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 One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.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

Middleager tg I was starting to wonder if I’d fallen down a rabbit hole.

The op is made up yet no one is asking why

@mrshoho 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 yep

@MarshaBradyo

Middleager tg I was starting to wonder if I’d fallen down a rabbit hole.

The op is made up yet no one is asking why

Exactly. Why are most people accepting this as fact?

@Polnm

**200 teachers is a lot of deaths.

and 10x more teachers than that have been left incapacitated

and 100 x more have resigned over safety fears.

So according to to you

2000 teachers left incapacitated and 20,000 have left the profession?

Job vacancy rates would contradict that

er, no, as I said, we have lost around 5% of teachers due to coronovirus, but we lose around 11% of teachers every year anyway, so we have lost around 16%

There are many vacancies. In fact, for my school, a single job advert for a single subject is covering as many as 3 vacancies in some departments. But we are not getting applicants though.

@middleager lots of people are just ignoring the OP and discussing the actual issues.

Just because the OP is in accurate doesn't invalidate everything on the thread

Also, little evidence that it is transmitted in schools isnot evidence that it is not transmitted in schools.

And the UK can't have data on transmission in schools in comparable circumstances to what will be happening in September because schools were not open widely and really learning was not taking place in June/July. We also have a woefully poor t&t system that I'm not keen to rely on for data. The science is being cherry picked a bit.

Why is this misinformation allowed to be spread on MN by the OP?

Just a quick look at some of the OP's posts she is extreme. Deaths, severe complications - it appears she has an agenda to scare people.

What is your reason OP to do this?

I think the OP is prone to exaggerating and hyperbole - it is littered throughout her posts. Whether it is a deliberate tactic to scaremonger or just part of who she is its hard to say.

But it does detract from what the underlying point that we do need to be wary of the fact schools are a transmission point

TrindleGin

But no teachers on this thread are refusing to “get back to work” so your comment doesn’t make sense.

The vast majority of us will go back to work regardless, but having some basic safety measures in place will stop teachers getting ill.

Because if teachers get ill, there won’t be enough teachers to teach your children. Then what will happen? Closure? Half days? That would be so unbelievably stressful for working parents.

If it stops random closures and part time learning, can you tell me why you wouldn’t want teachers to have some basic protection?

A staff member at my child's school got it but they closed the bubble and nobody else was affected but I suppose that could be because they acted quickly.

The graph is taken from the Telegraph (source apparently UCL)

Article here

Apparently a full reopening of schools might in itself raise R by a whole '1.0' (which would put us back in exponential growth)

@TaxTheRatFarms

TrindleGin

But no teachers on this thread are refusing to “get back to work” so your comment doesn’t make sense.

The vast majority of us will go back to work regardless, but having some basic safety measures in place will stop teachers getting ill.

Because if teachers get ill, there won’t be enough teachers to teach your children. Then what will happen? Closure? Half days? That would be so unbelievably stressful for working parents.

If it stops random closures and part time learning, can you tell me why you wouldn’t want teachers to have some basic protection?

Ok I get it ..... can't you all just wear face shields and just say you are going to do it personally I don't care about my children being taught with teachers in protection Didn't read all of the thread admittedly because there are so many of them saying similar the thing is ranting on here changes nothing ... just wear them I am sure at my place of work if I said I did not feel safe they would allow

@MarshaBradyo

MaxDash how likely is it that op had so many students grieving parents / gps when the day before schools closed there had been 77 deaths across the country?

I'm assuming she means currently, as in through her contact with pupils during lockdown.

I certainly know that lots of my friends have lost loved ones through lockdown. It isn't inconceivable that in a school of 1200 a number of pupils have been bereaved.

That didn't come out well! The bar chart shows change in R with different plans for school reopening, The long red line at the bottom represents the current government plan, increasing R by a whole 1.0, by this measure alone.

@MoreListeningLessChatting exactly I agree

This chap is worth following and shares lots of actual research data (not made up figures as per the OP)
Alasdair Munro
@apsmunro
Paediatric Registrar | Clinical Research Fellow Paediatric Infectious diseases
@southamptonCRF
@DFTBubbles
#COVID19 evidence review lead | Husband and dad

@TrindleGin

Because us choosing to wear masks or face shields would be completely ineffective unless everyone in the school did.

Only the high grade medical masks would protect us.

I'm pretty sure that the English government have said no to PPE in schools anyway.

In Scotland we can if we want but like I said it's very limited unless everyone does it. Exactly why masks are mandatory in all other indoor spaces apart from schools

@MarshaBradyo

Redolent since the op is avoiding the question

Given that schools locked down at 104 deaths, what op describes would have happened when it was lower, how likely is it that op’s school experienced that number of deaths?

Israel had one hospitalisation but op describes many bad outcomes

The school you quote made world news, but op’s school with hundreds, nothing? Not a link or other poster saying the same

I think you’ve got a bit confused. The op doesn’t mention any deaths at her school, so I’m not sure where you’ve got the ideas that op’s school has hundreds of deaths. She actually says they were lucky to have no deaths on their schools.

She was talking about cases (both presumed and diagnosed) but you taken it as if the deaths she’s referring to are all deaths in her school. They’re not.

@EthelFleda I run a preschool and I can certainly say we flung open our doors to the children when we could. What they didn't see was the week prior to opening being very fraught with scaling down of equipment, buying cleaning equipment and working out how we could open safely with no PPE. We restricted our numbers and only had two staff. One (me) over 50 with T2 diabetes and my deputy whose mum was in the shielding group.

The first week was fine then the government started relaxing lockdown and the stories started coming in of the children visiting grandparents and sitting on their knees and kissing them. Bear in mind this was the first lifting so only seeing people in gardens and keeping distance. We had to send out an email asking people to adhere to the rules as by doing so would keep us all safe. Me and my deputy actually didn't see our parents the whole time we were back (think of our mental health) and spent the rest of the half term lost in a fog of disinfectant as we had to clean every day. The children (who by this time had been at home for 10 weeks) came back with no snotty noses and I don't think we used one tissue the whole time.

Now, they have had time to go out, see family and go abroad on holiday so they can come back to us and maybe have the virus. Ok, they, apparently, don't suffer if they catch it but can, possibly, spread it as much as anyone else. So, if half of them have a viral load then my preschool will have 10 children shedding the virus whilst they cuddle us, sneeze on us, cough on us and we help them with the toilet. All whilst climbing over each other and licking each others eyeballs! We, as staff, have to social distance from each other but not from the children. So in theory they can cuddle me then go and cuddle the other members of staff while, potentially, spreading any virus.

It has been a very stressful time and stays stressful for returning in September as we are working from a government guidance that doesn't actually know what they are talking about. Our guidance came through at midday on a Sunday before a bank holiday before half term to open 7 days later. It has been continually updated so nobody knows where they stand or what to do but the overwhelming message is no PPE is required.

Sorry, that turned into a long post but as I said before we did fling our doors open to the children who wanted to come back but it wasn't without nervousness and apprehension.

Someone mentioned Brownies. I don’t know if they have the same rules as Scout Association but in areas of low transmission scout groups are allowed to start up again but maximum of 15 people in one session including at least 2 leaders, everyone has to social distance and we have to be outside, so not really comparable to schools.

@Polnm

**200 teachers is a lot of deaths.

and 10x more teachers than that have been left incapacitated

and 100 x more have resigned over safety fears.

So according to to you

2000 teachers left incapacitated and 20,000 have left the profession?

Job vacancy rates would contradict that

sorry, I forgot to add the actual figures in my previous answer. We lose 11% of teachers per year, and add on another 5% or so now, so the number that left the profession last year is more like 65 000.

20 000 leaving the profession would be an exceptionally small number. This is not 20 000 leaving the profession. This is an ADDITIONAL 20 000 leaving a profession already at critically low numbers

Max it isn't inconceivable. I sadly know some students across our schools who've lost loved ones.

The issue is that the OP talks of hundreds of cases at one school and says we can "look it up", but there is no record of this online.

If OP truly wants to be responsible and raise awareness that hundreds of cases were prevalent in one school, then they should whistleblow, report this to the media, LA, parents etc. by naming the school.

@LightgreenBanana

Test and Trace can only work where people answer their phones. One of my stupid friends refuses to engage and he’s an idiot.

The track part has been refused by everyone I know, I don’t know anyone who says they’ll allow them selves to be tracked on their phone.

Although everyone is tracked via google, and FB and all of the shops nd banks anyway, and their mobile phones.

If we want something to work, we have to cooperate and use it.

This is really getting on my nerves at the moment

Not "everyone". A lot of people don't have FB, aren't constantly logged in to Google. "All banks and shops" don't track people and a lot of people don't have smart phones. But even people who do have and do all those things should be able to choose of they want to be tracked by the Track and Trace service.

I think you’ve got a bit confused. The op doesn’t mention any deaths at her school, so I’m not sure where you’ve got the ideas that op’s school has hundreds of deaths. She actually says they were lucky to have no deaths on their schools.

No you are misunderstanding.

The op mentions grieving students, many of them in fact. When the day before lockdown 77 were recorded across the country,

Why are so many of those parents or GPs of her students?

[quote sonicbook]@Ethelfleda that's a very good point however I would imagine it's because

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

Generalisations but still. [/quote]
Nursery manager here.

Staff are really worried and scared. I’ve lost one who resigned as she felt the risk versus the wages wasn’t worth it. I expect I will lose a few more soon.

We have no union who works for us.

My staff are all older 35 bar one.

I encourage them to wear face masks indoors and when changing nappies. Some parents don’t like it. They are welcome to remove their children.

We have spent a lot of time outside in the garden.
We have spent a fortune on cleaning equipment.
The local LEA have been useless. I’ve spent more on cleaning materials in 2 months than I spend on craft and toys in a whole year.