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 One of my sixthformers has withdrawn her university application as her mum has lost a lung and a leg and now can't run her home and care for her younger children on her own.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

Teachers want schools to open. We really do. We just want better safety measures. Hundreds of children sharing a very small number of sinks (and similar situation for staff) isn’t safe or practical. No funding for additional cleaning meaning the toilets and classrooms are not getting cleaned during the school day isn’t safe. 30 children plus staff crammed into tiny badly ventilated rooms isn’t safe. We want schools to open and stay open. They are not going to stay open if you don’t take care with the health of the people working and learning there.

Once schools go back and children and young people are mixing in large groups, the virus will be spread among them and brought back in to homes. So we as parents are more at risk of catching it as we don't distance from our children.
For me it seems highly likely the rates will increase after schools go back but I also don't think keeping schools closed is an option.
I do think teachers and older children should wear masks with the usual exceptions though.

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

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.

@Quartz2208 very sensible.

The Scottish government tried to present blended learning as the de facto outcome for all of 2020/2021 academic year. If they had outlined it as being there for the first half term, or only subject to certain infection rates, then there probably wouldn't have been such a backlash.

At the point at which this blended learning solution was being pushed in Scotland garden centres had opened, outdoor pubs were opening and numbers were going down. Now that numbers are rising again it would seem that the obvious solution would be to close down indoor bars or at least restrict opening times and pare back on non essential activities until the DCs are back in school, to get the numbers down to a level that most teachers would be comfortable with.

I agree teachers should also be allowed to wear PPE - It's ridiculous that they aren't- and secondary pupils to wear it when moving between classes, or stagger classes so not all in the corridor at once.

There should be some options- other than part time teaching for the long term - that will reduce the risks, but don't compromise the teaching DCs are receiving.

But OP and children in her school were not tested, how do you know it was coronvirus?

OP of course some secondary achoo students still require childcare.

Have nursery workers reacted the same as teachers? Just curious as I would imagine that nursery is an even more perfect environment for the spread - toddlers and babies licking each other’s toys - nappy changes - very close proximity etc etc and yet nurseries have been open since June and there has been no noticeable spike in infection due to this 🤔

Anecdotally speaking of course but our nursery had no problem opening the minute they were allowed to either - doors flung open and children welcomed back straight away...

What’s the difference?

Children and young people from aged 11 'working from home'? Really?

The evidence suggests that children don't spread it. So yes, you will need to take the same safety measures most the UK workforce are now taking to avoid transmission between your colleagues

What evidence? For every study that says children don’t transmit, there is one that says they do. Do you imagine that a 6ft, size 12 feet 15 year old with a virus is not leaving it on the surfaces they touch? Or breathing it out? Now sit that child in a room with 30 other people, windows that don’t open and see what happens. Are you happy to take that risk?

Your work is vital. You have a duty to provide an education to the children you teach. The vast majority of people are back to work and living with the risk of the virus. It's time for you to do the same

My duty is to my family first and foremost. Two of which are vulnerable. I intend to be out of school by Xmas and I am not the only one. The vast majority of people at work have not returned to a workplace without some measures to support them. I will be providing, from my own pocket, hand sanitizer for 600 children a week as they walk through my door. Many schools cannot afford extra cleaning, supply staff, soap and hand sanitizer. There would be hell to pay in any other environment where staff were paying out at that rate. Teachers will contract this virus at higher than average rates and they will die. But sod the mental health of our children and families as long as yours are OK, eh?

No one is suggesting teachers don't want to go to work. They want a safe environment. Part time schools with smaller classes is the only way forward. This would be far better than the stop start solution that will happen under current plans.

@mosquitofeast my DS14 required support and encouragement to navigate his way round the work provided by his school. Luckily I'm wfh anyway, but I could not leave him alone all day every day as he would do the bare minimum. I've discussed with DH and if schools do get closed again we'll supplement with private tutors very quickly if we don't think the online provision is suitable, but thats a solution only available to those of us with disposable income.

@Alex50

But OP and children in her school were not tested, how do you know it was coronvirus?

The view expressed by Chris Whitty and Patrick Valance at one of the briefings was that, at that time, all other respiratory illnesses were rare and so anyone showing symptoms almost certainly had Covid 19

You'd have to be a right idiot with no critical thinking skills to believe children don't spread the virus

Humans spread the virus, children are humans.

"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"

To reiterate what Walken said;

The study is ongoing through the autumn according to the government website. Current findings are from the summer term where less than 50% primary and very few secondary pupils were in, plus it was the summer.

I noted on the actual study, which seems to be this one, that the end date was stated as when the "outbreak ends and last child is tested."

It's going to be a fab source of info for the national enquiry in 20??

*6. sKIDs COVID-19 surveillance in school children
PHE has initiated enhanced surveillance of COVID-19 in staff and students in May 2020. This study aims to recruit 100 schools across England during the summer mini-term (May to July 2020) into 2 separate studies:

Serosurveillance
In some schools, we will be taking nose swabs, throat swabs, saliva swabs and blood samples from all participating staff and students attending pre-school, primary school and secondary school. Three sets of samples will be taken: at the start of the study, at the end of the term and during the autumn term. The samples will be tested for the SARS-CoV-2 virus and for antibodies against the virus. We will also collect information about the participants’ health and illness during the course of the study.

Weekly swabs
In other schools, nose swabs will be taken from all participating staff and students on the same day every week until the end of the summer term. The samples will be tested for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. We will also collect information about the participants’ health and illness during the course of the study.

More information about the sKIDs study can be found in the sKID protocoll_ (PDF, 3.72MB, 83 pages).*

www.gov.uk/guidance/covid-19-paediatric-surveillance

@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.

Have nursery workers reacted the same as teachers? Just curious as I would imagine that nursery is an even more perfect environment for the spread - toddlers and babies licking each other’s toys - nappy changes - very close proximity etc etc and yet nurseries have been open since June and there has been no noticeable spike in infection due to this 🤔

They’re not unionised in the same way. The staff at DD’s nursery that I’ve spoken to were pleased to get back to work and worried about the impact of lockdown on the children. They could all be lying of course.

@bigglewiggle

and I didn't come into any surfaces anywhere, other than those that had been in my house for months, or at school

This is so idiotic.

what makes you say "idiotic"? Idiotic for being so careful? or idiotic for what reason?

@mosquitofeast

You are asking people not to spread fake news and you come on here with the hundreds of teachers have died - no research/evidence to back you up at all just the usual scaremongering/trolling type post. In the last few weeks lots of people have posted information with ACTUAL LINKS to research that suggests that children are not the great/mass spreaders that was originally thought. SAGE advisers have also suggested this.... yet you @mosquitofeast with your catastrophising come along with your 'news' and we are all supposed to sit up and listen to you...

You appear to be completely oblivious to the fact that any school staff might actually catch the virus from other household members/whilst mixing with others/ out and about etc etc.

Interestingly someone posted a link a few weeks ago to show that a taxi driver is one of the riskiest occupations... teachers was no more than anyone else

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

We are happy to try. But with the same measures afforded the rest of society.

@Chaotic45

There is risk all around us atm. If as a teacher you aren't comfortable with what you're being told and the evidence behind it then you have an option (just like the rest of us) to resign from your job.

Some people have carried on working despite the risk to them. Personally I'm extremely thankful to them as they have kept the country running. However no one should feel forced into working- but also you have no right to expect to be paid any longer if you are not prepared to do the job for which you are paid. I accept teaching continued during lockdown but now the requirement is that schools return to in school teaching....

I expect many resignations from my school, which will of course cause major issues, however having lots of teachers refusing to work but getting paid causes major issues too.

How many teachers do you know that are refusing to go back to work in September? In my opinion, teachers are voicing their concerns about the likelihood of virus transmission between children and adults in schools settings as the current reopening guidelines stand. The DFE have made very few changes to how schools normally operate in their reopening guidelines. They are pressing ahead with a full school return and a “let’s hope for the best attitude” to save face. If anyone truly believes that there will not be massive disruption next term then they are kidding themselves. The DFE gained the trust of educational staff in the partial reopening of schools to more pupils from June onwards but this has now largely been decimated by their vague guidelines for a full return. How can the DFE say that staff are working hard to prepare schools for September when they haven’t released the latest set of guidelines, which are due on 11th Aug? I am more than willing to return to school in September but I am under no illusion that it will be “safe”, low risk, children won’t transmit the virus to staff or family members no matter how many times Gavin bleats on about it.

@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

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....

Given that most schools and workplaces were rife with Covd-19 before testing starting and before the list of symptoms was increased I think the risk to schools in September is tiny as we have all had it!

@mosquitofeast

And lots of teachers have died

Do you have sources/links for that?

the figure of just over 200 comes from the NEU

Isn't that about right/expected by population?

1% of the UK's population are teachers, and 200 deaths would mean that 0.5% of the deaths in the UK have been teachers. Allowing for the fact tends to have a later retirement age, and that Covid is worse for older age groups, it sounds like a reasonably expected figure?

NB not reasonable as in ok, reasonable as in logical, before someone tells me I don't care about deaths.

I am not sure what you expect people to do with this information. We cannot deny children an education indefinitely.

Since March a lot has been learnt about how best to treat the the small percentage of people who become very unwell with this virus. It now presents a risk profile comparable to flu and significantly below the risk profile of commuting to work by car. Half of mortality is in people over 85 with underlying health conditions. The stats on people of working age and with no health conditions are very favourable. I do not fear this virus and I will be going back to work. If you are no longer computable working in a school then you should hand in your notice.

I am unhappy that Y13 students have been denied the opportunity to take their exams when we had already completed the curriculum in March and we could have supported their revision until they took their exams. I would happily have continued to come into school and teach them throughout the summer term, even if non-exam year students were at home.