What should my mum do? Nursery Teacher And Covid

[AiCorona]

My mum was really hoping the government were going to announce closure of the nurseries. She isn’t too worried if she doesn’t get paid in that time.

Unfortunately the closure hasn’t happened. She is fit and in her sixties; but has a number of underlying auto-immune conditions. She lives with my dad who has quite bad asthma which needs careful management.

She teaches over 40 different children over the course of a week.

The nursery owner will keep the nursery open as long as they can. She agrees with the government approach that we need to build herd immunity.

What should my mum do? She feels the only way to not come in would mean giving up her job. She hates letting down people.

I’d love her not to go in again from Monday. This will place nursery in a tough spot juggling the numbers and parents’ expectations. My view is it is worth it.

There are confirmed cases already in the area; so probably hundreds of unconfirmed cases.

I’ll probably show my mum this thread; my fear is that waiting a week to go off is too much risk?

I’d love for her to not go in on Monday!

F

She should go to work until told not to.

The thing I would be most worried about, in your mums case, is that I'm reading children are mostly 'carriers' showing little to no symptoms, so likely any children who have it would still be sent to school as they aren't dry coughing with fever and could then pass virus onto your mum with a compromised immune system

Thanks for the advice.
@PurpleDaisies, can I ask why you advise that, is this because you think the likelihood of her catching it at nursery is low, or that it doesn’t matter if she does catch it?

the main risk is from a carrier coughing droplets. Nursery need to be very strict about kids with coughs but if they are not having symptoms and your mother is hand washing regularly she will not be at risk. Can she share her concerns with her manager so some of her duties could change such as not being in prolonged close contact.

She should not go in. She can ring and say she has a cough so per the Government advice is self isolating for 7 days. Then wait and see if things change in terms of closure.
Her being alive is the key thing.

And 10% of people who get this virus have no symptoms but can infect others. There is some suggestion that it could also be transferred through faeces.
Basically little kids in a nursery is a breeding ground for viruses and passing it on. If one kid gets it, she will get it.
People were also saying on MN that they were getting texts from their nursery saying that legally they cannot tell parents if there is a confirmed case of the virus in the nursery and the nursery would not close if there was a case. So don't assume she will know if there is a case.

I want her just to say she has a cough... I’m not sure she’s capable of telling a lie though 😫.
She does pick up a fair amount of cold germs from work fairly consistently, I think the risk is they don’t understand asymtomatic spread yet of coronavirus.

I just don’t like the odds; both my parents have underlying health conditions; so say the risk of morbidity to each is 6%; then it’s an 11% risk that at least one of them will not survive; and I don’t like those odds.

I think all you can do is talk to her about your fears. You can talk about your fear that she could die, plus the suggestions emerging that some people may be left with long term lung damage. After that it is up to her as an adult.
I would not go in in her situation. But she is an adult.
You could suggest she looks at the WHO advice pages as well.