I'm a teacher and I'm scared.

[NebularNerd]

I don't feel safe going back to work in September. When I became a teacher I did not anticipate doing so during a pandemic. I, like many others in secondary schools, will be facing up to 150 students a day, indoors, with no protection.
I am over 40 but not otherwise in a high risk category, although my husband is and we have elderly parents who will be exposed if I'm infected, as well as young children who will also be in school and potentially exposed.
I'm not disputing the need for children to return to school at all. I'm just starting to fear returning.
Anyone else feel this way?

Where is the definitive proof that children have transmitted the virus to adults?

Where is the definitive proof that passengers have transmitted the virus to bus drivers?

Some of the “children” I teach are 6’2” with beards.

goingdown of course not, but that was in response to what someone said above about what they were being asked to do.

I agree! Schools are extremely different environments to hospitals. The kids aren’t going to social distance, they’ll be in year group bubbles but the staff will still be crossing all those bubbles in most schools. The staff are working in poorly ventilated classrooms, stuck indoors, no kids in face masks and impossible to social distance. I went to the hospital recently and everyone (including patients) were in masks, the rooms were all sanitary and social distance was observed. Teachers are being thrown to the wolves.

I work in a hospital where I was exposed to covid before we knew patients were even positive..

450 people die every single day from cancer. If it was reported in the news every day that X number had died from cancer, we’d all be terrified of that too!

I feel for you OP I really do. However as others have said do we really have a choice? It's not going to just disappear any time soon and a vaccine won't do it's job overnight. We have to learn to live with it, as best we can, making what adjustments we can.
I am a emergency service worker, I'm out there face to face with public every day, in peoples houses etc. Do I want to do it at the moment. No. But I have to.
Do I want to risk my family, children etc. No. Am I scared. Of course! Please don't feel you are alone in this, seek support from others where you can and follow guidelines to stay as safe as possible.

I'm with you op. I'm in FE, tiny classrooms. Big groups of adults. No communication from our managers about masks / group sizes planned. I'm definitely worried.

It makes zero sense that secondary teachers are not allowed (?) to wear masks, visors or gloves.

Schools have to open, but given a hair dresser can do that it seems bizarre. Teenagers are hardly going to be traumatised.

That said I appreciate that this would likely fall to teachers to buy, which is a whole other issue.

@SummerPeony you can’t spread cancer by breathing on people FFS

We can’t have our children off indefinitely, that’s the problem. I honestly have sympathy but this thing is here to stay, we’ve got to try and get on with things.

No, really?!

It is scary.

Things that might help (I work in public health, if that matters)

• children don’t not replicate the virus the same way that adults do. Hence they are poor transmitters of disease.

• you are the adult in the class, and as such you get to control the environment more than you would do in (say) a supermarket. Ie you can enforce hand washing, cough and sneeze hygiene and cleaning.

• if you have asthma or diabetes or hypertension, if your control over them (asthma in particular) is good then your risk lowers immediately-have a check with your practice nurse before term starts. Obviously lose weight if needed!

• Once you are in the thick of it, it will normalise. The anticipation is awful, I know.

Everybody is scared. Shop workers NHS workers all the key workers who have gone to work during all this!!!!

The studies are due to be conducted in sept when all pupils are back. We are the experiment. That is extremely anxiety driving.

Op, I understand your anxiety. I was about to resign in july. I'd been wfh due to clinical vulnerability. Just personally speaking, I found speaking to a local neu rep who appeared to have more knowledge about how phe was working with the school, helpful and really helped my anxiety.

I believe many had had anxiety at our school and unbeknown to me our head had been listening a lot to concerns and trying hard to address them which also helped a bit.

The anxiety is still there for me; lack of mask wearing is an issue. At the same time I'm not sure how well we'd all use them; bad mask use can be bad. I'm having to actively challenge thoughts and distract enormously as I literally can't cope with the anxiety.

Can you speak to anyone at slt to let them know how your feeling? The anticipation plus anxiety is excruciating.

I get the fear OP.
I’ve been working throughout the pandemic with people with known COVID and people of unknown COVID status. Even with PPE, it would’ve been increasingly easy to catch it. I was scared in March and April. I’m not scared now. Now is nothing like March and April.

Its not a race to the bottom, I feel for teachers. I think with no normality, either not working or working to a rota with limited amounts of pupils for such a prolonged period of time, it’s really tough returning to some sort of normality under these circumstances. It needs to be done though. All the advice I can offer is to try and keep things in perspective.

I am too. I'm closer to 50 than 40 and am obese (BMI 32) although was morbidly obese in March (BMI 42). Really, really scared. DH also a secondary teacher and scared too. I haven't been in a shop or anywhere with lots of people. Honestly don't know if I'm going to cope.

Coronavirus is going to be an occupational hazard for everyone for a long time. I’m a nurse, of course I’m scared, but I can’t stay off work and the country can’t shut down indefinitely. Shop workers, vets, teachers, every single one of us are now facing the possibility we could catch coronavirus at work. What is the alternative though? Of course it’s scary, I just don’t see what alternative there is..

Oh and PPE only protects others from you...

I am mid 50s and male (relevant for risk factor) and joining a new school in September. I think it is important to be brave and get on with it.

On the other hand, I do expect proper support from the school to keep the teachers safe (enforcement of hand sanitisation, temp checking, ill children going straight home, no whole school assemblies or indoor staff meetings with all staff present etc).

If the school slt cannot get the basics right wrt being as safe as possible, I will be voting with my feet.

I am scared too. I am 51 and fat so at risk.
The stats say that 64 people in educational setting have died of Covid. This is without schools being at full capacity. Of course we can't prove where they got it - we can't in any case.

For information we just need to look at what happened in Israel. It's a frightening read

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.amp.html

I can understand why you are scared. Yes, it's worse for nurses but medical staff do know when they take on the job that they are going to be working with people who are seriously ill, sometimes with contagious illnesses. You don't expect that as a teacher, maybe colds and coughs but most things they get are things you have already had. I'm not a teacher, thank goodness, but I'd be nervous about going back - I am worried about my teenagers going back and being exposed to it.

A teacher at my friend's school caught covid off the children back in March. The scientists haven't interviewed every teacher in the country to find out whether it spread so the "no one has ever caught it off a child" lie is outrageous.

I'd like teachers to be able to get on with things as safely as possible. That is quite far removed from opening as normal, we aren't in normal times. My daughter lives with us and works in primary, I am a carer for my immune suppressed mother, I'm over 50 with hypertension. I feel totally let down, after shielding and being careful it's as if we may as well not have bothered,

children don’t not replicate the virus the same way that adults do. Hence they are poor transmitters of disease.

Genuine question, what's the difference between a 15 year old 6ft child and a 18 year old 6ft adult?

Hopefully this doesn't sound goady, because I really am interested in the difference regarding the virus.

-children don’t not replicate the virus the same way that adults do. Hence they are poor transmitters of disease.
-you are the adult in the class, and as such you get to control the environment more than you would do in (say) a supermarket. Ie you can enforce hand washing, cough and sneeze hygiene and cleaning.

You are clearly only considering primary schools. Secondaries are very different.

How do you think the risk compares to supermarket workers? In the height of things masks weren't mandatory or even common. They had far more traffic coming through, with less control. Surely they were the experiment people keep referring to?

I agree with PP though that it's not a race to the bottom. You do invaluable work and it's horrible to think how scared people are.

All I can say is that when I went back out into work and doing things more, it felt normal pretty quickly.