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?

I'm in Ireland and secondary school teachers and pupils have to wear face coverings and primary school teachers (not pupils) where you cannot socially distance. Guidance was just confirmed the other day.I teach infants so I'll wear a visor flipped up when teaching a whole group as I'll be 2m away from them and flip it down when helping them with their work etc.

If it can be made safer we have a chance of it being more sustainable too.
The way things are I give it two weeks before bubbles are closing and opening like, er, something that closes a lot. That’s no good surely?

Studies saying no teacher has caught it from a pupil are massively flawed- schools haven’t been open for most students for 5 months!

Exactly.

Have there been any studies on anyone so they can definitively determine how they caught it?

I’m really worried about going back. I desperately wish they’d allow blended learning with 50% of students in the building at any one time. Half classes would at least give us a fighting chance of keeping everyone safe! Our school is doing everything they can within guidelines - masks for teachers if they want, students encouraged to wear masks especially older ones in sixth form, staggered movement times, but with full class sizes it doesn’t feel very safe!

I think at some point the government needs to start treating primary and secondary schools definitely in terms of the guidance. They are SO different and the risks for secondaries are higher IMO with a full return.

and opening like, er, something that closes a lot.

Today, that would be my fridge.

However if everyone stayed at home like the majority of teachers have done since March, there would be societal breakdown, anarchy and lawlessness.

I'd love to get up to some hard-core anarchy and lawlessness in my own home, but I was too busy doing what the government told me to do. Staying home, saving the NHS, homeschooling my child while providing 3 hours of video lessons, email feedback and posting packs to children without tech every day to help parents homeschool their children too. Like the government told us.

OP - it's reasonable to be scared. I'm going into September thinking that we're in a much better position than we were in March (that was definitely scary), and that we'll be fine for a few weeks. Things change quickly with this thing, the gov are flying by the seat of their pants. Bybtge time we need to be genuinely scared, who knows what will be going on. Try, try to keep things in perspective. I don't know whether youve been in school during lockdown, but i was in lots - once you're back with kids it feels 'ok'.

I work in Special Education. I've been shielding but I am looking forward to going back.to work. There is no way you can really sd from the majority of our pupils. Firstly, because they don't understand the need for sd and secondly, they require personal care in many cases and also close contact when working, so you can explain the work to them. All the work is differentiated so it's not a case of standing 1 m away teaching generally from a whiteboard. However, we will be in permanent class bubbles and class sizes range from 6 to around 12 so that's good. I am looking forward to returning. We all need normality, we need to get our lives back, children and adults. At this stage, I'm not worried although I may but a visor for certain instances. We all just have all the precautions we can and get on.

@Fedup21

I think that data comes fromTrack and Trace which is famously accurate and comprehensive. Oh wait. It’s an enormous shit show that doesn’t work and was only implemented in July. Which was three weeks before schools closed for the holidays.

Teachers are not the ones trying to set up a competition about who has it worst.

Have you actually read the thread? It’s come from both sides. It’s pathetic and I won’t be dragged into it. You’re all saying the same thing with different perspectives and putting eachother down. Madness.

As for whether teachers should/should not wear masks, I actually have no opinion. Honestly, I don’t know how that would work practically or whether it would actually help at all. I think there’s probably good arguments on both sides of that.

At work, I often have no other safety measures than hand washing btw. It’s not that black and white in a hospital.

I volunteered to go in and staff keyworker school because I knew how helpful it would be for keyworkers to have that childcare. Posts like yours make me very much regret that choice.

Just to be clear, keyworker or not, you have my solidarity. You can’t say that you don’t, I’ve shown nothing in my posts that says otherwise. However, if teachers hadn’t been coming into school to be with my children throughout this, many, many, many people would have suffered and would have certainly died. I find this statement of yours pretty distasteful to say the least.

"There's inherent risk in everything, at 40 something we are more likely statistically to be in a fatal road traffic collision on the way to work"

Completely untrue.

The mortality of covid at 40 something is on average, the same as the risk of death from all causes and every disease. In other words, it doubles your risk of death on the next year ( assuming you get infected). This is still not a massive figure. Obviously increases if you have health conditions. Diagnosed or otherwise.

However if everyone stayed at home like the majority of teachers have done since March, there would be societal breakdown, anarchy and lawlessness.

Who ever said this is a massive dick. We were told to stay home. Lots of VOLUNTEERED to go into so that keyworkers had childcare. We had no control over the fact that the government closed schools. None.

The main reasons why schools were closed was not for the sake of teacher but to bring down the infection rate so the NHS didn’t collapse under the strain.

@CindersCatsSister

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.

Excellent post

At work, I often have no other safety measures than hand washing btw. It’s not that black and white in a hospital.

Not even a mask? I thought they were compulsory for all NHS staff.

Me too I'll be 30 weeks pregnant when we return in september and I'll be in contact directly and indirectly with children from all year groups with nothing but a plastic visor for protection, infections will no doubt keep rising and I'll still be made to go in, however a few weeks ago I was not to go in as it was unsafe but with less contact and less infections doesnt make sence

Have people forgotten during lock down stores had a couple of people in the store at a time and had good ventilation? Their tills are distanced away from each other. Ok it did get a bit daft when they had to re-stock after the shortages and staff were everywhere, but at least they could run round back and wash their hands and face. Then they were given those perspex things, and even before this they started wearing gloves and masks.

Does everyone in Nhs work only in A&E? There yes it's busy and usually nicely ventilated (unless it's broken) Every time I've been on the ward, I'm sure there were around 30 patients, all nicely spaced a metre or so away from each other. The wards also have several sinks, and hand sanitizer next to sinks, end of patient beds, near doors and some even near the elevators and spaced out randomly along long corridors. NHS deal with this type of control on a daily basis, one of the reasons for those side rooms. Oh and for a long time during this, visitors weren't allowed. And not being funny, once off a&e, you know what the patient has, and those bloods etc taken daily tell you what your patient has. Anytime someone normally gets tested for something like this, out comes gloves, masks and the plastic bin bags, think they even wear something to cover their heads (I'm usually too out of it by this point to pay close attention to details)

Now here we have a room that seat at least 30 people, who are less than 1 metre apart because the rooms weren't designed for this number. Just the growing population has increased the number of seats needed. Windows do not open. There is no ventilation unless you are thinking about a fan which isn't the same thing! There is no sink it that room, the nearest sink might be a floor down.

The store worker sink - they share with their colleagues and how many do these stores have? They are cleaned I believe every 4 hours? Depending on the store even the shop floors get cleaned a couple of times a day.

The NHS worker has their own toilets. The patients share with a small number of other patients. They are cleaned every day several times a day. Even 3am if something needs cleaner, someone appears with the proper equipment, whilst whoever continues doing their job.

The room with at least 30 people has to share the toilets with several other rooms of at least 30. Those spaces get cleaned at the end of the day unless someone has time to run around cleaning. There is no "clean up on aisle 2" option.

The store worker and the NHS is near someone for short periods of time. The room of 30 an hour a time, and then roughly every hour, one person from that room of 30 moves to another room of 30 and they do this 4 times a day. Apart from Doctors and domestics who does this on hospital wards on a daily basis? And those who do will have the things those in the room of 30 dont have.

I think Boris uses words like morality on teachers is ill advised. It actually increases panic. It is a job, an important one , but not uniquely 'guardian of morality' stuff. That's the same low tactics used on junior doctors during their strike.

@Ickabog I don’t want to go into it too much because I definitely wouldn’t want to be outed saying any of this but some parts of a hospital are deemed ‘COVID secure’ and in these areas you are not Expected to wear PPE. ‘COVID secure’ is a red herring. You can definitely catch COVID in these areas.

@FabulouslyGlamourousFerret children in that already discredited report are under 10. Not sure if you've been into a secondary school but it does not contain those children. It has large humans who go all intent are adults. How can an 18 year old in school not transmit the virus like an adult ? Data please.

[quote Gurtcha]@Ickabog I don’t want to go into it too much because I definitely wouldn’t want to be outed saying any of this but some parts of a hospital are deemed ‘COVID secure’ and in these areas you are not Expected to wear PPE. ‘COVID secure’ is a red herring. You can definitely catch COVID in these areas.[/quote]
Yes, I’m pretty sure Boris has said schools are ‘Covid secure‘, too.

Scottish schools go back on Tuesday. By the time english schools go back there will be a decent evidence base for whether it is safe or not.

This is a massive post- sorry- just wanted to post to offer my experience and maybe a tiny glimmer of reassurance- not in any way to minimise your concerns at all.

I work in the NHS (clinical staff but spend time between patients and occ all day in an office sorting stuff, writing notes etc) We have all recently had our antibody tests.

Most people were negative, including me. This includes those who were convinced they had it (before routine testing came into place) and some of those (incl me) who have been in contact with confirmed patients with no PPE (this is before we were wearing it for everyone).

One of my colleague’s antibody test was positive. In hindsight they are pretty sure they know from who and when they picked it up but had no symptoms so no inkling they were infected. They have been in work t/out- old hospital, small office, no PPE, no ventilation. Not one of the many other people (inc me) who shared the office and in one case a car with that person had a positive antibody test. This is not the only example of this scenario in my wider work place.

Who knows why that is. Possibly the fact that they were asymptomatic so not coughing and sneezing, possibly the fact that we social distanced and hand washed as best we could in the environment we were in.

Of course I know this is all anecdotal and I know the scenario is not relevant to all work settings particularly schools but I do think that it has given me a calmer perspective on the situation- I still take all precautions very seriously, I’ve just lost the fear that catching it is inevitable.

Despite the above I do understand teachers concerns and I do agree that if teachers/pupils wanted to wear masks they should be allowed to do so. It seems a bit of a no brainer!

@Gurtcha my DD has worked in a hospital throughout this as an HCA. And the minimum she has had to wear is a mask, apron and gloves. Sometimes just that too when looking after COVID patients, which made me terrified. But at least some PPE. I have a mask from school that I will need to wear 6.5 hours a day. Same mask- except I've made my own so will have 6. Wash and repeat every night.

@Ad3laid3 a lot of our concern is space. Or the lack of it. We will spend hours in very close proximity to up to 150 different students each day, less than 1m away. In unventilated rooms. With teens who are not observing SD outside school. It's not just masks, it's over crowded classrooms. And I think some of it is sheer frustration that no one is listening to us.

"Police, prison officers, Border Force staff, all NHS workers, shop and food chain workers are people too and don't want to catch the virus either. "

NHS and care workers we have a sympathy with due to lack of ppe because of government ignoring findings flu scenario planning in previous years hence we had clap for carers etc.

Prison officers also have some sympathy with but they have kept prisoners in their cells for 23 hours a day so not exactly business as usual.

Police are out and about obviously but stood around while statues got thrown in rivers, people got stabbed and raped at illegal raves in Manchester so a bit rich to ask people to resign jf they can't do their jobs properly.

And lest we forget teachers have worked throughout and didn't complain about it until the protection they were offered got reduced for them, whilst for everyone else it seems to have gone up.

@Ad3laid3 we’ve all had antibody tests too. I have colleagues that have definitely had COVID, there’s no doubt in my mind but have no antibodies. God knows what’s going on.