Are parents going to lie about symptoms to avoid having to test/isolate?

[Concerned7777]

Theres so many posts on here about the lack of testing available, and children not being allowed to return without a negative result, not to mention the added disruption to the rest of the family having to isolate.
Are parents going to be tempted to hang on to see if symptoms persist before informing schools? So many threads have said their dc symptoms are now non existent and its unlikely to have been covid but they still need to stay home for 14 days if they cant get a test in time.
If dc start showing symptoms at home like a mild cough or spike in temperature, would you be tempted to tell school that they are being kept off for other reasons like a sickness bug for instance to bide some time ? And possibly send them back in a few days later if they recover.
Of course its morally wrong to do it but I can totally see why some might given how hard it is to get tests at the moment.

@Themsmedaps.
A 15/16 year old with a hacking cough and a temperature is quite different from a 5 year old with a snotty nose and occasional cough.
Young children often present with a temperature for a cold, older ones and adults tend not to.
In your situation I would definitely be isolating and seeking a test.

If you send your child in sick then it is likely you will make the teacher sick - Covid or not. If the teacher is sick you will at best get cover and at worst shut the school if too many get sick. If you want schools to stay open you need staff to keep well.
Oh and you could kill me so please don't.

As a parent of 2 DC of schools age I totally get the frustration, as a member of staff in a school it's a bit worrying how many will lie about it. The only reasons schools are open is because of risk assessments that try to limit exposure, most primary school staff have no PPE, and secondary staff are being exposed to hundreds of children. If test are not available we really need to rethink ppe in schools.

Our school has a temperature scanner at the entrance soooo 😂 no I personally wouldn’t lie, if my child or I had one of the main symptoms I would isolate and get tested but I do understand why a one income family would 😨

@PablosHoney

Our school has a temperature scanner at the entrance soooo 😂 no I personally wouldn’t lie, if my child or I had one of the main symptoms I would isolate and get tested but I do understand why a one income family would 😨

I would put money on it that that temperature scanner is so inaccurate that it's essentially there as a piece of theatre.

I won’t lie. Any cough/high temp and we will all isolate.

I think there should be fines and withdrawals of school places for those that don’t test and send in sick children. Parents of vulnerable children or vulnerable themselves are in schools and don’t deserve to be put st risk by others.

I’m not sure on that one, it has gone off but not often 🤔 it went off when some of the teachers had been standing in the sun herding kids in but once they had a cool down and went through again it didn’t bleep.

We’ve been in isolation since Thursday - DD & I have both sore throat, runny nose, fever and cough. Both of us have been tested & both are negative. We’re now 48hrs+ free of fever & feeling well but still coughing. Technically DD can go back to school tomorrow but bit worried it’s the wrong thing to do if DD ends up spreading cold & cough to other kids?
Also DS has now started coughing. So just as we are able to end self isolation, does this mean we all have to start immediately again? Given we’ve already been isolating for days, he can only have caught it from us & common sense tells us that as we’ve both tested negative, he can’t have covid either.

DH desperately needs to get back to work tomorrow (keyworker). So now we are faced with a choice - do we tell school he has a cough which may force another self isolation period or keep quiet & wait it out til his cough has gone. If the testing system wasn’t such a shambles there’s no way I would even consider the second option but yet here I find myself, even though it’s not the social/morally responsible thing to do.

@ginberry4 we have done the right thing once but it’s failed as testing and results are non existent. We now pay the price as our gcse child has missed a week of teaching (and they are 14 weeks behind as it is). We will not do this again. And it is not our fault.

I'm glad my DS isn't in school because my work would definitely not be supportive about me isolating for days at a time frequently. I'd be skint and quite possibly lose my job. I'd definitely be the first one looked at for redundancy if it came around due to attendance etc. DS was due to start a private nursery this term but I cancelled his place because of this and my family are (happily) doing the childcare.

Yes unfortunately I think they will. Parents prioritise their kids and their education, and won’t want them to miss out. There will be others who will worry about money or work pressure. It is morally totally unacceptable, but people are selfish.

@chestergirl39

Yes unfortunately I think they will. Parents prioritise their kids and their education, and won’t want them to miss out. There will be others who will worry about money or work pressure. It is morally totally unacceptable, but people are selfish.

I think what you say would be true if the government were keeping their part of the bargain (ie in having a vaguely decent testing system and just being competent generally) but given the clusterfuck I can totally get why someone might think that they’ve done their bit, had their life turned upside down, their children’s education mucked up, and think fuck it.

I think some parents will do this.
You're right, testing needs to be easily and quickly available ( they had 6 months to prepare for school re-openings and it's still not in place properly).
And there needs to be financial support for people who won't get paid if they take time off work to self isolate.
And schools need to start doing temperature checks (I still can't believe this isn't being done actually).
It's all a bit of a mess :-(

@Krook

I've posted this on a couple of other threads but it's worth a look if you haven't seen it already - kids' symptoms are often more like a cold, according to the Zoe Covid research app. Not sure where that leaves us when you can't get a test for love nor money.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/back-to-school?fbclid=IwAR3cFgCRpHoIY8HW0QE6vv_GFVPtuVRNh1xQ5z6WIcardDMpwauEy5E9tUY

I have always thought it odd that only three symptoms are acknowledged in government guidance, even when govt were encouraging people to have tests. Arguably, if someone has ALL the three main symptoms, it should just be assumed it is Covid and t&t should be contacted. This would leave some testing for some of the other symptoms. The testing situation is obviously currently dire and needs to be sorted.

It is awful that even though Covid presents differently in kids and there is no/ltd social distancing between large numbers of people in schools, there is no guidance on what schools/parents should do when their child has any symptoms outside of the ltd 3.

[quote Tootletum]@ChronicCovid yeah it's all a bit of a joke. Interestingly though I've looked up German state's rules for schools and most of them ask parents to just keep kids with a cold off for 25 hours to see if it seems like a standard cold. Without then mandating a test before they can return. So they are trusting parents judgement. Part of the problem we have is if you say to the school you want to keep them off for a day just in case, they then can't come back for two weeks without a test. So people won't keep them off at all if they can't get a test.[/quote]
My DD came down with a cold on Sunday. I called school and they told me to keep her off for a couple of days and see how she is, so all schools are different. I'm on mat leave, so easy enough. Cough/temp/loss of taste or smell haven't developed, so I assume she is ok. However, she's been off her food and is tired - typical cold symptoms for her, but also covid symptoms. How the fuck do I know if it's just a cold (which I assume) or Covid? After she started school last year, we had a constant loop of colds in our house...it's really tricky.

Parents are already lying. Reported high temperatures morph into a “we don’t own a thermometer, my child just felt a bit hot,” when the parent is told to self-isolate until child gets a test, then, on being informed this is enough to establish the child had a temperature, that what the parent had meant to say was that their child did not feel hot to touch, they were just saying they felt hot and unwell. Coughs also suddenly become snotty noses, or something the child has actually had all holiday, so the parent wants to take that comment back. And all this when children, unlike adults, often have upset stomachs with covid, skin rashes, or pretty bog standard cold like symptoms, and not the classic adult covid symptoms, anyway. Even more annoying, guidance is that if a child has to be sent home with covid symptoms, you have to disinfect the rooms they sat in - so that’s a whole class of kids that have to be turfed out of the classroom while it’s done, plus the first aid room, plus any toilet they visited before parents turned up to collect, if a parent does decide a little thing like a fluctuating temperature can be ignored.

As for temperature checks in schools, the Government guidance very specifically said schools should NOT do this.

So, kids’ temperatures are only supposed to be taken when they are all tearful and say they feel ill, but Mummy and Daddy said they had to go to work.

Of course people will lie

If we could reliably get quick and accurate easily accessible tests I think they probably wouldn't

@littleowl1 just to say the numbers per 100 000 is a great addition, if depressing for my area that is at 30 ☹️.

Does anyone know at roughly what number a borough enters the watch list?

Wrong thread - sorry!

No I wouldn’t, sadly some will. Ask those people if they’d willingly infect someone who’d end up v ill they’d say no. Unfortunately people won’t join the two together but effectively that’s what they’re doing 😐