We were doing ok until we opened all the schools....

[Bbq1]

After lockdown was lifted pre September and pubs, restaurants etc were opened we seemed to have a handle on Covid with cases, hospital admissions and deaths all declining fairly steadily. Since we released millions of school aged children and thousands of teachers etc back into the classroom- boom, cases and consequently deaths, are now growing very rapidly again. It didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that this would happen. I work in a school and I have a 15 year old starting his gcse's so I 100% don't want the schools to close but surely there must be a more workable solution? Couldn't schools be one week, one week off for different bubbles or alternate days? Nobody wants schools to shut but surely in the long term if we don't get something safer in place and just continue sending kids and adults in day after day, then eventually they will close again?

Do you also think it may be knock on effect of people coming back from holidays abroad?

Let's remind ourselves of the government's own 5 tests for reopening schools safely:

First we must protect the NHS’s ability to cope, and be sure that it can continue to provide critical care and specialist treatment right across the whole of the United Kingdom.

Second, we need to see daily death rates from coronavirus coming down.

Third, we need to have reliable data that shows the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels.

Four, we need to be confident that testing capacity and PPE is being managed, with supply able to meet, not just today’s demand, but future demand.

And fifth, and perhaps most crucially, we need to be confident that any changes we do make will not risk a second peak of infections (that will overwhelm the NHS).

So death rates are going up, they're incredibly worried about infections spiralling out of control, testing is ballsed to fuck and they're very worried about the coming winter.

And they have backtracked on the idea that kids don't spread it that seemed to be the mainstay of arguments against any mitigation measures in schools.

But schools reopened anyway.

If you are arguing that current rises in cases are nothing to do with schools, then you must accept that the govt have reopened them at an unsafe moment according to their own tests and therefore cases will rise because of schools being open.

@Bluelinings

Cases in 10-19 year olds more than doubled, in under tens it tripled since schools opened. All from the community I guess.

Under 10s tripled?

I think we will need to be practical and say something along the lines of primary schools should stay open as this is the age where parents found it most hard to cope and kids sufferered the most.

How will you staff this? At the end of last week, so many staff had symptoms, and were unable to get tests, that many primary schools locally were at the point of closure for staff shortages - in a very very low incidence area. If, say, 85% of tests are negative, but no tests are available, then 100 teachers with symptoms have to isolate even though only 5 would be positive. With swift testing, the extra 95 would be back in the classroom within a day. When it takes 4 days to book a test and 3 days to get the results, return of those who test negative is much less reliable!

Everyone had in their minds that September would be more a return to reality, it wasn't just schools going back. A lot of people physically returned to work, groups and sports started back, a new found confidence with the death case significantly low and more and more people out socialising. I would also argue that mask wearing has stopped social distancing. You can't blame this on schools, the whole of society tried to open up at once. What should have happened is that schools returned fully in June when everything else was shut down. Schools should have come first and then a slower pace of opening other businesses.

I agree with the pp who said those who want to home educate should be allowed to, and not lose their place for this academic year. But I suspect the people choosing that option would be minimal. You can't expect the schools to cater for them so it really will be true home learning.

Primaries need to stay open.

All schools in areas where there are minimal cases should stay open. There are 9 cases in my fairly large LA in the last 7 days - NINE. Just do the maths on that!

Thats what I think!

Sorry, 95% in the above post. Far fingers.

Oh and I actively would like the CHOICE of blended learning, it would be better for ECV families than covid roulette with very limited testing, as we now have.

and I would like the CHOICE of temporary home learning too

(and if this doesn't appeal to you, fine you wouldn't have to choose it, and we could cope without school materials for a bit, were we begrudged even that)

@Timeforanotherusername
Thanks for the link, now if only England could provide some figures.

2X you could probably argue that the adults are getting it, and children are most likely to become infected in the household.

We don't know yet how many times they have spread it in school.

Primaries need to stay open.

How? Who will staff them, if teachers with symptoms cannot get tests and have to self-isolate?

@Timeforanotherusername
Which is where a world beating track and trace system would come in useful.

I keep seeing SCHOOLS MUST STAY OPEN being bleated like all that is needed to keep them open is a mantra.

They need staff.

I suspect that some of the bleaters don't want bubbles sent home if there are positive cases, in which case, you'll spread it to the staff and hey presto, school closures due to lack of staffing. This has already happened.

2X don't disagree. Whilst i want schools to stay open I am under no illusions where the fault likes if they close......

Although people doing their own 'risk assessments' come a close 2nd.

Primaries need to stay open

If I had a choice, which I know I don't, I'd rather secondary schools kept open before primary. My 5yo has another 10 years of learning he can't catch up on , my 14yo doing GCSES doesn't have that luxury.

@cantkeepawayforever

Good point. It was a suggestion and I have no answers to your question especially as the testing system cannot take the strain. I guess I was thinking that the biggest home schooling problem was with primary and infants.

• can catch up on not cant 🙈

Most of the deaths now are of people who contracted Covid way before school went back.

It just goes to show that for schools to stay open people have to limit their interaction with others elsewhere to try and create the balance and not bring infections into schools. Can people perhaps see now why it’s important that people don’t try and bend all the other rules to suit themselves. I’ve seen so many posts on MN where people are saying whilst schools are open I’m not prepared to limit my actions elsewhere etc etc. If only people would just buckle down and follow what is being asked of them. It’s a shitty situation all round but we just have to get through this Winter and hopefully into brighter times all round.

All schools in areas where there are minimal cases should stay open. There are 9 cases in my fairly large LA in the last 7 days - NINE. Just do the maths on that!

There have been 7 cases reported in my local area too, and very similar in the surrounding areas. Always the palest colour in 'hotspot' maps.

Unfortunately, that has still be enough to close 2 year groups at a local school, with 1 more under imminent threat.

@Timeforanotherusername
Then perhaps driving to Bernard Castle for an eye test in 3rd place. Quite how many people took that as permission to do what they wanted will never be known.

Of course cases have been rising because there has been more testing. There were on average 125jk tests a day in August compared to 240k tests a day in the lat week. Test more people and you get more cases especially if you combine this with the start of autumn. Still don't let such details stop you blaming children and young people or fabricating a rationale to close schools.

The death rates are low because more young people are now tested as infected (before you needed to be pretty seriously ill to get tested), some people have already been infected so have resistance and treatments have improved.

@cantkeepawayforever

being highly vigilant, distancing from the pupils and being masked up at all times is too much mentally for me (given the low incidence here)

I live and work in a very, very low incidence county. Consistently tiny cases for many months.

2 year groups closed already in local secondary. Third will join them over the next day or so as have 1 case and so far that has always been followed by a second within a couple of days.

Don't think it can't happen to you.

I didn’t say that I didn’t think it would happen to me, just that statistically it was unlikely.

I do still socially distance from colleagues, sanitise, wear masks in the corridors. Just in class, I will help the pupils at their desks although I am as quick as I can be. I can’t wear a mask to teach.

I’ve seen so many posts on MN where people are saying whilst schools are open I’m not prepared to limit my actions elsewhere etc etc.

That's exactly the issue - people think that if schools are open, they can do anything they like that is of 'equal risk' to mingling un-masked and without SD in schools...

Whereas IF they want schools to open in this way, that can ONLY happen is ALL other risks are minimised as far as possible. As a teacher, I isolate except for going to work, for example.

I'm a teacher, we are getting no ppe and kids are not sanitising and using their rights not to. They are contributing and I can say this as week 2 and I'm off sick waiting on a covid home kit which has run out of stock. Great!