Parents! Please don’t send your kid to school with a cough or temperature

[noblegiraffe]

We’ll have to send them home again, and that’s a whole lot of hassle that could have easily been avoided by parents following the government advice.

No, you don’t get to decide whether the cough or a fever is ‘simply a cold’. Neither do we. Just follow the guidelines please.

Apart from anything, it’s freaking their classmates out and we can really do without stressing out the kids even more about this.

Thank you.

This is where the UK is going to go wrong!! If ANYONE has a cough and OR fever then to self isolate for 7 days!!! If she's coughed 5 times or 50 times keep her off! What's the harm keeping her off? As the harm not keeping her off is huge!! This is what worries me we will never control this virus if people don't do what they are meant to do!!

Our school has sent all kids with serious illness home for the foreseeable future. I had to go home on Friday as I had a temperature and had been in building where a person has now tested positive but no direct contact with them. BUT I also have an ear infection which I was prescribed antibiotics on Friday afternoon through a phone consultation. The GP told me 7 days or until I was symptom free that makes sense to me but it’s not the same as the current 111 guidance.

I think schools should issue direct advice on this. The ‘isolating for any new cough’ advice only came out on Thursday and not all parents follow the news. For years schools have sent home letters telling parents to send children to school with coughs and colds to keep attendance up.

My DS was sent home from school Fri with a temp. He got home , threw up, and is fine today. On of those 24 hour tummy bug type things that he has had before . I am sure it was just a tummy bug. He is fine today , no temp, eating normally back to 100%. No cough, no cold. It’s not a flu bug it was definitely a dodgy tummy bug.

Would I be in the ‘self isolate’ group? I am 100% that it was just a tummy bug. But then I don’t want to go against guidance. Normal school guidance is 48 hours after sickness.

What is utterly baffling is that people think they can avoid this virus - you can’t! Unless you and your family have lived in a lamina flow unit for the last month and will continue to do for for the next x years, someone you know is going to get it and spread it to you/your friends/ your family. Keeping your kids off school will not protect them from the virus as they will still be exposed at some point. And now we’ve got teachers unwilling to do their job “just in case” they pass it on. But will no doubt happily take the full tax payer funded sick pay! But hey, as long as your family is ok, right?

The guidance (“continuous” cough) is unclear.

Bedsheets4knickers
Within a week or two the entirety of our British school system will be closed, and in all likelihood will remain closed until September.

None of us have experienced anything like this in our lives, and those of us who are STILL thinking it's all overhyped will be palefaced and wide-eyed in two weeks when we are in a worse situation than Italy, with our loved ones deprioritised for ventilator treatment because they are over 60, or have asthma, or COPD, or hypertension, and no available cardiac surgeons to treat heart attacks, or anyone to treat strokes or emergencies because every hospital is beyond capacity and medics are also dropping like flies.

Putting your ill kid into school for five extra days at that point will seem like the most irresponsible decision you ever made.

For the love of whatever the hell you hold dear, please take a look at where Italy is now, listen to their doctors, look at the graphs of deaths, take a look at the pop-up morgues Italy has created because they cannot handle the volume of deaths, or the satellite images of the mass graves Iran has dug, and understand that by March 28th, we will be in a worse position, and it will still be worsening, because we have not yet taken anything remotely similar to the steps they have taken.

Keep your child at home.

May50 School sent him home for a temperature, so they won't allow him back for 7 days.

Would I be in the ‘self isolate’ group?

Yes. The school sent your kid home, they don’t want him back for a week.

So OP your school has decided to send all DC who cough, at all, home? On whose advice?

The guideline says “continuous” cough.

What’s the point of issuing clear health guidance when idiots like bedsheets prefer to follow what they read on Insta instead?

I’m a bit stunned at how some people can’t seem to understand or accept the extremely simple and clear guidance from the government.

Coronavirus presents very different symptoms in different people. Some get just a mild cough. Some get a fever. Some have no symptoms and just pass it on. Others get seriously ill.

For the avoidance of doubt, a child with a very mild cough could have the virus. That child should be kept home.

I despair...

@Bedsheets4knickers do you genuinely not understand basic advice about self isolating due to a cough and or fever or do you just not care? Your attitude makes me sick, it really does.

Please keep your kids off.
The goal is to delay spread now. It doesn't matter if they have COVID or not. The less people who are sick and out and about in general, the easier it is to try to manage.

So OP your school has decided to send all DC who cough, at all, home?

No, we are following the government advice. Obviously. The government advice referenced in my OP that we should all be aware of by now.

That’s not what the guidance says, it’s “continuous”, not “any coughing” or “mild cough”. It’s insufficiently clear.

Don’t blame citizens for being confused by confusing guidance.

So how is your school deciding which coughs are “continuous”?

@Bedsheets4knickers it's not difficult in the slightest. She has a cough. So she stays at home for 7 days.

If you send her in to school, she gets sent home again. And everybody in the school knows you are a dick. Give it 48 hours and whoever had to look after her until you strolled back in could go down with it - and you don't actually know whether it's Covid 19 or not. It could be. Might not, but YOU DON'T KNOW.

If somebody is subsequently diagnosed with Covid 19 or, God forbid, dies, you (and anybody else who prefers somebody else to have the responsibility for caring for their sick child) will be looked at as the cause by the entire area, as the children will go home to tell their parents that your child was in and coughing everywhere.

It's really not difficult at all. You keep her at home so she can do colouring in or online learning as age appropriate. Because that's what the guidance says.

I asked the school When I picked him up and they said it’s up to you ! (Which is why I’m asking here). They wouldn’t give me a clear answer, and wouldn’t say one way or another, but it was down to me to decide , and maybe I’d like to ring 111 for advice.

I asked the school When I picked him up and they said it’s up to you !

The new advice came after school pick up didn't it?

Symptoms comparrison
She should stay off just in case

The government has put schools in an impossible situation! I teach year 1 and about 12 kids in my class have a cough... this is nothing unusual and I don't know how we are meant to make the decision! Parents don't want to pick them up ... I think if they are in and we've been together all week we probably have it anyway! We've also got bits, scabies and a vomiting night going round too!

The new advice is unclear. It is not telling parents to keep DC coughing AT ALL or a bit at home, nor schools to send DC who cough a bit home.

The issue is that it hasn’t described what constitutes a “continuous” cough.

Cough and / or fever and/ or breathlessness are indications to completely self isolate for 7 days. The severity of the symptoms is completely immaterial ( particularly in children) . This applies to nursery attenders, school children, working adults and everybody else. The advice is very clear. This is really inconvenient for everyone but it is all of our responsibilities to protect the vulnerable. In doing so the health care system will be more able to work adequately.

This is why the schools need to shut down- people can’t be trusted to follow advice: I’m tapping out- mine will be off from Monday. They can do work at home and I can be sure I did my best to stop the spread, I think people need to take a look at the bigger picture here and just stay in for a few weeks. Some of the selfishness I’ve seen recently has been staggering