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.

Surely the solution to this problem would be to make the kids and their teachers (obviously youngish teachers only) camp out in school for two weeks. They would have a blast.

I don't think proximity to a hospital makes too much difference when if you get it they won't treat you and if you get very bad they probably won't collect you from home and put in a very rare ICU bed.

I live in outer London but don't have a second home.
I think we should keep schools open as long as we can.

I may well have woken up confused this morning however I understand th econtradictory advice

We want create herd Immunity
But we are also been asked to wash our hands to stop spread

I'm just laughing at the naivety here about kids and hygiene. I work in a sixth form with 2000+ students in a leafy affluent area. It is not uncommon in the female loos to see bloodied tissues and pads left hanging out of the sanitary bins (and you have to touch the lid because the foot pedal is broken), menstrual blood, snot or worse smeared on cubicle walls. Often little or no loo roll, soap dispensers empty, filthy taps etc. It's revolting!

And we can't montior 16-18 year olds when they go to the loo, especially if the opposite sex!

Just explained to a Chinese student the British government's plan of letting 60% of the population (but not old too many old folks!) catch the virus.
... look of terror and utter bewilderment followed by....
"And then?!"
Me: "Er, and then the virus will start dying because we will all be infected and there will be no new carriers!"
The look on his face...

Maybe they count the lab sinks which are vinegary at best

No. They don’t. The regs are prescriptive about the number of WCs per person (1 per 20 pupils) plus a percentage of accessible WCs, Nr of WHB per WC ( 1:1 unless there are more than three WCs in a block then it is 2 for every 3) Sinks in lab areas, kitchens, classrooms are a separate calculation and depend on what type of teaching happens there and how many people the room caters for. It is highly unlikely a school with 1500 pupils has only 30 WHB.

DDs school has 600 pupils and has 25 toilets each with WHB, as well as sinks in each classroom.

@Poofurburrball I have teenagers. I am under no illusions about their hygiene practices.
Sometimes some comments on MN make me wonder if those commenting have ever met a child outside an Enid Blyton novel.

I know Local Authorities have contingency plans but I've never heard of them covering stuff like arranging childcare! I worked in chidlcare for years and was never mentioned as part of training etc.... most childcare provision is private - not sure they can be compelled to open..

I'm a bit torn on the government response. I feel sorry for the teachers/ workers in schools, but, they are just one group of millions who will have to still go to work during this - not just healthcare staff but supply services, engineers, delivery drivers etc etc.

I don't believe a majority of Londoners own a second home, far from it, but many do in the south east as a whole, and I do think many who do would treat a school closure as a chance to go there on an extended break. Maybe not just yet, but when the kids are going stir crazy, the sun comes out and stays out longer etc, especially if the peak is delayed/ people get de-sensitised to the reports of illness/ death rates (It happens!)

I own a holiday property (not rich, it's inherited and worth sod all) that I let out to cover costs, people aren't cancelling as yet, and when I went down to clean it yesterday, the holiday park and surrounding area was way busier than usual for this time of year, and I'm not sure the local area can cope with that (especially the hospitals).

Sometimes some comments on MN make me wonder if those commenting have ever met a child outside an Enid Blyton novel.

. Same - they are quite revolting!

@averythinline They will have plans in place. How much they have talked to people about it probably varies Local authority to Local Authority. Some will be more efficient than others. But someone will be being paid to make sure these happen if need be. I suspect it will be based on an assumption that only a proportion of workers need alternative childcare to be provided.

I don't believe a majority of Londoners own a second home

It's not a question of whether you believe it. It's a fact that they don't.

Many people who do own second properties are btl places, not empty holiday homes for whenever they fancy a jaunt.

Why can't they close secondary schools but leave primaries open? No childcare needed for most 11 year old children and they could make exceptions for exams to go ahead.

Nah, it's so children can all catch the virus, suffer minimal symptoms and help the UK on it's way towards BJ's Golden Chalice of Herd Immunity. All children have it- - that is 20% of the population sorted, with limited stress on the NHS.

Or that is the plan.

If people actuallly feel sorry for teachers, and aren't just making nice noises while secretly not really giving a toss, can they make sure, please, that they keep their children home from school if their child is sick?

I don't care if it's coronavirus or not. As a teacher, with pre-existing condition, whose partner has just been put on isolation because he's in end stage kidney disease, I don't need your snotty child's cold, or vomiting bug. I definitely don't want them back in class two days after they 'had a dreadful cough and fever, but the fever's gone now!' coughing all over the rest of us.

So tired of parents who do not keep sick kids home from school at the moment. In the last week, we;ve had multiple children sent home because they feel ill, who are returned the next day, only for us to have to send them home again after they've spent the morning shedding germs, because guess what, they're still sick!!!

I don't care what the school says about attendance. At the moment, could you please take a moment and think about your children's teachers as people, many of whom cannot currently protect their own health, and the health of family members, while schools remain open.

I did NOT go into teaching to be a frontline worker in a bloody pandemic. Jeez, I went into it to teach reading. That's my job, not being a disposable worker in whatever this mad quest is.

I live in an area which has an extremely high proportion of older people due to them moving down after retirement and an extremely high proportion of second homes. We have four intensive care beds in our one and only hospital in our County. I’d really like to think school closures (if it happens) would signal the need to stay and not travel elsewhere in the country. No lessons learned from Italy and Spain, sadly.

If people actuallly feel sorry for teachers, and aren't just making nice noises while secretly not really giving a toss, can they make sure, please, that they keep their children home from school if their child is sick?

I agree, but think you also need to consider how overly officious and litigious school attendance advisors frequently are - many are scared to keep children off in case they get fined etc, and they have reason to fear this too.

Most people don’t live in London. Or have second homes.

Privacy similar here. I am so worried. Road next to mine has only one resident under 70, and he is 50. Many retired here. It could be a total disaster for communities like yours and mine.
Not helped by many people locally renting out a holiday home/airbnb as a way of getting some extra income, as that makes both them and the community even more vulnerable.

Thing is, Vix, it really is a rock and hard place because obviously a high percentage of jobs and businesses are geared for tourists, so it could be looking very bleak for many here...

I understand the issue re fines, but again, why is everyone so happy to just chuck teachers under the bus? Why are we the disposable employees?

We should be entitled to paid leave now if we have pre-existing health conditions, are 65+ or are carers for family members also at high risk.

Send in some of the jolly 'oh well, it's only teachers we're putting at risk' people as classroom volunteers in our place. I mean, if that's all we're worth.

I posted this on another thread:

I’m a secondary school teacher and my anxiety is sky high at the moment. I’m worried about not being well for my children, making my children ill, making my husband ill.

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

I don't think rural areas/small communities are necessarily safer. Shetland council have closed all schools bar one being kept open to provide care for children of emergency service staff due to the sharp spike in cases

So if you're over 50, yeah stay at home, no one's going to blame you. But for the rest of us, there's no point stopping life. Just don't visit the elderly for a few months while the rest of us build up immunity which will soften the blow for the elderly.

There are plenty school children with parents who are 50+

There are also many teachers who are over 50 as well. We work until we are 67.