Surely they can’t keep schools open as normal if cases keep going up like today!

[Worriedmum999]

My daughter went back to school last Thursday. She really needed to go as lockdown played havoc with her mental health. She was fine doing her academic work but she is someone who needs the social side of school.

We are a vulnerable family and, with this shitshower of a government, I had no faith that cases wouldn’t rise and I wouldn’t be forced to take her out of school again. But I cannot believe that she has been back 2 days and the jump in cases has been so huge. I honestly expected us to be able to get to half term. Of course deaths are going to rise now. Why wouldn’t we follow the pattern of the other European countries. Add to that the fact that people can’t get tested now and we’re fucked. And I’m so fucking angry and upset about the damage that this is doing.

What are the government going to do? Surely it will be impossible to expect parents to keep sending their children to schools when the death toll is huge again and the ICUs are full.

School has been open for 3 days and already the whole of year 11 had to go home this lunchtime because of a positive case today eek!

@Oaktree55 - interesting article, but I don't think my idea of who 'requires' a vaccine is the same as the author's/government's if it is below 50% as stated. It will be interesting to compare the cost of the EOTHO scheme versus the cost of vaccinating not just the very vulnerable, but as many as possible. I know which I think is more important.

@fromdownwest it’s nothing like flu even on the most optimistic ifr’s!

@WeakandWobbly - so one case has sent several hundred pupils home for two weeks in their exam year? Most primary schools require 2 cases in 30 pupils. The threshold should be the same for all contexts - another of my concerns. The likelihood of home schooling based on an arbitrary number of 1 or 2 positive cases irrespective of the overall bubble size is going to disadvantage secondary school pupils much more than primary.

A lot of cases recently have been assigned to people returning from holidays.

Let's hope those cases drop because school cases will rise.

The next 2 weeks will be a definite watch and wait.

@oaktree55 - Apologies, it was in reference to the fatality rates of children I was referring to.

@WeakandWobbly

School has been open for 3 days and already the whole of year 11 had to go home this lunchtime because of a positive case today eek!

I thought there had to be more than 1 case before a whole year group was sent home?

There is 1 confirmed case in 1 year group at DS's school and the Head's email said the school and Y12 will remain open as per PHE advice- although those who have been in close contact need to isolate.

@Oaktree55

Iceland: the country where the most testing per capita has occurred - the IFR lies between 0.01% and 0.19%.

From the British Medical Journal

Unfortunately I get the impression the government's latest advice basically left it to the discretion of head teachers. So what happens at each school may vary widely. The government's advice seemed to only apply to areas in local lockdown, so the majority of schools have had to work out what their response is individually, e.g. differing mask policies also.

@Teateaandmoretea apples and pears comparing U.K. to Iceland

Our school doc seems to mirror government guidance. 2 or more then PHE

Did they drop that? I thought it stuck after a brief diversion with wrong document published

The study in the BMJ where they followed 651 children in hospitals with COVID and tragically 1% died (the 6 children with severe comorbidities) ??

10% of the children were still in hospital when the study ended.

They don't mention that in the newspapers.

WHO currently put at 0.6%

@Namara yes agree. I also have a friend whose 13 year old was hospitalised with the paediatric inflammatory syndrome. No other illnesses not overweight. There have been hundreds of kids hospitalised, luckily most respond to treatment but rather a stressful awful experience to go through.

[quote Hereinthesticks]@WeakandWobbly - so one case has sent several hundred pupils home for two weeks in their exam year? Most primary schools require 2 cases in 30 pupils. The threshold should be the same for all contexts - another of my concerns. The likelihood of home schooling based on an arbitrary number of 1 or 2 positive cases irrespective of the overall bubble size is going to disadvantage secondary school pupils much more than primary.[/quote]
Christ I would take mine out pronto if there were a single case in the school. We are in the position of having reluctantly gone back, no way we would mess about with this, Why would you hang about so your kids could get infected?

@namara - Of which 50% were neonates with complex congential anomlay and bacterial spesis. The other 2% had profound neurodisability, the third was under going chemotherapy.

Tragic, yes, but this adds some perspective to the fact that 99.999% of children are asymptomatic and un affected by Covid.

@loulouljh

Its the hospitalisations that matter..who cares if the cases are going up. They are testing people so finding it.

Clearly the government have started to worry, given they've wheeled out Matt Hancock today giving very strong messages on LBC, about young people infecting old people AND about young people sometimes getting very ill

Also stay 2m apart if possible - but go to school of course where there is no distancing!

@fromdownwest wasn’t my friends experience. Perfectly normal healthy kid, as are some adults that get badly affected.

@oaktree55 - I was referencing fatalities sorry, not admissions. Obviously a horrible experience for all, and I am not making light. I would say that your friends child was an anomaly, not the norm

@herecomesthsun this is the other point most don’t think about. Many parents are middle of the road, send kids in but as soon as local transmission is high /school cases appear they’ll keep their kids off.

What will happen when those numerous kids return? Will teaching staff say well I’m sorry x you were off so I’m not helping you. Of course not they’ll spend time helping those children and the teaching pace will fall behind.

Whoever thinks school will be normal is incredibly naive.

@Oaktree55

What does the WHO put at 0.6% ?? Sorry I just skimmed the thread.

I'm sorry for your friend's son, glad he is better now. It's such a worry.

I think schools could have been handled much better.

I'm reluctantly sending mine in cause their dad (50/50) wants them in. They wear masks properly and a small minority of other kids do too. I don't show it to them, I only show happiness to them, but I'm on tenterhooks, don't like it at all.

@Namara

The study in the BMJ where they followed 651 children in hospitals with COVID and tragically 1% died (the 6 children with severe comorbidities) ??

10% of the children were still in hospital when the study ended.

They don't mention that in the newspapers.

Didn't the study say this was probably because those children were already in hospital and caught it there and that's why they hadn't been discharged?

@namara The infection fatality rate of Covid globally I think. Masks from what I’ve read are brilliant. There have been numerous studies of hairdressing salons etc where infections were prevented from infected stylist to client by mask wearing. Shame it’s not mandated in schools. That’s anti British though 🙄

........awaits tirade of abuse from anti maskers 😆

[quote fromdownwest]@namara - Of which 50% were neonates with complex congential anomlay and bacterial spesis. The other 2% had profound neurodisability, the third was under going chemotherapy.

Tragic, yes, but this adds some perspective to the fact that 99.999% of children are asymptomatic and un affected by Covid.[/quote]
@fromdownwest

I know that. That's why I stated that the 1% who sadly died had severe comorbidities.

The fact I was getting at is that 10% of the total 651 were in fact still in hospital after being followed up at the end of the study.

89% discharged alive
1% died
10% still in hospital receiving care

@herecomesthsun - yes, I could go that way too, certainly would have in March, but the older sixth former wants to do a very competitive career and any missed education could scupper that. I just wish the vaccine were here and the government would be as flash with the cash for the vaccination as it has been for propping up unhealthy and polluting sectors of the economy (e.g. EOTHO, sorry, it's one of my massive annoyances about this pandemic and is a key example of the government's priorities). Instead of promising to vaccinate us all, the government have worked out how to limit the amount of people it vaccinates by only vaccinating the most vulnerable and then hoping the rest of us develop herd immunity by catching it and surviving.