Government denial over schools issues will cause deaths this Christmas

[noblegiraffe]

I just can't get my head around how utterly crazy the government Christmas policy is.

Secondary school kids are the most infected subset of the population with it now estimated that more than 1 in 50 of them are positive. As they are children, most of them will never be tested as they either are asymptomatic, or will display different symptoms to the main three that are required to trigger a test (councils are overruling this in some parts of England and asking parents to use a more sensible list of symptoms).

Schools mostly break up on 18th December, 5 days before the Christmas relaxation period begins and people start taking advantage of this to mix with other households indoors, in poorly ventilated small rooms, which as scientists warn, is a terrible idea. twitter.com/devisridhar/status/1331931594400149506?s=21

Closing schools a week earlier (or moving online) would give 2 weeks out of school before Christmas day, which would reduce the infection rate in school children significantly (we saw a dip in the infection rate just in one week over half term) and make it safer for them to mix with other households, particularly if people took advantage of those two weeks to significantly reduce their contacts and other risks.

Some schools took it upon themselves to protect their own communities by changing the term dates to close a week earlier. The DfE has overruled this and forced them to stay open.
schoolsweek.co.uk/overruled-dfes-sweeping-coronavirus-powers-force-trust-into-early-christmas-holiday-u-turn/

Because of the tier system, if families don't get together at Christmas during the relaxation period, when their children pose a much higher risk, they will not be able to see their families properly for Christmas at all. Essentially Christmas is being funnelled into a time period which is insanely risky due to it coming shortly after children mixing freely in unsafe schools with significant numbers of undiscovered infections.

I know the DfE have been reading this board. I understand why you want schools open, but lying to people about the risks as you have is dangerous and immoral. Transparency is needed so that people can make their own informed risk assessments, not propaganda about 'safe schools' and 'saving Christmas'.

@Madcats

The trouble is that, if schools close, a great many teens will just meet up at the shops or skatepark.

Family getogethers over Christmas are the height of stupidity, surpassed only by getting students back to Uni in Jan if they don't need to have face to face practical work.

We plan to stay home and shop locally.

They can't meet indoors and only in group of 6 outdoors in tier 3.

So actually they can't. And if they did break rules and not get caught it's still safer than a classroom!

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot

Even the CMO said in a presser, that just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

This, with bells on.

I am a absolutely dreading January. Out of 6 classes I teach 4 have had positive cases. Some pupils are on their 2nd or 3rd period of isolation. Parents have sent their children in whilst waiting for test results ( all 3 siblings were positive)
Allowing people to mix over Christmas is just madness. Boris doesn't give a shit about pupils and staff.

We had a shit Christmas last year as DH was working and we couldn't travel to see family.

It was 1 day, it was crap, I made it as good as I could for the kids. We played games and built lots of lego and spoke to family on Skype. It doesn't seem to have impacted them adversely.

I really can't say the same for the school closures.

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz

So why did the covid cases dip during half term?

I would say lots of reasons.

*Schools were closed.
*Many parents who work in high risk jobs were off with their DC, on annual leave.
*Perhaps some didn't bother testing with minor symptoms as they were off anyway.
*Some parts of the UK went into lockdown at that point, my country certainly did.

Those will all still apply at Christmas, so imo cases will drop in the same way (in school children). I honestly don't see a need for extra holidays for schools. I don't strongly object (I have been expecting it for a while), I just don't see a convincing argument that it is worth disrupting education yet again. And yes I know lots of dc are already disrupted, but an extra weeks holiday is simply not going to change that. We have several months of this left, pinning all our hopes on an extra week now preventing further periods of isolation would be naive.

I personally think the mixing is a risk for elderly family members, not children. It is not up to schools to close for fear for the elderly - it is up to families to make those decisions themselves. Closing schools would simply reinforce the message that we should all mix at Christmas. At present the majority of threads on here about Christmas very much show the majority are not planning to anyway.

People are not stupid, they know mixing is a risk. The gov knew many would anyway, so have tried to come up with a plan that would mean people can mix but in a limited way. It has been very clear to me that it is better not to mix at all (and I won't be), but I don't live in England so perhaps the message is different there.

@Covidnomore

We had a shit Christmas last year as DH was working and we couldn't travel to see family.

It was 1 day, it was crap, I made it as good as I could for the kids. We played games and built lots of lego and spoke to family on Skype. It doesn't seem to have impacted them adversely.

I really can't say the same for the school closures.

Absolutely, I worked Xmas day last year too, it still was a lovely Christmas :-)

It is not up to schools to close for fear for the elderly - it is up to families to make those decisions themselves

I agree with all the above, but I’ve selected this as a particular salient point.

Not all children will have, or will see, elderly relatives at Christmas. If they do, families should be assessing the risks themselves.

@OverTheRainbowLiesOz So why did the covid cases dip during half term? Can you point on the dip because I can't see it happened during half term.

Cases in Torbay
Some half terms started 19th October some 26th
Weekly number of positive cases on week ending
19th October 151
26th October 195
2nd November 262
9th November 341
16th November 124

@ancientgran

“All those people” can also choose to stay home and not mix with others at Christmas. Why should my kids carry the can for them. They can't all make that choice though can they. How about the emergency services, do you think they can just shut down, how about supermarket workers, shop will open after Christmas and staff will be at higher risk because of other people mixing at Christmas. That's just a sample, there are lots of others.

But that will happen whether schools are open or not.

Re children passing it on to their grandparents, this has to be a decision families reach themselves. It is not my place to tell adults with full capacity what they should do. If it increases in the community grandparents will be put at risk just like everyone else. I am a grandparent, I also go out to work, I am also a carer for my disabled husband, I have shopping delivered but occasionally have to go to a shop, I have to go to the pharmacy to collect meds (they won't deliver - I'm considering changing to one of the online pharmacies but I want my local pharmacy to stay open so want to support them) I go to the dentist. Not all grandparents can stay at home and self isolate.

@Welcometonowhere

It is not up to schools to close for fear for the elderly - it is up to families to make those decisions themselves

I agree with all the above, but I’ve selected this as a particular salient point.

Not all children will have, or will see, elderly relatives at Christmas. If they do, families should be assessing the risks themselves.

I have been nodding a long with every one of your posts

But that will happen whether schools are open or not. But their risk is higher if the rate goes up, if the rate goes up because of families and friends mixing at Christmas those people don't get a choice which is why I was replying to a post saying people had a choice about the risk. Some people don't because they have to go to work in places where the risk is higher.

Schools shouid stay open and stick to term times.

Being allowed to mix over Christmas for 5 days shouldn't be happening. 😡

@ancientgran

Re children passing it on to their grandparents, this has to be a decision families reach themselves. It is not my place to tell adults with full capacity what they should do. If it increases in the community grandparents will be put at risk just like everyone else. I am a grandparent, I also go out to work, I am also a carer for my disabled husband, I have shopping delivered but occasionally have to go to a shop, I have to go to the pharmacy to collect meds (they won't deliver - I'm considering changing to one of the online pharmacies but I want my local pharmacy to stay open so want to support them) I go to the dentist. Not all grandparents can stay at home and self isolate.

Are you meeting up at Christmas?

Are you meeting up at Christmas? No but I will have to go out and the Christmas shindigs are going to increase my risk and that isn't my choice.

ancient, It is not my place to tell you what you should or should not do.

Either you will decide that you will see school aged relatives / friends over Christmas, or you won’t. It is not my place to tell you to see them, or not see them. But nor is it the places of individuals to demand a drastic measure (school closure) for this reason.

See grandparents, don’t see grandparents, we know the risks, we know there may be some difficult decisions. I maintain they are individual decisions.

It's not as simple as one family making the decision to not see their grandparents because their children have remained in school and are therefore high risk to them.
All elderly people are at risk if Covid continues to run rampant through society, as it will with schools remaining open in the unsafe way they are, compounded by the green light given to go ahead and have a knees-up between the 23rd and 27th. And that has a knock-on effect on hospital capacity, which affects all of us, regardless of age and whether we're vulnerable to Covid (or whatever else).
Haven't we had this argument a gazillion times already, since March?

Not all children will have, or will see, elderly relatives at Christmas. If they do, families should be assessing the risks themselves.

Trouble is too many families are too thick or selfish to assess risks.

Secondary schools are an obvious issue. Primary schools are also getting increasing cases. This is what can happen in primary schools, where there is no social distancing within bubbles (it is a physical impossibility to prevent 30 young children from getting close to each other and their teacher in a small classroom, or from their midday meals supervisor or TA, or from the person doing first aid, if different): children are coming into school with symptoms that are not in the list of 3 for covid but actually are quite common covid symptoms in children (fatigue, headache, sore throat, loss of appetite, nausea) and the school sees the pattern of children claiming similar symptoms but parents insist their children are well enough to come into school and these are not trigger-symptoms for tests to find out one way or the other. After just over a week, the positive test results start coming in and classes start to isolate, but siblings are still coming into school, and members of staff have started to get symptoms, so a week later, more bubbles close, but children with mild, atypical symptoms are still being sent in, along no doubt with asymptomatic children, and support staff have started working across bubbles to cover the duties of staff waiting for test results, isolating due to close contact with someone, or being off work for other reasons. Supply staff who have been in other schools start coming in to cover classes and they bring coronavirus into the school with them. Within a few weeks, there have been so many cases across the school that there are no longer enough healthy adults not required to be isolating to keep things running anyway.

It is not up to schools to close for fear for the elderly - it is up to families to make those decisions themselves

This with bells on. I have no intention of seeing any of my elderly grandparents over Xmas. Why should my kids miss even more school? If you want to see vulnerable relatives then make the decision yourself to remove them early and isolate them. We can't inflict that on every child, many of whom won't be seeing elderly family. Many parents are at work so children would be left with other family members, so the family mixing would just start earlier IMO.

@BlueBrian

Not all children will have, or will see, elderly relatives at Christmas. If they do, families should be assessing the risks themselves.

Trouble is too many families are too thick or selfish to assess risks.

So be it.

The same families would increase risk with the week off. Or ignore any rule to do zero socialising at Christmas.

Better for the most risk averse and and at risk to isolate early or not meet up.

Assuming people aren’t deliberately breathing on the elderly, it is, angelina

The premise of this thread is that schools should close early because otherwise it is five days before people meet up in crowded, poorly ventilated rooms.

Not everyone will make that choice. And not everyone has elderly relatives anyway.

Welcometonowhere I'm not sure if you don't understand my point or just don't want to.

Me seeing my GC isn't the point. If lots of people mix, even if none of them are grandparents, then the R number goes up and everyone has a greater chance of getting covid, even grandparents.

People talk about grandparents as if we are some exotic breed that is kept in a cage and brought out for special occasions. We are people, we can catch the disease without ever seeing a grandchild. We work, we go shopping, we go out for walks, we see doctors, we go to pharmacies. We live just like you do.

The same is true of teachers and you know everyone else.

If schools stay open and we have the Christmas easing numbers are bound to go up. Some people wanted Christmas, some people wanted schools open. The govt have given way to both groups. My DIL is a doctor on a covid ward, I won't tell you the words she used in her forecasts about January.

So, some schools might close early in time for Christmas anyway!

I generally don't agree with schools moving online BUT I can see a benefit for the last week It seems sensible to move to home learning whether by set work to do over week or by some video or similar learning. However it will only work if the parents keep the children at home and not let them out and about as would defeat the point

That being said not sure what parents of primary school children will do who cannot work from home. My DS is secondary so he can just get on with things but I would feel for parents with 6 year olds for example who may have two parents that have to go to their place of work, for example shop workers ....

Not an easy answer to this