School and Coronavirus - keep kids home

[life2day]

Very surprised by the announcement not to shut schools. Is anyone keeping their kids off regardless. The LA. Surely can't fine us if we make that decision.

TooMuchBloodyChoice I’ve kept mine off and will do until it feels right to go back. I won’t isolate us until we are told we must stay in - which must happen as every other country is doing so. They are further on down the road from us.

It’s not one big chicken pox party.

Until then we will do work in the mornings then go out to places where there isn’t any crowds.

Has anyone seen the Chinese videos on YouTube? Where people are collapsing in the street? Body bags piling up in the hospital? This is going to be bad.

Summersun have you kept your children off but aren't self isolating? I wasn't sure if that's what you meant? I'm not sure I see the logic in that?

I kept my DC off but we are not self isolating. The logic is that 4 bus loads of people and 1000 people at school were saved from exposure to Ds1. Only 2 of his friends have been exposed to him.

So he's still seeing his friends?

Keep I’ve taken them out of school because we’ve been advised to not go to mass gatherings. School is a mass gathering.

The Gov have no just said to try and work from home, don’t go to pubs, restaurants or theatres - but still expects us to send our kids in school. School is being kept open primarily for child care.

I don’t need child care so I’ll keep them with me. Going for a walk or on their bikes at the back of my house in a field where hardly anyone goes Is much safer than school.

Or home educate them.

My secondary school doesn't even have hand sanitisers and isn't doing anything to encourage the children to wash their hands

Yes, he's still seeing a few friends who have also been taken out of school. Very few children were in school, but I'm glad the schools remained opened for them.

It is a valuable service right now, that is going to struggle soon. It needs to be there for the children who need it most. And if it's ok for groups of 4 or 5 children to be in school, I think it's ok for my DS to go out on his bike with his friends.

If you take official advice as accurate and well-conceived then good luck to you. As a parent I trust my own GP and Italian doctors and the WHO more. So I’ll be deciding for myself what to do and in this case I’ll be keeping mine home.

If they spent less time drafting legislation, and more time testing and isolating, we might actually be rid of this pest!!!

DS off from tomorrow along with lots of his classmates.
School open but supportive that we pull them. Work has been set.
No fines, it’s a private school. It’s going to be a long haul.

How are people keeping DCs off from school? As in, did you say you’re pulling them out due to Covid-19?

Looks like we’ll be pulling this week. Have been holding our nerve but we’re in London and DH is immunocompromised, severe chronic illness and asthmatic and as ridiculously relaxed as he is usually, he now feels uneasy even doing the school run. Already ‘rigorously social distancing’, with the exception of DCs in school. Struggling to tolerate the risk to DH if DCs were to pick it up at this stage - it may well be we get it eventually, but trying to push back as much as possible to allow time for more research, and vaccine seems to be about 12-18 months away.

We had this email tonight:

Dear Parents,

Following the latest Government briefing, some of you may be considering the implications of self isolation for your families. In school we have been compiling packs of work for your children, if the need for home working arose.

School remains open as usual, following guidance from Public Health England, but packs are ready and available to collect from school should you feel this is necessary.

To enable collection to be done efficiently and safely, we would ask that any parents requiring a pack should come to school from 10.00 a.m on Tuesday 17th March to sign it out. Obviously, it would help if parents were able to stagger their arrival throughout the morning to cut down on waiting times.

The packs include English, Mathematics, Science and Topic work relevant to your child's key stage and should provide on average 4 hours work per day for approximately 10 working school days.

I will be contacting you again to explain how we intend to keep in regular contact with you and your child throughout this difficult period should your child not be able to attend school.

Can’t fault them on this one.

i'm asthmatic and my DS is in year 8 high school. He got drenched on the way from school last Monday and has had a persistent dry cough ever since.
At first I thought it was probably just a cold, then last Wednesday night he had a slight temp (that came back down with paracetamol) and he said is chest was tight. I rang 111 and it said hang up if symptoms are manageable as the service is overwhelmed, so I didn't stay on the line.
He hasn't had a temp since, but I kept him off Thurs, Fri, and Monday this week. He is still coughing a lot but is well in himself. I don't know whether or not to send him back in? His school sent an email this Monday eve stating 14 day quarantine for anyone in contact with someone with symptoms, does that mean he also stays off for 14 days for when his symptoms started?

@Home2018 herd immunity relies on people being immune or unlikely to catch a disease such as polio, people have caught Corona virus more than once so in effect if having the disease doesn't provide immunity then nothing is gained from allowing children to catch it except a potentially never ending reinfection cycle.

Kid catches it, isolates, recovers, returns to school, kid catches it again from another child at school who was at the time asymptomatic or who had symptoms so mild they went unnoticed.

@StoppinBy so far there is only one case of someone who's caught it again and they don't know the details. There's always people who catch things twice eg chicken pox, mumps etc. But these are usually really low numbers. We don't know much about this so it's probably best not to spread things like this. It's scary and this won't help.

This is so hard. My son is anxious for his gcses

Don’t they think it will act like a flu? So you won’t catch it again soon but can later in your life as it will mutate. So once there’s a vaccine we’ll get it yearly like a flu jab.

Possibly, but we really don't know much about it yet so it's just as likely it's a virus we will become immune to. At this point all we can do is keep each other safe and away from panic inducing media.

I think they will close within one to two weeks when everything will be in lockdown. For the time being I'm happy to comply unless we show symptoms. Lockdown could go on for months and there is no proven exit from it.

@Malmontar I am not spreading anything. There is more than one person who has caught it twice and a Chinese doctor who has warned that people can catch it twice. We do not know whether our children can catch it twice or if most people will become immune, we don't know that they will or they wont yet it seems that 'because kids only get a mild case' we are expected to be ok with trying it out on them.

I have a 7 year old and a 2 1/2 year old who I would rather didn't catch it at all, let alone have them be guinea pigs for something we don't understand the repercussions of.

@CarrieBlue The government is listening to the advice of the chief scientific advisor, listening to an expert view

How come the British expert knows better than all the other european experts?

Valleyofthehorses are you uk ?

@LaureBerthaud - different, he hasn’t claimed better, but I’d still trust his advice over what someone on the internet reckons

Yes, it’s a private school though