School return will fail

[covidteacherscotland]

Okay so we have been back to school for a week! Great? No. Definitely not. Some thoughts on why this will be a disaster:

16 and 17 year olds are not children.

Social distancing is impossible. Genuinely impossible. Children will not or cannot stay out your space.

There is no PPE in school at all and staff are not protected in any way.

Children don't give a shit about washing their hands.

We've been doing double periods instead of single to minimise movement. This means that we are stuck in a room with 30 17 year olds with few or no windows as the respiratory droplets add up.

Educating your child is impossible if you can't go near them.

Our time management and pupil progress relies on us being able to give feedback to children formatively as we teach. To mark jotters as we go. We can't do this now.

I think that because infection is so low we'll be okay for a while - a few weeks - then the shit will hit the fan.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Blimey, since when does one need to be a trained medical professional to operate a thermometer?

Nah you literally just point it at someone's forehead

I agree with a PP who said they are inaccurate and pointless though. I recently took my daughter to the GPs for her jabs and they wouldnt let me in as my temp was too high. I checked it at home throughout day and did not have a temp. The doctor rang me and apologised and said that forehead thermometers are inaccurate and someone should have got an ear thermometer instead.

Well, fancy that.

We've been all doing it wrong for decades then. Why don't we all start going to the GP to have out temp taken.

@echt

Ah yes, because it's a certainty that teachers WILL DIE

Yep. And schools will close. The bit you didn't highlight.

I have no doubt that some schools will close, that's very different than predicting people's certain death when less than 1% of people die

A switch to blended learning in the face of evidence to support it would be unavoidable
I can see this point, but think for a minute about what the "evidence to support it" would actually be. At best, it would be clusters of confirmed, low symptom cases. More likely, there would be cases with young people and adults suffering longer term consequences of the illness. Worst case - deaths.
I would rather we did everything we can to reduce the potential for the evidence to be generated at all, by reducing transmission.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

So many goady fuckers hating teachers. Full of bile and lies.

No one hates teachers, we're just fed up with their endless resistance to do their job.

Hmm, I think not. Many of us went back in June.

More like a group of people wanting the same risk mitigations in their workplace that most other people now have.

No one hates teachers, we're just fed up with their endless resistance to do their job.

Not resisting doing my job. Doing my job and have been throughout. Just would like the opportunity to do it as safely as possible.

@ClimbDad that post was terrifying

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

Well, fancy that.

We've been all doing it wrong for decades then. Why don't we all start going to the GP to have out temp taken.

What you on about? No, forehead thermometers will detect a temp but they will also pick up if you are just hot etc, whereas an ear thermometer is more accurate as it detects your internal temperature.

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

So many goady fuckers hating teachers. Full of bile and lies.

No one hates teachers, we're just fed up with their endless resistance to do their job.

Chardonnay, your first point is not true. Oh and your second point is also false. I've been working throughout all my working days since the year began, and some extra ones too. I am not unusual.

@Icequeen01

How do you think SEN schools have managed? My school has never closed and all our children have been in. No PPE, impossible to social distance with the kids or other members of staff. Admittedly we don't have 30 in a class but due to the nature of our children they can bite, spit, soil etc so I would say we are pretty high risk.

My DS works in a well known supermarket and due to his Uni being closed in March he worked full time during the peak. Guess what, for the first few weeks he was given no PPE whatsoever and customers kept pinching the sanitiser provided for staff!

I am sorry your son had to work under those conditions. It's worth noticing that whilst he was working under those conditions, shop workers had some of the highest rates for contracting the coronavirus and spread at that point was near exponential. That level of risk is not maintainable and no-one should have to work under those conditions, particularly now we have had time to prepare and know better.

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Is it certain that one particular member of school staff will catch covid and die? No, it is almost vanishingly unlikely for most.

Is it certain that some of the over one million teachers and TAs will catch covid at work and die? It quite likely is.

@ClimbDad

Children in Arizona now make up 12% of Covid cases and over 5% of all hospital admissions. They haven’t even opened schools yet.

ktar.com/story/3483746/study-shows-covid-19-hitting-kids-harder-in-arizona-than-most-states/

The myth children are unaffected by Covid started because when the epidemic hit in Wuhan children were off school for New Year. As the virus rolled around the world, schools were closed limiting spread to children.

According to the CDC’s updated guidance, 90% of children will become symptomatic with some hospitalisations, 6% will require intensive care and 4% are asymptomatic. Our children have more chance of ending up in intensive care than of having an asymptomatic infection.

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/pediatric-hcp.html

Children have largely been spared the effects of Covid because they were shielded. Now countries are opening up schools, we will see a sharp increase in paediatric hospital admissions, deaths and the development of Long Covid in children.

www.cnn.com/2020/08/10/health/children-long-covid-symptoms-intl-gbr/index.html

Once we make this mistake, it will be impossible to undo.

The article you have linked says otherwise:

A recent systematic review estimated that 16% of children with SARS-CoV-2 infection are asymptomatic, but evidence suggests that as many as 45% of pediatric infections are asymptomatic

@ClimbDad

Children in Arizona now make up 12% of Covid cases and over 5% of all hospital admissions. They haven’t even opened schools yet.

ktar.com/story/3483746/study-shows-covid-19-hitting-kids-harder-in-arizona-than-most-states/

The myth children are unaffected by Covid started because when the epidemic hit in Wuhan children were off school for New Year. As the virus rolled around the world, schools were closed limiting spread to children.

According to the CDC’s updated guidance, 90% of children will become symptomatic with some hospitalisations, 6% will require intensive care and 4% are asymptomatic. Our children have more chance of ending up in intensive care than of having an asymptomatic infection.

www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/pediatric-hcp.html

Children have largely been spared the effects of Covid because they were shielded. Now countries are opening up schools, we will see a sharp increase in paediatric hospital admissions, deaths and the development of Long Covid in children.

www.cnn.com/2020/08/10/health/children-long-covid-symptoms-intl-gbr/index.html

Once we make this mistake, it will be impossible to undo.

And yet our schools were open in march when it was rife but children weren't being admitted to hospital and dropping dead. How strange.

but evidence suggests that as many as 45% of pediatric infections are asymptomatic.17

From your CDC link ClimbDad - are you suggesting 90% symptomatic?

Also found to be case with Israel opening.

ClimbDad will you kindly quit with the scaremongering. Stop presenting all this rubbish as fact. Children were not shielded when schools were open when there were estimated 100000 cases a day and this did not happen. Kids aged under 12 in Scotland have been able to mix indoors and outdoors with no SD for 6 weeks now and there has been no increase in infections as a result. Ok they are not at school but they are still mixing in large groups with no mitigation and no issues.

X post with JR tg couldn’t work out such a bold claim from CD

@ChardonnaysPetDragon

So many goady fuckers hating teachers. Full of bile and lies.

No one hates teachers, we're just fed up with their endless resistance to do their job.

It's not a resistance to doing their job.

It's a want to do their job safely for the sake of their pupils and colleagues and with the hope of it's got right then there won't be another national closing of schools.

[quote solidaritea]@TrustTheGeneGenie

Is it certain that one particular member of school staff will catch covid and die? No, it is almost vanishingly unlikely for most.

Is it certain that some of the over one million teachers and TAs will catch covid at work and die? It quite likely is.[/quote]
Yes, like every single other profession. Could we ever prove it was the germy awful children who they caught it off? No.

Yes, some people will unfortunately die. All the hyperbole about teachers dying is ridiculous. It's as if it will become a common occurrence.

@MarshaBradyo

X post with JR tg couldn’t work out such a bold claim from CD

As usual doesnt read the articles he uses to back up his claims

TrustTheGeneGenie

You did say some, or most.

You said parents that send children in to school ill are desperate.

A generalisation to make your point.

echt
Ah yes, because it's a certainty that teachers WILL DIE

Yep. And schools will close. The bit you didn't highlight.
I have no doubt that some schools will close, that's very different than predicting people's certain death when less than 1% of people die

65 school staff died. This was up to the few weeks after lockdown and so likely related to school.

No ones predicting a certainly - it does happen.

Yes, people everywhere have died of it. But you don't see headlines saying carers should just suck it up and work with no PPE and should stop worrying about residents and staff dying.

In fact people are - quite rightly - horrified by the handling of care homes.

And the “mistake” of thousands of children having their education screwed up and exams being fucked over will also be impossible to undo. We now know given the exams fiasco for the 2 sets of results we have had so far means that schools closing and no exams was incredibly damaging to our young people.

It is also 6% of children admitted to hospital need intensive care. Not children overall. Scaremongering at its finest!

No one hates teachers, we're just fed up with their endless resistance to do their job.

This.

I'm muting all these threads now as they, and the pathetic home schooling my own children (and my friends kids up and down the country) received, have really damaged my opinions of the teaching profession as a whole to be honest.

@TrustTheGeneGenie

I agree that hyperbole is ridiculous.

Your posts are also full of hyperbole. Teachers and pupils are being put at risk. It is a fact. It is hyperbolic to say that this risk is higher than any other risk ever. It is also hyperbolic to say that schools will be totally safe.