Coronovirus IS transmitted in schools

[mosquitofeast]

And lots of teachers have died

I am just clarifying this, as I don't know how many times I have read on Mumsnet that this has never happened. I don't know where this misinformation is coming from, but its rubbish

It was transmitted several hundred times in my school (secondary)before lock down. Hundreds of children and dozens of staff were affected. Some have been seriously ill and have been left with long term health problems, such as low lung capacity and loss of hearing.

I am a teacher and I was infected at school. I did not use public transport, or go into any shops or other businesses for the whole of March, and I was living alone. The only time I was in any contact with anyone else was in school

A school near us (also secondary) had to close a week before school closures were announced, as so many teachers were infected.

Thankfully, no staff or student in our school died, although several students have lost parents, and many have lost grandparents. One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.

However, according to the union, around 200 school staff have dies to date, so we have just been lucky so far.

So please don't repost this fake news that "no one has ever caught covid in a school" - because |I have watched it happen in front of my eyes, and experienced it myself.

I am not being silly. I didn't touch any surface at all. I was trying to protect myself, and not risk carrying the virus into school. I touched absolutely nothing, not post, not anything other than at school.

What did you eat? Your food must have come from somewhere. What did you do with your post? Leave it all lying on your doormat, accumulating? Did you use a Petrol station? Etc etc etc....

I’m not disputing that Covid is transmitted in schools, but you undermine yourself making ridiculous statements like that.

In an ideal world, schools wouldnt go back but this isn’t going away and at some point we have to balance the risk with the other cost of kids not going to school (education, social, physical and mental health). For once I agree with Bojo on this.

What I want to know is in my child’s (big) school, if one member of staff or student gets tested positive, does the school shut? There has been zero communication about how they will handle positive cases. It might be that schools will end up intermittently closing several times.

1. Nurseries tend to be considerably smaller that schools and therefore the risk is a bit less
2. Nursery workers tend to be younger and perhaps don't feel so vulnerable to the virus
3. Nursery workers aren't as well protected through unions so might be frightened to speak out / complain

Maybe these are true but doesn’t account for why there has been no discernible rise in infection rates in the more than two months since nurseries opened.

@lazylinguist

I'm sick and tired of hearing accusations that teachers think they alone of all professions need to be protected from the virus (because they are 'golden heroes', as someone said upthread ).

All the teachers I know want to go back to school. Most if the non-vulnerable ones are happy to go back whatever the guidelines. The vulnerable ones just want to be allowed the same safety measures afforded to other workers.

At the very least they want the government to actually admit the truth, by saying 'Sorry folks - the proposed guidelines for schools opening are not actually safe and will be practically unworkable in many schools. We've pretty much left the details up to individual schools so that we can blame them when cases inevitably rise. We've told you all that there's little evidence the virus spreads in schools, but that's because schools have been closed or had very few people in them since March. But we need to open schools and that's that.'

There already aren't enough teachers in schools. Teenagers are pretty much adults and will pass the virus on even if they don't get symptoms themselves. Teachers will get the virus and there will be huge staff absence. Yet the government claims that schools will be the last things to close even if cases rise. How do you keep them open with not enough teachers?!

Teachers don't have a solution to all this because there is no full solution. Keep schools closed, kids suffer. Open schools, cases rise, people die, schools close again. Rotas and blended learning are the only way imo.

This !!

We will have enhanced cleaning during the day and any member of staff that really wishes to wear PPE won't be prevented from doing so. Our office staff have sneeze guards on their desks, like you see in shops and stuff. Children on the bus aged 11+ will be wearing masks, the younger ones can if they wish.

We successfully reopened last term to up to 7 of 9 year groups back on any one day. Our teachers generally teach from the front anyway, so that's not a huge change to working, and those in specialist rooms will just have to wipe down between classes. Our pupils generally stay put in their classrooms and teachers move around anyway. When we were open to a large number of pupils last term staff and children just washed hands/sanitised their hands frequently. It was fine! We are also not in an area with densely populated housing and most parents work from home now.

There is no need for teachers to do that

There is if you want your child to be given feedback about their work. Verbal feedback on stuff they are doing is the most effective way. Book marking is not very effective although parents love it.

Of course the virus can be transmitted in schools.

but

Most transmission adult to adult (adult including older teens).

Most transmission is via droplet infection from adults who have been in close vicinity for several minutes.

What we think is that we are the only profession being forced back to absolute normality with absolutely no safety precautions in place.

Well that’s patently not true either. You think every poor sod on a zero hours contract is being kitted out with N95s and kept 2m away from other people at all times? Clearly unscrupulous employers are not what anyone should be emulating but it’s this “only ones” mentality that gets a lot of people’s backs up.

I’ll be furious if my DH ends up working all hours carrying the can for colleagues who refuse to pull their weight like he did from March to July. That experience changed my view of a lot of teachers entirely.

Some people find this very hard to read because it undermines their opinion that teachers are workshy and actively blocking schools reopening. It also undermines their opinion that teachers are being ridiculous for wanting more protection in schools (despite the fact that a lot of that motivation is so schools have a better chance of staying open for longer).

@newphoneswhodis

Nursery's are different because under 10s don't spread the virus as much. They breathe less. They don't carry as much of the virus (hence the extremely low death/hospitalisation of children) Over 10s spread the same as adults. Secondary schools will be bad but should be able to wear masks and social distance better than young ones.

This is not true at all. There were plenty of school hubs open throughout all of this. I don’t remember hear children falling I’ll and left with hearing impairment or severe disability like one are claiming on MN. Most children were fine.

But why can't children age ten and over be made to wear masks? That's a whole lot of people that would reduce transmitting CV. They're old enough to understand why, and if the parents don't agree they can keep them home.

The hearing impaired are just as unlucky as the vulnerable here, where you are impacted more by staying away from other people.

@RubyWow give me an example. What workplace is functioning legally without safety measures other than teaching?

Yup during first week of opening in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania region two schools shut. I’m not sure why people think most schooling is magically going to return to normal. Germany is in a far better position than the U.K. The Government may well appease the majority by opening schools but it’s what follows that’s important surely?

I will listen to PHE over anecdotal stories from someone who is insisting they levitated throughout March, only touching surfaces in school or at home.

The evidence suggests that children don't spread it

and this is what we are up against, you see!

People desperately clinging on to the reports that "children don't spread it" in spite of the fact that there is no reasoning or likelihood behind these reports at all, and in the face of personal accounts of many people who have experienced the opposite.

@bigglewiggle would rather sneer and ridicule me than accept it was perfectly possible to go through March without contact with people or surfaces other than at school.

What makes you think it was even difficult @bigglewiggle? I walked to school, I was living on my own. I had a full store cupboard, I did not go shopping, touch any post, or have any deliveries. The only contact I had with the world between home and school was the soles of my feet, which ( having a masters in pathology) I disinfected before entering either home or school, as it the practice in Germany.

I am not the only member of staff that did this, and many of us were ill, as were students. I cared for several students who became ill during the school day, some of whom were struggling to breathe,,and very frightened.

You say you don't believe I "levitated throughout March". In reality there is nothing here difficult to do, or believe that someone has done.

You would rather pour scorn on the idea and pretend it is unlikely, because, that allows you to cling on desperately to the false belief that covid can't spread in schools, because this belief is the foundation basis on which you are constructing your family life, in the face of all science, evidence and reasoning to the contrary.

86 students contracted CV in Israel school, 13%

And yet op had hundreds?

@RubyWow this is what I don’t get - are there schools in which teachers were allowed to “refuse to pull their weight”? Certainly not in my school, which is massive. We all did what we were told and came in to teach through lockdown.
There’s three members of staff who didn’t come in due to either them or their family being extremely clinically vulnerable. I wouldn’t call that “refusing” to do anything.
What schools gave teachers the option to refuse to work throughout the entire thing?! Because it’s not any I know.

I know of two mothers who got a virus off of their kids and the mums then tested positive for CV. The kids weren't tested but it's obvious that they got it from their kids. Kids don't get as ill but they can spread it to adults.

@Bananabread8 our hub had 6 kids in it. I sit. See how you can compare that to 1200

@HesterShaw1

What's your solution OP? How should teachers continue to do their job, like other workers, and kids continue to receive an essential education?

Back at the start of the spring, the virus was everywhere. Now it isn't. At some point we're going to have to try.

That question has been answered multiple times on this thread alone.

Relevant safety measures where required. That’s all. Read the thread for more detail.

Has anyone else bar op experienced a situation where a school has hundreds of cases and students are falling ill from lack of breathing in class?

Testing positive isn't necessarily a bad thing if the person doesn't get ill and we shield vulnerable people from contact with them. It is the only way we are going to get widespread immunity unless we lock everyone up until there is a vaccine. Safe vaccine protocols require years of research and trials and, to date, there has never been a successful vaccine for an RNA virus.

Lockdown was only ever to help the NHS cope. It was never to eradicate the virus because the virus is already endemic. This means any lockdown beyond allowing the NHS to cope (which it is admirably) is a waste of money and an infringement on freedom that cannot be justified. We need to get back to normal and just take sensible precautions to shield the vulnerable. We don't live in a risk-free world.

[quote sonicbook]@Bananabread8 our hub had 6 kids in it. I sit. See how you can compare that to 1200[/quote]
Are you just going to look at this from your own point of view? Your being a bit of an arse! I don’t walk around every hub! I do not want to install fear into other people and I do feel for the teachers.
This has got to stop though. We can’t be expected to just stay at home!

I also think we need to be careful with comparing March to how it is going to be. It was rife in my children (london based) school in March. Teachers and pupils alike (including my DD and me) came down with it. But 6 months on we have no long term issues at all with anyone.

There should be (there certainly are with my schools) procedures in place - neither of mine are opening normally at all! But they are both back full time.

The thing is @mosquitofeast schools do have to go back. But talking about how awful it was in March doesnt help with the argument because we are not in March.

Well, isn’t it just incredible that people will happily blame teenagers for causing lockdowns in Trafford or Preston, but also happily accept that this ability to transmit the virus is lost when they go to secondary school?! Coronavirus is so clever, to be so selective about where it will and won’t spread!

@GermanSausage 1 in 100 or even 1 in 200 is not a low death rate. Imagine I took everyone on your street out to their front gate and shot the weakest in every 100. And then took a baseball bat and put another 4 in intensive care, and punched another 5 so that they were scarred for life would that be an acceptable ratio for you?