Is anyone going from quite chilled about schools reopening to being nervous/frightened?

[Nosebogey]

My ds has been at school throughout lockdown in a small bubble. It took a lot for me to send him because I was scared but his mh was suffering badly so I put that first even though I found it very hard. He was in a bubble of around ten kids and the bubbles were kept really separated (apart from drop off and pick up which was a bit close for comfort).

Now though, I’m starting to get very frightened about September. Our school is doing what they can with having class bubbles and one way systems (including an exit route that is also been designated an entrance for some children so not such a one way system) but I’m still scared.

Pubs round here are packed. These adults will go home and be around their children. Their children will be crammed into classrooms with other children. Parks are absolutely chock full of families atm all playing together etc. So adults are mixing and children are mixing outside of school but magically social distancing inside school will stop infection? Parents send sick kids in all the time. Why would they suddenly stop doing that for coronavirus symptoms? Won’t they just decide “it’s just a cold” and send them in anyway?

I don’t know. I just feel like the closer September comes, the more scared I get. Is anyone feeling the same?

I'm a teacher and I'll be covering classes across 15 different class bubbles in September. I'm nervous but think realistically schools will close within a few weeks. The safety measures are pretty futile as 5 classes (150 children) share the same 6 toilet cubicles. A cleaning company come in at lunchtime and they are cleaned again at the end of the day but that's a lot of contact points shared by a lot of children.

Without setting up whole extra temporary classrooms and employing more staff, neither of which are feasible given our budgets, classes are full and school is very overcrowded. It will spread very rapidly.

Just to add, I'd much rather be teaching than at home schooling my own children. If schools close we will all continue to go to school.

Very dispiriting to see the snowflakery and entitlement of the coronaphobes.

Very dispiriting to see @lifeafter50 still full of spite and bile.

I’d like to see how our schools compare to Israel before we reopen.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.html#click=t.co/QYQKN3Vmu8" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.html#click=t.co/QYQKN3Vmu8

Schools will not be safe. The virus will still be there and will think it's gone to heaven in hot crowded classrooms. It will go up the noses of anyone it can find and then come out again whenever it feels like it. Transmitting to anyone it can. Young people are being badly effected by COVID, leaving them with life changing disabilities. Rarer than adults, but that's no consolation if it's your kid. If you think I'm a 'snowflake' then so be it. But I've been in school, I've lost colleagues already and seen the effect on a few students. This is horrible but it's a virus and will behave as every other virus has ever done - by finding a host so it can replicate.

For some people it's not as simple as worrying if they will get it.

I care for my parents who are in their eighties. My dad is bedridden and suspected to be in his final few months. Carers 3x a day really doesn't cut it and its yet to be decided if it's appropriate and affordable for him to be in a residential home.

If I or my daughter have to quarantine or, God forbid, catch the bloody thing, there is literally no-one else who can be there for them.

To be clear though - right before lockdown, with far higher prevalence and no proper precautions, ONS statistics show that teachers had the exact same mortality rate as corporate managers or other white collar workers, many of whom were working from home. Their risk was comparatively low.
www.google.com/amp/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/ons-figures-reveal-65-covid-related-deaths-in-education/amp/

It was manual workers, mostly male, who had far far higher rates than average, and people like hairdressers also had higher rates.

In Sweden the schools never closed, so far 0.05% of young people aged 0-19 have caught it and none died.

Of course I am concerned and if rates spike I would absolutely hope that we close schools etc as needed. But I also don't think the statistics support the current panic.

In Sweden the schools never closed, so far 0.05% of young people aged 0-19 have caught it and none died.

@Stuckforthefourthtime I'm so sick of reading this on MN. Swedish schools didn't open as usual. There were very strict guidelines in place. Read the article and stop perpetuating the myth.

www.tes.com/news/have-swedish-schools-really-carried-normal

Yes it's not helpful when people keep posting lies and mistruths about other countries

No I'm not at all worried about school, the worries are around whether the government will have their priorities right and keep them open throughout this time.

Its all very well mentioning the rare effects that this illness can have on children - but surely you can appreciate that statistically your child is much more likely to suffer these effects or other complications from many other viruses in general circulation? If my child had been one of the rare few who had died from chicken pox complications caught at school, I would certainly not be regretting my decision to send her to school in the first place or complaining that schools should have been closed with every case identified.

@Tfoot75 mu own kids are no longer at school so doesn't affect them at all. But the complications from COVID are not comparable with any other virus, besides maybe meningitis. Lung transplants, chronic lack of breath, heart disease. Things that cannot be fixed. But if you are ok with that then that's fine. I wouldn't be sending my own kids in.
And please people, don't quote other countries unless you've done your research . Only country that has done what we are planning is Israel. Which has not gone well.

Only country that has done what we are planning is Israel. Which has not gone well.

Israel allowed weddings of up to 250 people at the same time as opening schools.

The teachers were often foolhardy or reckless;

"Oz Arbel told Israel’s Army Radio that for a school project, his daughter’s classmates sat at a table and passed around a mobile phone with a teacher who was showing symptoms."

"One Gymnasia student, Ofek Amzaleg, told Kan public radio that a teacher who coughed in class and joked that he didn’t have coronavirus was among those who tested positive."

“They made a board with nails to hang their masks on, one on top of the other,”

"Teacher At J-m School At Center Of Outbreak Knew He Was Ill But Came To Work Anyway."

www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/headlines-breaking-stories/1866010/incriminating-report-teacher-at-j-m-school-at-center-of-outbreak-knew-he-was-ill-but-came-to-work-anyway.html

www.irishtimes.com/news/world/middle-east/when-covid-subsided-israel-reopened-its-schools-it-didn-t-go-well-1.4321658

I'm v concerned both over 50 one with diabetes which has been recognised as significant risk ...but dc gcse year so will probably suck it up and infection control as he gets in the door ....some stuff just can't be taught as well online

Secondary teacher. Am concerned. Have no idea yet of our school's plan for opening on September.

@Stuckforthefourthtime

To be clear though - right before lockdown, with far higher prevalence and no proper precautions, ONS statistics show that teachers had the exact same mortality rate as corporate managers or other white collar workers, many of whom were working from home. Their risk was comparatively low. www.google.com/amp/s/schoolsweek.co.uk/ons-figures-reveal-65-covid-related-deaths-in-education/amp/

It was manual workers, mostly male, who had far far higher rates than average, and people like hairdressers also had higher rates.

In Sweden the schools never closed, so far 0.05% of young people aged 0-19 have caught it and none died.

Of course I am concerned and if rates spike I would absolutely hope that we close schools etc as needed. But I also don't think the statistics support the current panic.

That would be Sweden who have had the highest number of cases per capita in Europe?

Not exactly sure they are the example we should be emulating.

It is not just about students themselves- they can be drivers of community transmission as well. It's also possible that not every student in Sweden who caught coronavirus was detected- asymptomatic cases can still be dangerous to others.

@DomDoesWotHeWants @SlipperSwan I never said that Sweden continued school exactly as usual. Nor are they the best wider example to follow. But all years under 16 remained in education (some every day, some alternate days/weeks) throughout so what we CAN see is the rate of school outbreaks.
Denmark similarly went back very early, again not 'as usual', but my point is that there ARE successful examples of reopening schools. Many Asian countries have done the same.

We also have the evidence of right before lockdown, that teachers had the same CV incidence as other white collar professions, sadly our testing was too bad to know anything about specific outbreaks, but again we can look at other countries.

But none of these threads seem to reference that, instead it's all about the poorly executed return in Israel and poorly planned and thought out directive in the US, and fear mongering.

@Stuckforthefourthtime you've hit the nail on the head. All we are asking is that we open the schools carefully, like those other countries. Not this gun ho attitude of things must be the same because that's what we want. COVID does not stop at school gates and fun away. And no one knows how many teachers have died or been seriously ill because we don't have the data as you said. But I know I've lost 2 colleagues and that makes me sad.

But isn’t that the point @Stuckforthefourthtime our schools are opening with very little difference to how they were pre-COVID, maybe with a few more bits of sticky tape on the floor and some hand sanitisers. If there was more social distancing and blended learning our schools would have a much greater chance of staying open.

Bearing in mind I bet we probably have one of the smallest floor space to pupil ratio compared to most countries.

@mumsneedwine we do have the data in the UK about how many education staff have died of covid, via the ONS. The rate per 100,000 was identical to or slightly less than many other white collar occupations, including for example corporate managers, many of whom were working from home well before schools shut. The rates for security guards, most manual workers and hairdressers, for example, were far far higher. And that was with zero real modifications for health, vulnerable teachers in school, and much higher prevalence than now.

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19relateddeathsbyoccupationenglandandwales/deathsregisteredbetween9marchand25may2020

Again, this doesn't mean that we should open up exactly as normal, but I still don't see science bearing out the idea that a return on a fairly large scale is not possible, certainly for primary students.

@Stuckforthefourthtime we have no idea how many teachers died or who now have long term health issues, due to the chaos and lack of testing before lockdown. Many of my colleagues were very ill in the first few weeks but were never tested. Many students also told me they were sick and again were not tested. So we do not know. But from my own life I have seen death and devastated lives, some of them teenagers. One fit healthy 16 year old who now needs a lung transplant due to COVID (has been tested as was on a ventilator for 10 days in an induced coma). She used to run triathlons. Now can't get off the sofa. It might not be common but that is no consolation to her parents.

@mumsneedwine there have been 4 coronavirus deaths of people aged 0-14, and that includes suspected covid and deaths with rather than of covid. Similarly there have been 555 deaths aged 15-44 - that is 8 per million of population, and the vast majority are on the older side, if we follow the patterns of other countries.

Yet every thread like this has people who have personally known dead teenagers and younger people. Either you are all unbelievably unlucky, or exaggerating or repeating hearsay from others, or people are straight out lying to bolster their positions, which is ghoulish.

It is starting to really bother me. There are valid arguments on either side, but pretending to personally know lots of young people who have died, unless you work in a paediatric ICU, is not one of them.

I'm really worried. Still struggling to recover from the bout of COVID I caught in March, not sure I could survive a second. Am ok to work from home indefinitely but worried about having 2 in secondary in "bubbles" of 200.

@Stuckforthefourthtime I don't know any dead teenagers, just colleagues, friends. Sorry if that is not something you can clarify by statistics. But they are very dead and their children have lost a parent & are very sad. So forgive me for knowing that COVID kills. I know teens (& adults) who have life changing results of COVID. Please read carefully next time.

And how many severely affected teenagers are there @Stuckforthefourthtime? Oh that's right, you cant tell me because noone is counting. COVID doesnt offer you binary choices - dead or better, there's a whole third category of damaged that everyone is ignoring because they are hidden away at home.

No, not scared, or terrified, or concerned or fearful or petrified. I am hopeful, as DS1 is now so behind with school I don't think he will ever catch up, and he is actually mentally ill now. Sports are back on, which is a lifeline, but the anxiety is through the roof, as are the black moods, the meltdowns, the refusal to deviate from a more and more rigid and isolating routine.
I would sign up to teach the little germ factories myself if I had been made redundant. In fact, if I am made redundant I will bloody have to train as a teacher, as there wont be any other jobs. At least its secure.