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 One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.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

@KatherineOfGaunt exactly. Like, with English lessons happening outside I can see maybe in secondary that would work, at least it would be one class of the children’s day when they’re not inside, but it’s not exactly a groundbreaking solution - and it’s totally season dependent. Yet if we say that, we’re accused (by people who don’t work in schools) of not wanting to cooperate.

I’m happy to go in full time in September and teach in my classroom but I would like to feel moe reassured that there’s something other than supposedly increased hygiene to protect me.

I honestly want to know what these posters think would happen if I said to my HT “hey sorry I’m going to refuse to work in September but I want full pay”.

Yep, @year5teacher. I shall be in "as normal" in September because we can't afford for me to give up my job.

But I'd be happier and less worried if there were measures in place. I work in SEN so have a small classroom a little bigger than my living room for 3 pupils. Add in the other adults required for the children's EHCPs and the furniture and I shall be about 1m away from them when teaching, but will have to get closer to examine written work. Can't wear a mask due to the need to sign and we will all have to face each other for the same reason. No communal areas for our staff team so no microwave, kettle, sink, toaster etc. I'll be basically in my little room all day except for the toilet (which is shared between the bubbles).

Any poster who says that's okay is talking bollocks.

But I have to do it. So I will.

@Barbie222 I completely agree that transparency and trust are key issues. Our government has responded to this pandemic so abysmally that there is a complete lack of faith in anything they say. My concern is that some people are throwing the baby away with the bathwater by summarily dismissing scientific research in favour of their own anecdotal evidence. Peer reviewed research is increasingly showing that children are minimally involved in transmission. This doesn't apply to older teenagers who appear to transmit covid in a similar way to adults and I do think the provisions for secondary schools need to be reviewed. Primary schools appear to be a low risk environment. This is such a complex situation but the arguments are becoming increasingly polarised and blinkered.

Did anyone else have their entire job change literally overnight?

Yes. Though I am not sure that is really the point.

Wish I had the luxury of refusing to do my job without being fired.

Who does? Because teachers and TAs certainly don't.
Infact even those who are clinically and extremely clinically vulnerable staff in schools won't be getting the basic allowances to stay safe as they are in most other non-frontline medical jobs either.

I find it most shocking that people thought the virus wasn't transmitted in schools.
My dd had corona toes before lockdown, I know she caught it at school as she is a boarder, hadn't left school, nor been home.

I'm fed up with the "teachers don't have a can do attitude" brigade. Did anyone else have their entire job change literally overnight?

You forgot the bit where teachers didn't have extra money to put up Perspex shields etc I read an article about Sainsbury's. They had a massive increase in sales thanks to restaurants being shit and people working from home but they spent a similar amount making supermarkets COVID secure, expanding online temporarily etc so the net effect was similar profits to last year. I realise that supermarkets cater for a bigger percentage of the population but was trying to point out the enormous costs of COVID that they could absorb.

Anecdotal evidence only.. niece was notified by nursery that child in her dds bubble had tested positive so rest of bubble isolated at home till 14 days were up. No other child or staff member caught it, nor did the sick child’s parents or siblings catch it despite them being toddlers who practically lick each other and have no idea of sd

Positive to read for nurseries and lower primary. Makes no odds when working with 18 year olds!

There are outbreaks involving children

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-53191763

23 at this nursery including children, parents and staff. It's hard to believe that the children are not part of the chain of transmission.

Yes. Though I am not sure that is really the point.

The point is thousands of teachers just got on with it. There wasn't a can't do attitude. Most schools provision was decent and improved over time. A minority were rubbish. Just like when schools are open normally.

What's your job?

www.nurseryworld.co.uk/features/article/how-we-kept-our-nursery-open-through-a-coronavirus-outbreak

This is an article from that nursery.
They clearly didn't do anything wrong and had excellent communication with PHE and parents which I worry won't happen in September when the number of outbreaks increase.

Our final tally of cases came to 23, when the wider household members were included, with 11 of those being from just two families.

Half from two families, that’s quite high.

There is little evidence of coronavirus being transmitted in schools, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has said.

Mr Williamson said the government was being guided by the best science as it accelerated plans to reopen schools to all pupils in England next month.

Big Gav is back from furlough.

Well .... if they are right they will be about to crow about it but if they are wrong Big Gav needs to resign

I'm fed up with the "teachers don't have a can do attitude" brigade. Did anyone else have their entire job change literally overnight?

Yes - civil servant. Have the good fortune of obv being able to wfh on an ongoing basis (obvs this is not true for many of my colleagues in operational public-facing roles), but share your experience of everything changing overnight, working incredibly hard to try to make a silk purse of a sows ear, and being trashed in the right wing press for lack of can-do attitude.

After similar, repeated performances of this exhausting nonsense in a bid to ‘deliver Brexit’, coupled with increasingly vicious attacks from No10, morale is shit and the future is pretty bleak.

I’m not interested in fighting for who has the hardest life, so I hope it doesn’t read like that. I’m incredibly sympathetic to the situation teachers face and I want them to be as safe as possible and I also want children to be able to return to the classroom.

At the same time, this ‘nobody else..’ narrative that teachers on here and IRL sometimes use is inaccurate and unhelpful, and actually undermines the fact that we should all be troubled by what teachers are being asked to do and should all be (eg) supporting demands for them to have appropriate PPE etc.

I think Gav will be on the way out at the next reshuffle, although I am sure not all the decisions are his.

I think some are helping drive the show Sunak, Cummings, Hancock etc

But GW is a bit of a fall guy atm

allFlimflamfloogety

Not at all. But we all know that SOME DAYS the lesson is just to read from the prescribed text, each student having a turn and then discussing the connotations of the text. Those kids of classes don't need to be in a classroom if the weather is nice

Except that if the teacher did this they would be complained about as not all children are able to do this confidence or in fact would want to.

Teachers have been brought up on competency and had complaints against them for doing exacting this.

So its not just about "not wanting to do it".

At the same time, this ‘nobody else..’ narrative that teachers on here and IRL sometimes use is inaccurate and unhelpful, and actually undermines the fact that we should all be troubled by what teachers are being asked to do and should all be (eg) supporting demands for them to have appropriate PPE etc

It's weird because you're supportive and insulting. We tend to say 'nobody else' because I genuinely can't think of anybody else being put in this situation. It's kind of the main thrust of our argument to be honest. If you can think of anyone in the same situ I'd genuinely love to know!

Thanks for your kind of support.

angstridden2
Isnt that more concerning though as if it didn t come from home (as noone else caught it) and didnt come from nursery. That toddler was off by themself.

So the actual story is child caught it from asymptomatic family or nursery child/teacher.
Good if that means they did only pass to 1 person. But you have no way of knowing how many of the kids/family members were also asymptomatic.

With the Georgia camp theu find lots infected but most had no symptoms. Surely testing in an outbreak makes sense as only direct contacts are isolated but if you find the contacts have caught it you shut down their contacts.

Back in March, in response to care workers and their union reps expressing concerns, didn't the government say that it was unlikely that anyone receiving care in a care home would become infected and so staff didn't need PPE, there was no need to SD etc?

Because they were following scientific data (not scientific understanding) and there was little peer reviewed evidence? So, of course it was necessary to protect the NHS from being overwhelmed (policy) and fast track discharge of 'bed blockers' to care homes in the absence of adequate safety measures.

Now the policy is to get all DC in full time, face to face learning in schools so that is being fast-tracked in the absence of adequate safety measures.

That will be OK because young people are less likely to be symptomatic and testing is restricted to the symptomatic so no one will know. Parents, grandparents, teachers, support workers etc may be symptomatic and some of them may die but they won't be able to prove that they were infected in school so that's ok.

So, some of you may die but you can't prove it's our fault and it and anyway it is your moral duty and we will hide behind the needs of the vulnerable (even though our policies have been shafting them for years).

but share your experience of everything changing overnight,

I don't think teachers did have it worst. However you moved your computer home and your job role was still the same.

I became TV presenter/YouTuber overnight with no training. I had to learn how to use new software, purchase my own equipment while simultaneously being slated.

My point is that teachers have a can do attitude. The majority have been incredibly flexible, mixing online and in school learning and adapted at short notice to an ever changing situation.

We just want to be as protected as any other workplace. Why is that presented as us being workshy?

@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

There will be little evidence, because the country was in full lockdown from thd evening of the first day that schools were closed to most pupils (23rd March), and at that time only people ill in hospital were having tests.

If (luckily), as it seems, children suffer less badly on the whole, they won't have been tested. It doesn't mean they didn't have it and give it to others at home; it doesn't prove there wasn't transmission in school, but it just means there was no official record made.

I became TV presenter/YouTuber overnight with no training. I had to learn how to use new software, purchase my own equipment while simultaneously being slated

I do think some teachers changed quickly to do online but many schools didn’t do this, only sent weekly emails. I wonder what the split was.

Btw do you mean slated by your class?

I do think that in a situation where SD is not possible it should be like hairdressing, with PPE.

And funds for extra cleaning.

Slated in the press.