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 One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.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.

So @Bananabread8 is that appropriate PPE for a covid ward or is it not enough?

If it is appropriate then you are being afforded what teachers are not - basic safety precautions. I assume your patients wear masks and there is strict infection control enforced by trained medical professionals.

If it is not then suggest that you go to your union.

It's not about inhabiting someone else's pint of view it's about basic facts.

@Bananabread8 the issue being discussed isn't about children dying of COVID they caught at a hub. It's about teachers not being allowed basic safety measures that almost all other professions are.

I honestly don't know how many more times it needs to be said.

People seem to just want to believe that schools are fine.

The reality is that coronavirus doesn’t give a shit whether it’s in a school or a supermarket or a gym or a soft play centre. They’re all buildings with people in.

However the last 3 have rules about PPE and protect their staff with Perspex screens etc. Whereas schools just hope people won’t go there with coronavirus or use the loo.

OP you are totally not being unreasonable and you should not (as another moronic poster suggested) “find another career”.

Are you just going to look at this from your own point of view?

Yes. My own health and that of my children is my priority. We have vulnerabilities to this virus. I am over 50.
as well. I personally couldn’t care less if your child was educated properly if in receiving that education, there is a high risk that children the country over lose one of their parents. Put in some basic safety measures and I will happily care again.

@DipSwimSwoosh

I do not believe that in March, before lockdown, you touched not one other surface outside of work or home.

what surfaces do you think I touched?

@TaxTheRatFarms

Are you just going to look at this from your own point of view? Your being a bit of an arse

That’s really uncalled for. So fed up of people attacking posters because they can’t answer a question. Is a school with 1200 students in daily potentially more or less risky than a school with 6 kids? Or 40 kids in daily?

And once more:

NO ONE IS SAYING SCHOOLS SHOULD BE CLOSED AND CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EDUCATED. TEACHERS ARE ASKING FOR THE SAME SAFTEY PRECAUTIONS AFFORDED TO OTHER WORKERS SO SCHOOLS CAN STAY OPEN AND YOUR CHILDREN CAN GET AN EDUCATION.

Can anyone explain why they wouldn’t want that?

No. Don’t jump at me. How can you comment on 1200 children because we don’t actually know. OP should not be speaking as though she does. There’s nothing we can do about it. We can only work with the resources that we have currently. I gave her an example about the hubs and she choose to narrow it down to 6 kids...... there’s been a lot more than 6 kids at the hubs! That’s uncalled for making out like all hubs only had 6 kids. Yes maybe where they lived not at all. Plus we need to look at all the hubs generally not Just one or 2.

@Userzzz

If you're so scared of catching Covid, maybe you should quit your job and find another profession.

Yeah, because we have thousands of teachers spare.

Apart from the stupidity of that comment, the sheer nastiness of it is breath taking.

All most teachers are asking for is the things that have been mandated in other work places. Fewer people, PPE, ventilation

It's hardly the moon on a stick !

I'm not a teacher. If I was and my school did not (was not able to) make it an environment that felt reasonably safe. I'd resign & tutor online.

If too many teachers do that, schools will be screwed anyway.

Genius suggestion 🙇🏻‍♀️

@mosquitofeast

Nobody is saying it can’t be transmitted in schools, but what is your solution, shut schools for the next 3 years?

What's my solution? part time school, Year 7-9 in Tuesday -Friday one week, and years 10-12 in Tuesday -Friday the next week. Monday for cleaning and setting up ( although leaving the school empty over the weekend will help with sterilisation too)

Forget the idea of year group bubbles of several hundred students. Year 7-9 can be in bubbles of 15, stay in the same classroom all day, stay in the same seat in the same class room all week, except maybe one full day in a science lab, and one full day in an are suitable for music/drama/PE. Year 10-12 will have to mix more, as they do different subjects, but bubbles, and movement around the school to be kept to a minimum

No taking in work to mark, online marking only, and online staff meetings only.

The most vulnerable teachers or teachers with the most vulnerable families to be either working from home, just supporting the years groups that are off site that week, or limited to a single bubble from year 7-9.

A fleet of buses and coaches dedicated to school transport only, with social distancing /bubbles maintained on this transport, and strict cleaning

Masks and visors. Hand and shoe disinfectant at doors, temperature checks at arrival, staggered entry and home time and lunchtime. No breaktime. All windows open at all times. Blazers and ties removed from school uniform, a complete change of clothing for every student and staff member every day, which means flexibility on school uniform rules

In order to achieve this, schools with space need additional teaching spaces, prefab huts to go up in playgrounds, for schools without space this is going to be harder.

More school staff employed. This is going to be really hard, as there aren't enough teachers in the country anyway. but no supply staff on the premises.

This regime may need to be in place for several years. Nothing here is a radical suggestion, all these measures are in place in other countries.

Less than 50% time in school for up to several years is absolutely ridiculous. I cannot believe someone who claims to be a teacher has such little ambition for the educational outcomes of the next generation. How is this proportionate to the threat of the virus ?

@GermanSausage

The amount of hysteria on here is more frightening than a virus with a very low death rate.

The death rate is not the issue though ,is it.

If reading the op is raising anxiety levels, it didn’t happen, this thread will stir anxiety unfortunately.

@mosquitofeast

(I read in the Times yesterday that A scientist on the governments advisory board sage has been saying there is very little evidence that the virus is transmitted in schools)

I really wish I could sit down and speak to these people

Yes, why would it not spread in schools? That doesn't make any sense at all.

If that’s what will get teachers heard I think they should do it!!! I will happily vote for teachers.

Because it’s become like parents and teachers are in some sort of war zone or something. Parents are not the ones who have any say about the lack of PPE we are being used as a smoke screen..

One of the teachers at DDs school sadly died a few months ago, we’ve been told that he didn’t survive complicated emergency heart surgery (no mention of Covid-19 so it probably was unrelated). He seemed to be a healthy young man...Before lockdown the whole school were sick, DD had bad cold symptoms - headache, blocked not runny nose, sore throat. I wanted to keep her off so she didn’t spread it just in case it was CV (no one else in our household had any significant symptoms, I had a slight sore throat and tight chest, other DD had headaches but that’s usual for her, so it could have just been a cold) but she said there was no point as everyone was ill. If most of the school had it, then the viral load for the teachers would have been high. I know it’s not great to speculate but I can’t help but wonder if his death was CV related and his heart problems were an after-effect of having had the virus.

Even if his death wasn’t related to CV, the risk to teachers can’t be far off that of bus drivers.

Also agree, fresh air, keeping windows open really does help

No. Don’t jump at me. How can you comment on 1200 children because we don’t actually know. OP should not be speaking as though she does.

I know that there are 1200 children in my school. I'm not the OP. The OP is a different teacher in a different school. I know that it takes a decent amount of teachers to keep a school for 1200 running and we've come close to the wire in normal times. It's a very precarious situation and it won't take much staff absence to collapse the viability of a school.

There’s nothing we can do about it. We can only work with the resources that we have currently. I gave her an example about the hubs and she choose to narrow it down to 6 kids...... there’s been a lot more than 6 kids at the hubs! That’s uncalled for making out like all hubs only had 6 kids. Yes maybe where they lived not at all. Plus we need to look at all the hubs generally not Just one or 2.

I'm not 100% what you mean here. I'm in Scotland. Our hub school was about four or five schools in one. The average attendance was 6 kids. Most people didn't use the hubs. This was widely reported in the media at the time. It may be different where you are.

*Ah ha ha ha....have you met a teenaged boy? Presumably as a teacher you have?

Without a parent present in the home, I would estimate about ten percent max would do all the work, about 30 percent would do some of it, and 70 percent would lie in bed til midday, get on discord, check their mates aren't doing the work either, and spend the afternoon eating pot noodles, playing computer games and watching porn..*

My DC noticed that the boys who usually piss about in class at school were the most engaged on Teams during home schooling. - asking questions, clarifying things. I think home schooling works for some.
I wished they were going ahead with blended learning for secondary schools - I like the OPs suggestions of how the school could run. The time in school could be more tutorial/lab type work and home school for text book type learning. Anybody who could handle this could go in full time. That way more space in school, teachers and students could socially distance. Masks on buses and corridors.
Primary school is more difficult though.

@middleager Yes I agree about the questioning of the figures OP posts. She asks for people to stop spreading false information and then uses her own anecdotal experience to explain why it is false. To say there have been 200 deaths of teachers without posting the evidence of this is just as bad as saying it doesn’t spread in schools. Of course it spreads in schools, adult to adult for starters. However, it is highly likely that in a secondary school setting there is transmission from student to teacher and teacher to student. We need to stop treating primary and secondary as the same thing and look at the evidence separately. The OP has valid concerns about school opening but those are being lost by stating numbers that she doesn’t have the evidence to back up. From ONS figures Between the 3rd of March and 29th may there were 46 teaching and teaching professional deaths, there were 62 health professional deaths and 19 care assistant deaths. (Before people say these people that the health professionals had PPE- in March and early April they didn’t have adequate PPE. GP and pharmacies were being sent out of date and flimsy masks. Not the same as the N95 masks that afford you actual protection. And care homes were left to source their own!)
There are lots of problems with school opening. Teachers do need PPE in secondaries and we need to look at the evidence for primaries closely. But posting scaremongering numbers without source of the data or anecdotal evidence achieves nothing and just undermines your argument as it causes over anxiety in some and dismissal in others.

@mosquitofeast

Why are so many people talking about the need for parents to take time off work, I am talking about secondary schools, not primary, so there is no childcare needed if students are working from home

Do you think it’s ideal for an 11 year old with special needs to be left home alone for over 10 hours a day 5 days a week?

Have nursery workers reacted the same as teachers?

All the nurseries I know are continuing to bubble - several staff to a room, up to 15 kids per room, no swapping rooms, swapping staff and increased cleaning rotas. Cleaning outside play equipment between different groups.

Very, very different to a secondary school.

@Namechangearoo

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.

Its not a ridiculous statement. I ate from my freezer and store cupboard, All post stayed outside in the external letter box, no, I did not use a petrol station or any other type of shop or premises or business.

Due to not wanting to inadvertently bring the virus into school. Other teachers did similar, I can't say how many, or how strictly, although |I know my closest friend among my colleague did the same, and yet we both still caught it

@mosquitofeast
How awful for your ds.a a I was wondering if you or any of your family caught it from him?
My 8 year old dd was very unwell at the end of January with Covid symptoms, but was never tested. I took her to the drs & they said it was just a virus. Her friend had been to China over Christmas so it would explain how she caught it. We were all fine though. I’m a teacher and now concerned about going back.

No. Don’t jump at me. How can you comment on 1200 children because we don’t actually know

Is it jumping at you to tell you the facts? I didn’t call you an arse

I know, because I’m a teacher who worked in my school during closure.

We usually have 1300 students in our school, every single day. Many classes over 30 with students squeezed in.

During lockdown, we had maximum 40 students per day, spread between 5 classrooms.

One is obviously much safer than the other.

I’m sure some schools had more and some schools had less, but mine was a pretty normal number for a normal secondary.

@TaxTheRatFarms

Thanks for this thread. My fit, healthy Ds came down with a virus in the last week of school, was bed bound for a week and suffered side effects until June.

For the benefit of the deniers, he hadn’t been anywhere except school ( he doesn’t tend to do the weekly shop or hang out in the pub, what with only being 10 and all). A few of his classmates and a few parents were also ill that week or the next week. He got a diagnosis of Covid and (thankfully) mild Kawasaki syndrome and we’re waiting to see if he has to go for tests to check heart and lung function as he still has an elevated heart rate and occasional sudden onset shortness of breath.

I don’t say any of this to scaremonger, but because it’s something people need to be aware of.

How old is your son OP? How is he now? Were many of his friends affected? Did you as a family also get it from him? How are you all?

The damage to society by the clinically vulnerable being exposed to this would be great. Take us out of the equation please, as they are doing in Wales, and I would agree.

This is the worry I have. 15% of the extremely clinically vulnerable have children under 16.
I have 2 secondary age dds who will be in whole year group bubbles. The risk of them bringing the virus home is huge. I can see us having to sd in the house again like we did back in March. It was horrendous. Our 7 year old dd was really upset especially.
My dh is extremely clinically vulnerable and
I would be classed as clinically vulnerable too. Both just over 50.
Many extremely clinically vulnerable were also pushed into signing DNRs so yes the extremely clinically vulnerable have been royally shafted.
Having said all this we will be sending our kids back to school as they have suffered enough. Would just like proper protection for kids and staff like other jobs allow.

Please provide a link to a source describing this outbreak of hundreds of cases in one school.