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 One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.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

Do people who think it isn't transmitted in schools think there is some kind of magic antiviral atmosphere there?

@Helloitsmemargaret

Was anyone tested at your school op? I'd be inclined to contact the original author of the recent study. They're actively looking for cases of school transmission to understand the spread and with 100s of kids affected so this sounds like a very good opportunity to understand how transmission works in the young.

Yes, I would like to contact anybody who has published such studies! But no, testing was not available

Do people who think it isn't transmitted in schools think there is some kind of magic antiviral atmosphere there?

Sadly yes. Kids can't spread it, can't catch it and neither can their teachers! It's amazing!

The latest research suggests that under 10s do not spread the virus to the same extent as adults. For one thing kids breathe less. And they tend to carry a smaller viral load so will not be spreading AS MUCH. But over 10s spread the same as adults. What the OP was describing were both secondary schools.

mosquitofeast just quit. Quit and shield. It’s the only way you are going to survive.

Oh wait you’ve already had it! Back to work then parties over...

"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"

because studies they have done when schools were keyworker only for 2 months then opened to only 10% of pupils ( secondary) and SD was allowed is directly comparable to what is happening in September?

The statistics will tell the story in a few months. Will you believe the government when they then say the science has changed or schools didn't implement the guidance correctly / they threw a protective ring around schools like they did for care homes?

@sonicbook

If infection rates rise the way we say before lockdown the school system will collapse in a matter of weeks.

Teachers will vote with their feet and protect themselves. I'm not saying that's right but that's what happen. Teachers are furious that their safety is being completely disregarded.

If I work in a garage I have. A mask, a plastic screen, everyone entering must also wear a mask and there is a limit to the number of people allowed in (3 in my local one). These people must social distance.

If I am a teacher I can wear a mask 'if I want' even though it's pointless without everyone doing it and I'm expected to take 6 different classes of 30 kids each day in a tiny classroom with one tiny window where social distancing is absolutely impossible?

Seems fair.

exactly, covid spreading in schools is not just the teachers' problem, it is everyone's problem. It will impact hugely on the whole of society

They are going to have a hell of a job replacing teachers who can't go back into school. It's not like there's a huge supply of unemployed teachers sitting around.

And school is the last place I'd go right now. If I had other options I'd take them.

Classrooms stink. You get used to it, because you are there all day as it gradually gets stuffier and stuffier. Then you go out on the playground, come back in and it hits you- muggy stuffy air that's been in and out of thirty little bodies all day. The only other environment where people are crammed together like school is busy public transport.

I really feel for teachers.

OP I think the problem is here you are presenting it is a hyperbolic way and that means that your actual valid points get lost.

I agree I think that we should for the first half term look at blended learning for secondary schools and have masks in communal areas.

But I think the fact that you are saying 100x 200 teachers has left, the fact that the only place you could have got it is school from pupils and give the impression of a school caught in the worst possible place in the world.

We need to be very careful with this

Yep thirty little bodies if it's primary school. Over one hundred if secondary. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Surely it’s just the most logical explanation that OP is correct

Loads of people in a confined space together for hours a day with a virus that spreads easily between people and we have posters saying it could have come ‘off a surface’

As much as we don’t want to believe it coronavirus doesn’t discriminate over where it spreads and schools are probably the perfect environment

@frumpety

Even with a negative test if symptoms remain you still have to isolate

Well that's going to be a lot of children and teachers and parents isolating for potentially a common cold.

Yes it will. Probably a good idea to try and reduce transmission of infections like the common cold too in that case. I wonder how they can do that? Masks, hand washing, cleaning and social distancing possibly?

Other than funding I would like to know from the teachers... why isn’t PPE allowed is there any other reasons it’s being declined?.

for financial reasons

Other than funding I would like to know from the teachers... why isn’t PPE allowed is there any other reasons it’s being declined?.

Parental pressure to protect their children's comfort and mental health.

If this is true I am amazed it hasn’t received press coverage, even in the form of press releases from the union. This is a case that would be of huge international interest but we’re only hearing about it in an anonymous post on Mumsnet.

If this was the case - several hundred times in your school - then this is huge and needs whistleblowing to your local media, with the school named so that staff, students snd parents have the information.

I work in secondary schools in a high risk area and this was not the case in our schools. Don't get me wrong, I understand the concerns here, but if those were the numbers at your school then make this public so others in the local authority are aware of what has happened.

The utter selfishness of some on this thread is staggering. Happy to throw teachers under a bus just so your DCs can go to school.

Your child is no more important than any adult working in school. You need to understand that and support teachers not come on here attacking and abusing them. Although a lot of the abuse is coming from trolls. A shame MN don't deal with them.

Support teachers and other school staff in their request for PPE and Covid safe working conditions. Why do you think they should not have this?

You do know schools will rapidly close when teachers go off sick, don't you? Then what will you do?

I think that the OP has a tendency to hyperbole if I'm being honest with regards to her own personal experiences.

It doesn't detract however from the simple facts.

1. Schools are the perfect spreading ground for viruses.
2. Teachers are not being afforded basic safety measures that almost all other professions are and instead are expected to just get on with working in a potentially dangerous environment.

It’s possible to believe both that

• schools need to reopen and
• schools are high risk transmission environments you know.

I think both of those things. I wish the government was pouring a ton of additional spending into our schools to enable safety, instead of 10 quid off meals. Especially given the already crumbling infrastructure. I think it’s just silly to deny that secondary schools in particular will be havens for transmission.

But the kids really need to be back at school.

You have a choice OP. Either go back to work (many of us have now had to return), or look for a different job or career where you’re not going to be in contact with another person. Ever. Because that’s the only way you are going to be 100% sure of never coming into contact with the virus.

You know you can catch it from surfaces?

The OP lives alone- do you really think it's more likely that corona entered her home and multiplied on her surfaces and she then infected herself? It's far more plausible that she caught it in school?

We know the virus can live on surfaces for a few hours- however, first there would have to be high enough numbers of the virus on the surface and they would then have to be transferred into your respiratory tract somehow before you would develop the disease. The chances of this happening are absolutely minute! Handwashing and cleaning surfaces with soap spray is good practice, but it's not the way this virus spreads!

I think they should offer teaching and school staff antibody testing to see the extent of spread in schools before lockdown. They have been offered to all NHS staff so why can't we do a similar study for education?

Anecdata reigns supreme I see.

No taking in of work to mark, really? Why can't students put their books in a pile and they be left in a lidded box for 48 hours if we think that paper is a major transmission vector?

72 hours, not 48, and then 72 hours after marking too, this is happening in some places, which is fine, but when I say not taking in work to mark, I mean no taking in work, marking and returning it in the normal time frame, there are other ways, such as this, or work being marked online.

You have a choice OP. Either go back to work (many of us have now had to return), or look for a different job or career where you’re not going to be in contact with another person. Ever. Because that’s the only way you are going to be 100% sure of never coming into contact with the virus

Hi! It's me again 🙋🏻‍♀️. Just here to say, again, that nobody is looking for that. Just looking for some basic safety precautions afforded to everyone else who has returned to work. Thanks.