@Itisasecret
People don’t want schools shut. I love having a full class and I will be devastated if schools close again. My children are in exam years. Boris fired the warning shots tonight, your children’s education is being put at risk by rule breakers.
No, it’s because the testing system has collapsed and teachers and their families are not a priority for testing. Yet despite schools being the 2nd biggest setting linked to outbreaks according to PHE. Second only to care homes who are prioritised for testing alongside the NHS.
Following the guidance, and the lack of testing schools will close because of staff shortages before you even talk about Covid closures. If it wasn’t so obvious it would be quite funny. The idea that adults and teachers don’t want children in school makes me so angry. They won’t have a choice of this shit show continues. NO CHOICE.
So instead of slating school staff who are being put at risk, get a grip, accept schools will be closed if this continues and write to your MP.
This is the point.
Schools are closing partly because of cases - 2nd year group closed at DD's school today and with a case in a further year group, it is likely that all GCSE and A-level years will be closed by the end of the week. In a county with one of the lowest case rates in the country.
However, the question is where these cases are coming from. they are not from child tio child transmission in school yet, but from the community / families into schoolss. What school opening has done has brought about a HUGE change both in terms of mobility and in terms of mindset: 'The children are at school, I can go back to work / meet friends for coffee/ go to my gym class' AND 'The children are mixing in school anyway, so we can do playdates, parties, after school clubs and activities, get together as families'. This change pre-dates school opening by a few weeks, because 'The kids will be in school soon anyway, so why would it be a problem if we meet friends / go out / go on holiday'.
It is those cases that are coming into school now - and yes, they are closing schools quite rapidly, though in a patchy way (some schools badly affected, others untouyched as yet).
But what will close schools earlier is absence of staff. Unless turnaround of tests for staff becomes VERY swift, a teacher with a cough closes a bubble for days, possibly weeks (at the end of last week, it was taking nearly the whole of the isolation period to get a test). So negative teachers can't return to the classroom. This rise in staff with symptoms will be driven further by parents, particularly in primary, dosing their children up or ignoring symptoms because they so desperately need to go into work that they send their children into school ill-but-disguised, rather than even try to isolate or test. A chld not tested is a child who isn't positive, so the illness continues to spread until someone, usually an adult, gets too ill for it to be ignored.....