Just realised why schools are not closing

[NearlyGranny]

Going by the Spanish experience, half the London chatterati would make a dash for their closed-up holiday homes where they would strip our supermarket shelves and no doubt create a virus hotspot among us privileged year-round residents. I'm pretty sure the unmanageable spike we're all fearing would only be hastened by a general school closure.

If we could rely on people isolating at home, it would be a different matter.

Of course Uni’s have shut though

Some have, but the majority haven't, and for them their vulnerable staff will be expected to continue. They're making individual decisions - as with schools, the government has declined to intervene.

Im at work in a healthcare context atm and it certainly isn't sterile here My hands ate starting to chap from the extra washing and glove use - I'm washing my hands after touching door handles and after any contact at all with anything someone else has touched, and using glives where I wouldn't have a few weeks ago and its unsustainable because my hands are painful and damaging the skin barrier is worse than not washing your hands! Two of the residents have the same problem with their hands but others put their hands into their mouths or underpants straight after washing them and then touch surfaces. Another is refusing to believe that airing the house and going into the garden is safe - he has an anxiety disorder and has become convinced that the outside air carries the virus, even though we're on the very edge of a village, set back in a garden overlooking fields and then woodland/ forestry!

I work with clients with complex needs - most have neurological issues (mainly epilepsy), many have psychiatric issues, some have other chronic health issues and all have mild to moderate cognitive impairments. There unit cannot be left unstaffed, the residents are not allowed to come back if they go home to their parents, so are all staying here, visitors are banned until further notice, the sheltered workplace and college most of the residents attend is closed from Monday until 20 April and my own children's schools are too.

Its a rather awkward situation.

Omlet, they can wear gloves, wash hands, keep as much as a distance as possible. None of that happens in a school.

Just watching a BBC 4 programme from 2016 about plotting how a lethal virus could affect the country. Teachers are termed ‘superspreaders’ .

We're two weeks away from the Easter holidays

Some local authorities have three weeks to go.

Ds school had to be forced to close by parents when the Beast from the East hit, no public transport & advice was don't travel unless essential. Some off the staff live near Manchester & Nottingham but were being told get here or else. Only the power of social media forced them to close, so I expect they won't go down without a fight this time, especially as the new head refuses to accept anything short of death as a valid reason for absence.

Watch Pandemic on iplayer. This is what the government have based their figures on. 800000 deaths. 80% infection rate.

I’m tired too of hearing ‘the teachers...’. I am not a role, I am a person and I deserve to be protected too

Agreed, motherunner

I have family members who are HCP's. Working with sick and ill people, sometimes dangerously so, is part and parcel of their contract. I worry for my child who is a nurse, but this is also something she has been trained to deal with. She has protective procedures and equipment to use in dealing with illness.

I've been trained to teach small children to read. That's it. Do people understand that there is zero communication, leadership, support, training for teachers in dealing with being required to work with a population who are likely to be spreaders of the virus, while remaining relatively well themselves.

I despair that no-one can see the difference.

I live in one of these 'tourist hot spots.' The locals have stripped the shelves bare. They may go hungry. We also have poor infrastructure here - the last place they should want to be is here - especially if they get sick. I don't even want to be here. 😬

I don’t know why they haven’t considered the idea of shutting secondary schools. A lot more movement of children in those and for the most part those kids could look after themselves in the day with some exceptions obviously. As a secondary school teacher I would happily look After extra kids at my house such as friends of my kids

I don’t know why they haven’t considered the idea of shutting secondary schools.

I think it’ll be an all or nothing approach.

As so many of us are on zero hour contracts, we don’t get paid for not working and if we aren’t getting paid, then neither is the tax man!

Beth Rigby on Twitter this morning...

Ministers to reveal emergency powers Tues & draft emergency legislation to be pub’d Thurs

I think the emergency powers will be to force schools to stay open even when school heads feel they are inadequately staffed and want to close. I expect it will be to do with removing the class size caps so teachers can have 50 to a class. Both these things have been mentioned by anonymous sources in the last week or two.

Nice big classes squashed into tiny classrooms all sneezing, snotting and coughing over each other ...that’ll help spread those germs a bit.

Very long article but worth a read, makes it a bit more understandable
medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca

i honestly do not understand why schools need to close, children are a low risk of changing the virus and if they do the illness would most likely be mild so why on earth close them. if the schools are closed then what do parents do and the children would not be staying in, they would be going to supermarkets, going to cinema etc so , why ,,,,

Living where there are a lot of 2nd homes....this is already happening!! The empty houses are filling up with those able to work from home.

I personally think we will be on lockdown with schools closing etc by the end of this week to stop us spreading it on Mother's Day.

I am a teacher with a second job in a bar and restaurant. I live in a holiday home area. Last night was so busy in the bar and restaurant; it was like a bank holiday weekend. Everyone in party mode and seemingly thinking that they’re safe to act as normal in rural Wales, and that coronavirus doesn’t exist. Totally agree with you OP. It’s already happening.

earnshaw47 children can get it and, precisely because they may have very mild symptoms, they can unwittingly pass it on to vulnerable adults.

I work in a special school and the pupils are so vulnerable they have so many underlying health conditions just think its so sad that they are not being thought of.

What a stupid post. Seriously??? 🙄

When will Boris realise that schools are not actually there to provide free childcare!

i honestly do not understand why schools need to close

Neither do I. I don't want my dcs education to be put on hold. I barely know any elderly people and have no idea why children should be taken out of school for them.

Not sure how you figure that everyone in London in a Typhoid Mary Last time I looked cases were fairly evenly spread around the country according to population.

I am, however, one of the London chattering classes from your OP, with a holiday home in North Devon. We are supposed to be going down there for the Easter holidays, but to be honest I'm in two minds - if I or my children get sick I'd much rather be here within easy reach of some of the best hospitals in the world! And if the whole country goes into lockdown we'd be far better off here...