The effect of schools staying open on people's compliance

[bringbackCabanas]

I DO NOT want schools to close. I'm happy to send my kids in and will continue to do so.

But, the amount of times I hear, or read on here, "well if they sit at school together all day then they can do x y z outside of school" or "my child is mixing with x amount of people five days a week so what's the point of following the rules?"

Basically that if schools are still open then it's not really a "lockdown" and not everyone will take it seriously.

@Foobydoo

100% agree - why has the government refused to consider any risk mitigation in schools?

Sadly I fear the answer is the current govt/leadership are only hanging on here - and trying to deliver what they think best suits popular opinion - until they deliver Brexit, then they will bugger off. Leaving someone else to pick up the mess. Hopefully a government of national unity which genuinely has the population's interests at heart.

Why damage the economy for a strategy that won’t work fast enough?

Do you not understand that the economy would suffer much more if we shut schools?

@Sonnenscheins

Why damage the economy for a strategy that won’t work fast enough?

Do you not understand that the economy would suffer much more if we shut schools?

Shutting everything including the schools for 3 weeks (especially when one of those weeks could have been half term) would be far less damaging to the economy that shutting just small businesses/hospitality for 8/12 weeks (with a day off for Christmas).

No, shutting everything including schools will be incredibly damaging to the economy, especially as school closures have unintended knock on effects.

I think the only conclusion is that whatever we do (as individuals and government decisions) the virus is going nowhere, it can’t be controlled and we are screwed.

100% agree with the pp that said schools staying open depends on compliance outside of school.

Children's education has already been hugely disrupted, sacrificing activities outside of school is hugely important. My DD is going to school but we won't be going to playgrounds etc.

I genuinely don't understand what is so hard to understand about this. Schools NEED to stay open, mixing outside of school needs to stop for this to happen. Schools closing will happen if people are selfish.

We had a school email urging parents not to pressure their kids to 'not tell' their friends/teachers about socialising outside of school. I was shocked that parents would do this!

@Sonnenscheins

Why damage the economy for a strategy that won’t work fast enough?

Do you not understand that the economy would suffer much more if we shut schools?

On the contrary, I don’t understand though why people think that a collapsed NHS would result in an improved economy.

The measures aren’t the only thing affecting the economy, the virus being widespread is. The worse it gets the more people will change their own spending/behaviour.

If the news starts reporting that a family of car crash victims died, only because there were no NHS resources left for anything - do you think families will carry on driving as normal?

If a child dies of appendicitis because there were no beds, operating theatres or anaesthetists spare - do you think parents will start to be scared and want the virus numbers down as quickly as possible. Will they stop going out?

Lockdown and restrictions do negatively affect the economy, but so does a virus spiralling out of control.

We are fucked either way, and no one is entirely sure which path leads us to being less fucked.

@Stellaris22

100% agree with the pp that said schools staying open depends on compliance outside of school.

Children's education has already been hugely disrupted, sacrificing activities outside of school is hugely important. My DD is going to school but we won't be going to playgrounds etc.

I genuinely don't understand what is so hard to understand about this. Schools NEED to stay open, mixing outside of school needs to stop for this to happen. Schools closing will happen if people are selfish.

We had a school email urging parents not to pressure their kids to 'not tell' their friends/teachers about socialising outside of school. I was shocked that parents would do this!

I think you have different sorts if parents doing this.

Perhaps some who just will use any excuse not to cause inconvenience to themselves. Where her schools close for not they’d find some excuse as to why they wouldn’t follow the rules.

Some who don’t value education/abusive who just can’t be asked to get up in the mornings (can’t imagine there are many if these).

Some may be the previously shielding or vulnerable, who are scared and feel forced to send their dc in. They’ve figured that if they are going to get it from anywhere it will be from the school, and so are giving up on trying to take precautions or are just trying to ignore it. I think this might actually be more parents than many realise.

• See, RTB, I would honestly disagree that explaining WHY to an child is easy, and I also disagree that it's down to laziness on a parent's part.

Obviously you can tell a kid "Because that's the rules," or "because I say so." But to me that's the lazy option. Generally I try to get my kids to think about why rules are in place so they understand why following them is important. That's not as easy in this situation. *

It's not that hard. Get them to imagine 3 people having to pick up something really hot. First one holds it for a split second, the next 10 seconds, and the last person a whole minute. Think about the pain and the damage to their hand in each case. That's a very simplified version of viral load.

Obviously, in a perfect world you wouldn't have to pick the hot thing up at all (mix with others), but if you really have to, wouldn't you prefer to be the one holding it for just a split second (minimising the contact as far as possible)?

@Deliaskis maybe read my post properly? Cases are seeded from outside school initially. I'm not saying they are continually imported into school from the community. I'm saying that once you have a real cluster in school, then unless school has closed, the cases just bounce between home and school. Irrelevant if everything else is closed. The only way to stop this is to close a school for 2/3 weeks to break the chain. Maybe in schools with no cases, not needed. But in our area, I think it's the only way forward.