off and glad just £285. Got another £2.3k on summer holiday likely to lose but just life atm.

If 60% is needed for herd immunity and children are either symptomless or have mild symptoms then they are the obvious people to form as much of the 60% as possible.

They would also then have life long immunity as long as it doesn’t evolve too much. There is a very good chance that children getting it could be highly beneficial.

In China they welded people in...
I mean, I’m all for it, as people have proved they can’t be trusted to self isolate, but... I don’t think many here would go for it

catherine

That's a total load of bollocks, you know.

@Devlesko

Why?

They would also then have life long immunity as long as it doesn’t evolve too much. There is a very good chance that children getting it could be highly beneficial

It’s mutated already. It’s far more likely to be like flu and constantly evolve IMO. In addition, even if people do get some immunity, it could be short-lived (ie months).

Not to mention that all those children ‘being lucky to get it’ will potentially pass the virus on to others with health conditions or at risk due to their age.

Yup.

But breathe immunity isn't that straightforward so if it mutates but you have already had one strain it may mean that you get it less severely as you have immunity to something similar. It's why older people were less badly affected by swine flu - they has acquired immunity against lots of flu strains already.

*In some countries, health workers' children are still allowed to go in.

This seems like an eminently sensible suggestion.*

Only if there are enough staff to supervise them, feed them, clean and maintain the buildings etc. Many staff will be self isolating, others will be off due to their own children's schools/nurseries being closed, some school staff who are over 50 and have underlying health conditions may not be willing to put themselves at risk by coming into school to supervise the children of HCP's who, you could argue, are more likely to be carrying Covid-19 due to their parents potential level of exposure. Although I doubt they would be given a choice.