Covid spreading in Scottish schools

[jomartin281271]

I can't say I'm surprised. The idea that there could be covid in the community, and somehow when our kids get to the school gates they walk into a magic land where the virus doesn't exist is nonsense. The Scottish schools have been back for two weeks now, so this is a priview of what we can expect in the rest of the UK.

www.heraldscotland.com/news/18693187.coronavirus-scotland-evidence-shows-spread-covid-19-glasgow-schools/

Blended learning is working well in plenty of other countries

Full time back to school is also working well in other countries, you just don’t hear about it. I have friends in Switzerland and Norway, everyone’s been back since May.

The countries that are delivering blended learning seem all to be doing live Zoom classes in the remaining class hours. Which is very far from the standard of ‘blended’ learning that lockdown in the UK would lead parents to expect.

And I don’t know how other countries are managing to facilitate parent working.

Yes, good point Quartz

Is it really only '37 cases out of nearly 30,000 tests'

Wow that's brilliant. If that's a preview of what to expect then great news.

The guinea pig comment and the spreading etc seems a bit

The thing is, surely we expected some outbreaks in schools?
We know that food factories are having significant outbreaks, they are being dealt with on an individual basis. Same with schools. Anywhere that an outbreak occurs will hopefully be identified and dealt with. That’s life for the foreseeable future.

@Jrobhatch29

I imagine that some people on here will keep this type of ridiculous posting until there isn't one single case of Covid globally (so never really)

Jrobhatch29
How long we going to keep trotting out the kids in ICU beds line? It's just overly dramatic and not based on any evidence unless your child has certain serious medical conditions, and like a PP said alternatives should be arranged for this group of children.

This is so misleading.

Children have been diagnosed with Covid. Those children are school pupils. You cannot extrapolate from that fact that infections happened at school. Infections are within families and include kids.

All the hysterical language about children lying in ICU is just bananas. ZERO deaths in under 25s in Scotland. Not a single one. Zilch, Zip, Nada.

Blended learning was a fucking disaster in this house, mainly because both the adults here have their own jobs they are trying to do from home and two of the kids are studying subjects at a level we have no clue about. If you can cope with a 17 year olds questions about Advanced Higher Chemistry then good for you, but it's way above my level.

Keep your kids off school if you want to terrify them with your stories about ICU and death. But most of us are very glad schools are back and are seeing our kids happier, healthier, and more motivated than tehy ever were in lockdown.

Agree with others this is a small number and to be expected. The rates in and around Glasgow are high and meetings in homes have been identified as the cause (not pubs and workplaces as was the case in Aberdeen and Leicester). If there are high rates for people gathering at home it seems just as likely the kids caught it from family and friends as from school.

Note, the link refers to cases in two schools, no mention of pupils. The two schools are in an area newly locked down because of spread between adults in the community.

" NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has announced that evidence of Covid-19 transmission has emerged in two Glasgow high schools.

The health board has been carrying out contact tracing at Lochend Community High School and Hutchesons’ Grammar School, saying there is some evidence of the virus being passed within the premises.

It comes the day after the city had lockdown restrictions reimposed as the spread of a Covid-19 cluster was being linked to different households.

An NHS GGC spokesman said: “There is evidence of transmission of the virus amongst a small number of cases in school settings and this is being carefully managed. "

@frozendaisy

Did you hear the Governor of Madrid saying "yep we are expecting every school child to catch Covid-19" words to that effect.

Just thinking "oh great" but at least a modicum of honesty perhaps or just preparing population for worse case scenario? Who knows? But first official I have heard of saying this.

Yes read this yesterday from Madrid. I also would appreciate honesty.

This is clearly an experiment, as it is new and all new things are experimental.

The 37 is not the only issue, the issue is by next week will there be another 20 (good, controlling, reducing) or another 100 (bad, increasing).

The r rate in schools is important, and whether contacts get isolated quickly enough to prevent spread to parents, teachers and carers.

I think 37 in just two schools is a sizeable number and if my children were in those schools, I would probably not want to resend.

I'm in Scotland, we are under restrictions currently.

Yes we were supposed to have blended learning. I got notified my son was to be in the 'gold bubble' and attend on Thursdays and Fridays. Yes this was abandoned due to a pressure group. I'm not happy about that because distancing is one of the main ways to stop the spread.

In Scotland we opened schools with very few measures in place. All we have is increased hand washing (useful but not the main way this spreads), one way systems in corridors (??), mostly outdoor break times (winter coming!!), and masks for high school in corridors only (when pupils still sitting in classrooms for hours and hours without). My daughter's high school some classrooms the windows don't even open. Both my children's classes they tell me there are kids in who are coughing a lot. Yes colds have come back, but have all these children had a negative COVID test?? Teachers were sending home, but now don't seem to be due to the testing system being overwhelmed last week. Result times random - can be a day can be a few days.

I think high schools should be practical classes only and other learning done online. Pupils who have difficulty engaging or with the work should be supported.

The anti mask / anti temperature check brigade haven't helped schools to stay open at all.

There is a distinct atmosphere of the calm before the storm here.

I do understand that schools are good for most kids mental health - for mine they have been, it's lovely to see - and for most kids COVID isn't dangerous. HOWEVER it cannot be discounted that COVID can be dangerous for children. We don't need to go one way or the other (kids fine / deadly). Death rates are low, but hospitalisation rates aren't all that low. I'd wager that COVID is quite a bit more dangerous for children than flu and we have vaccination for that. COVID plus other bugs at the same time worse.

We cannot just allow it to rip through our schools. I can see it leading to a shortage of hospital beds for children, for COVID and in general, and that's a horrific thought. Also children spreading it through the community.

Complete closure of schools will happen if that scenario threatens (I hope), whatever usfor think.

I really don't know what the answer is. We could have done so much more. Eat out to help out money could have been used for schools.

For those who say

The risk to children is minimal. Your child is highly unlikely to die

If you child then does die of coronavirus. That they are that 1 in whatever

If someone was then to say to you

Bad luck. The risk was minimal. Will you go. Oh yeah. Agree!

I'm not going to wait until our children are lying in an ICU bed before accepting that this is a massive social experiment, and the government are using our teachers and children as guinea pigs.

What are you doing then?

For me the issue isn't so much will my child die (a vanishingly minute possibility) but will schools be a transmission hub meaning my child ends up bereaved (a much bigger possibility).

The Scottish government back-tracked on that plan almost immediately
No, they didn't. The blended learning plan was in place long enough for our school to put timetables together and tell us when our DCs would be in school and when they would be doing online learning. It also involved re-arranging classrooms to maintain social distancing. All of that had been put in place. In fact, that was the plan our teachers discussed with DCs on their last Teams' meeting before summer. Then, suddenly, it was all changed.
I'm not sure we can blame facebook lobby groups. They represented such a tiny proportion of parents that it would have been foolish for MPs or MSPs to adopt policy on the basis of pleasing such small numbers even if those small numbers were very vocal on social media and given a massive platform from the MSM.

By why does it matter? The spread isn't the issue. It's the people becoming seriously ill as a result. The two are not the same.

Children need to be at school. Parents need to work. Blended learning does not work for those parents who are working. It probably doesn't work either for those on FB!!!! Teachers are there to each. Parents to parent.

There are obviously quite a few children at home at the moment, isn’t it 10% of Scottish children not in due to illness.

I think a poster said she assumed something was being provided for children with underlying conditions, the answer to that is no, they are expected to go to school like everyone else. Exactly the same as teachers with underlying conditions are expected to work with no PPE

No, they didn't. The blended learning plan was in place long enough for our school to put timetables together and tell us when our DCs would be in school and when they would be doing online learning.

I’m terms of when it was announced as official policy by a minister. Less than 24 hours later Nicola says the exact opposite.

Said

@loulouljh

By why does it matter? The spread isn't the issue. It's the people becoming seriously ill as a result. The two are not the same.

Children need to be at school. Parents need to work. Blended learning does not work for those parents who are working. It probably doesn't work either for those on FB!!!! Teachers are there to each. Parents to parent.

Of course spread is an issue.

Where there is unchecked spread there will eventually be admissions and deaths.

They have to demonstrate they can halt an incident like this. That's what we are all hoping for, that is what we are experimenting with.

The risk was minimal. Will you go. Oh yeah. Agree!

I hate to break it to you, but we all have to live with risk.

Do we never let our children leave the house because of the (much more significant) risk that they’ll die or be seriously injured in a RTA? No of course not.

The impact of failing to educate children is much more significant to them than Covid.

But to halt it means locking everything down. We cannot live like that. It has to spread and the consequences be dealt with. I don't understand this halt it at all costs. It is madness. The cost will be untold. Mass unemployment. NHS folds (no money going into it). People dying not through covid but all the other diseases we are less paranoid about being left untreated. No future for the young. Massive mental health issues. I seriously do not get this halt at all costs idea. It makes no sense at all to me.

@TheKeatingFive: yes , yes and yes. I cannot agree more.

@TheKeatingFive

The risk was minimal. Will you go. Oh yeah. Agree!

I hate to break it to you, but we all have to live with risk.

Do we never let our children leave the house because of the (much more significant) risk that they’ll die or be seriously injured in a RTA? No of course not.

The impact of failing to educate children is much more significant to them than Covid.

Yes, that's what we hope for, but we don't yet know what schools will cause in terms of transmission.

What we want isn't as important yet as what we are certain we can safely have, sadly.

We need to see where this goes and what happens. And hopefully hopefully hopefully that 37 is ring-fenced and transmission just stomped out.

I seriously do not get this halt at all costs idea. It makes no sense at all to me.

It’s utter batshit.

And it’s come out of nowhere. The point of the initial lockdown was flattening the curve. That’s been done. The impact of Covid on the health service is barely perceptible right now.

Obviously we have to guard against that rising to unmanageable levels, but there’s a huge amount of gradation between zero Covid and overrun health service.