School children and shielding parents

[Jourdain11]

Sorry, it's "another schools thread"....!

I'm actually wondering about a specific point and wanted to ask if anyone has had thoughts or information about this? I guess we can all agree that schools will go back at some point and that it's likely that shielding parents will still be needing to shield.

So I'm just wondering how that is going to work? For example, I wouldn't want my children to miss out on going back because of my medical condition. But I'm guessing it would then require isolating from them entirely, which I could just about manage - but I realise that may not be the case for others - those who don't have space, single parents, and so on.

I know the schools thing has been done to death. But I guess we all know that they will go back sometime - and was wondering if anything has been said or disclosed about this particular issue?

Thanks in advance

I don’t know how we’ll manage. Dh would have to go back (teacher) so the dcs may as well go too. I’d hate them to miss out on anything because of me. I don’t know how it’ll work logistically as I’m the one who does school runs.

@OrganTransplant123 Same situation here. DH is a teacher - he's been allowed to not go in for key workers' children at the moment, but when schoolwork start back I'd assume he will be back in.

I wonder if something can be sorted about the pick ups and drop offs for vulnerable children, since that might be actually one of the biggest problems for shielding parents of primary children.

Best solution I can come up with is that teachers who are shielding join some kind of online school and teach shielding children from it. Of course the kids don't get the social interaction of school then though and aren't with their peers.

It's hard to see many ways around it for those who really can't attend school - it wouldn't be reasonable to expect the children's own class teacher to upload work for them, teaching a normal school day is intense enough as it is.

Having said that though, you couldn't keep it up forever., I'd say that sort of setup could only last a little while. Tough choices to be made...

The issue is we dont know how long it's for.
Realistically when could a vax be available optimistically.
If less than a yr from now then i think kids who cant attend for whatever reason parebt/child shielding etc should be allowed to drop back a year.
I mean we have class size exceptions for disabled and care and forces.
Going up to 32/33 even in this situation shouldnt be an issue they also except twin/triplet etc.
It's an extrordinary situation and class size could drop back down as pupils move schools.

There will be kids already who would benefit from dropping back.

I'm in the same position. My DD is year 6 and has SN so I really don't want her to miss out on any transition. She was supposed to be getting an increased transition too to help her adapt. My DS is also really struggling so would want him to go back asap but he is a real germ magnet in normal times. Always has one cold after another. It's going to be tough to make a decision

I am currently in hospital awaiting result of covid test. On a covid ward. It is very scary. Doctor says i am classed as a highly unstable asthmatic and should have got a shielding letter. He has no idea why I didn't. I have been shielding anyway because I knew my asthma would be problematic and I am still quite ill. My DC are also asthmatic. Doctor has told me today children and I are to shield for the forseeable. So no school. We are homeschooling and kids are managing quite well so far.

Good luck out. Fx it's not CV

Thanks. Hoping to have results late on Sunday or early Monday. Then who to talk to about getting a shielding letter. I think i might need one for supermarket but as I live in NI not sure on the procedure.

Realistically as a vulnerable single parent of vulnerable kids who has no family I can't see how I can send mine back until there is a vaccine.

If anything happens to me my kids go into the care system. I'll have to keep them back a year.

I’m currently 30 weeks pregnant with my 1st and have 2 primary age step kids that live with us half the week. If they go back before due date in early July I’d have to consider living separately, as would break DPs heart not to see them, and their mum would be understandably probably not up for keeping them home and delaying her return to work for the benefit of me / the new babe.

Quite a sad prospect to spend the last few weeks of pregnancy alone but difficult times call for difficult decisions and sacrifices all round. I wouldn’t feel confident in the schools social distancing measures to protect me. One of my friends is a deputy head in a primary and says it’s impossible to keep the key worker’s kids fully away from each other even when there are only and handful of them going in.

I do think that social distancing in a primary school would be nigh on impossible. It is hard enough to get the kids to stand in a line, let alone 2 meters apart! And I can just picture the masks pinging off all over the place... "getting lost"... getting drawn on...!

@Toottoot20202 and all the best for your pregnancy btw. I hope you're okay! It must be hard at a time like this

Sympathies! Fwiw my friends husband is in the same position – cf - and she found a journal article with a case report of someone who had survived severe covi and she found a journal article with a case report of someone who had survived severe covid post transplant – but, as you say, it's a gamble.

To some extent, I think there has been a discourse that as long as there are enough ventilators it's all fine – but if you look at the survival data, it's still pretty terrible.

I believe I'm right in saying that if you end up on a ventilator, you have an 86% chance of dying. Obviously there are some things that will increase and decrease that risk – and that is data from a particular clinical population, but I think it's still a pretty uncertain outcome.

The other perky thing to consider is that there is increasing data suggesting long-term consequences to infection .... but obviously, we don't know enough about that yet to know how common that is or how problematic it might be.

Sorry, I meant to say something slightly positive – I'm not sure I succeeded, did I?

What do you do at the moment? I am guessing that quite a lot of those who are currently shielding are vulnerable to other conditions too, even a straight-forward cold or a chicken pox outbreak.

I've never heard anyone on here eg say that their child stays off school during the winter months to avoid all the winter lurgies and norovirus, but I assume it has to happen for some kids.

Yes, I think online will be the only way - and probably a centralised resource - but it's hard.

I know this isn't the point, but there are so many if onlys...

I remember emailing spamming my uber boss one weekend about 4 or 5 weeks before we went into lockdown.

My assistant was flying back from Pisa, just outside the amber zone in Italy at the time. I'm an NHS worker so at the time we had to isolate if we came back from the amber zone and my logic was that wasn't enough - and that there would be a lot of people on the flight from the amber zone as Pisa was the nearest airport...and my assistant could be sitting next to someone who was ill or just breathing in the recirculated air.

Much as I like my assistant it seemed crazy to me that she should go back to working on the ward under these circumstances. My boss basically agreed with me but couldn't do anything because it just wasn't being taken that seriously. I remember him saying that he was sure the rules would change and hoping that it wouldn't be too late.

My lovely assistant came back to work - and was equally bewildered. Her experience was that as soon as they landed in Italy, they had the temperatures taken and were given a health questionnaire – as soon as they got back to London, having come from a coronavirus hotspot – nothing happened.

If action had been taken sooner, as indeed it was in other countries, we and our families wouldn't all be facing these invidious dilemmas now .

And of course my boss was right...people coming from anywhere will now be quarantined...and it is too late:(

@puffinandkoala I think this is a bit different from the usual lurgies though.

Chickenpox for example, has a much higher r0, but we do take steps to reduce transmission (ie isolate when symptomatic and contagious). Also many vulnerable adults have already got some immunity to it. Even then, only about 25 people a year die from it.

Similarly, we vaccinate against strains of seasonal flu. But both the R0 and mortality rate are lower than what research suggests is the case for coronavirus.

So doing what one normally would do is riskier here.

As I see it the choices are:

• shield and remove kids from school until vaccine
• shield and remove from school until % infected in UK is higher (and hope infection offers some immunity)

-live separately from kids (if possible)

• accept the risk and send to school.