How do people feel about their kids being a herd?

[wondersun]

It seems that Boris never did put down the herd immunity idea.

I’m wondering if he still wants that big win? Take a risk with the kids but get normality back before any other country.

First with the vaccine. Thinking a little bit of short term herd immunity on the side can’t help?

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/14/herd-immunity-boris-johnson-coronavirus?fbclid=IwAR2C-wGREPNhwfGAvgM06MbN-6ErvHImRXwbbiH4KAIulTnCCtUSYIa-4tA

@Frouby not sure you understand. Schools might say they are open. But a lot have limited staff and many students off. Attendance in some areas is now under 50% because so many are ill or isolating. If staff are off we have to eventually shut year groups or the whole school. So yes I could resign. If I could just be kept safer so I can stay in school and do my job.
What do you suggest I do if 45% of staff are off ? Suggestions v welcome how we now teach the remaining students.

And anyone saying 'our school is fine', well do was mine 4 weeks ago. Not one case. But now it's hell. And a lot of people are going to be ill over Xmas. Some in hospital.

@NotAKaren it would impact the parents who have to work though. I can't work from home, who is going to pay my bills? I can't afford to take that much unpaid time off, I'm a single parent. Can't leave my 7 year old home on his own either.

[quote mumsneedwine]@Frouby not sure you understand. Schools might say they are open. But a lot have limited staff and many students off. Attendance in some areas is now under 50% because so many are ill or isolating. If staff are off we have to eventually shut year groups or the whole school. So yes I could resign. If I could just be kept safer so I can stay in school and do my job.
What do you suggest I do if 45% of staff are off ? Suggestions v welcome how we now teach the remaining students.[/quote]
Anecdotally, my dds secondary is open and she and most of her immediate friendship group haven't had to isolate, cases have happened frequently though, I think 3 teachers have been off, then selected students. But certainly it's never looked like school would close. This is a 8 form entry secondary in South Yorkshire where we have been in tier 3 since before the national lockdown, and remain in tier 3 now.

Ds school is a 2 form primary. 3 forms have had their bubbles burst and been at home for 2 weeks at a time.

So the majority of children have remained in full time education and the majority of teachers have been safe, in an area thay has been in tier 3 since October. So we certainly haven't experienced the closures you have. And locally I would say the picture is similar, one primary did have to close completely due to a high number of staff having to self isolate, allegedly because they all ate lunch in the same staff room and 1 teacher subsequently tested positive.

You can't close all schools because some are struggling. Those that can't open obviously can't open. But it doesn't mean that every child should be made to stay home.

I agree they should be able to stop 4 days early before Christmas. But I don't agree that they should all go to online learning in January. Children need to be at school.

NO ONE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF COVID HAS SAID CLOSE ALL
SCHOOLS. Hope that's clear. We don't want schools closed we want them open. You are lucky (so far) if you have not been affected. But many many schools have and have now been forced to close due to lack of staff. WHAT TEACHERS WANT IS SAFER SCHOOLS SO WE CAN STAY OPEN. And yes I am shouting because it's so simple but people don't get it.
The current mess of in/out for many students is so harming.
And we are talking about secondary schools. So your 7 year old will be fine unless they are a child prodigy.

NO ONE EVER IN THE HISTORY OF COVID HAS SAID CLOSE ALL SCHOOLS

They have though. You haven't, fair enough, I don't know any teachers who have either, but some people actually have said that and are continuing to shout "#closetheschools NOW ffs!" at politicians on Twitter.

I don't think it's fair to say that teachers who want schools open but safe are secretly campaigning for closure, they're obviously not, but at the same time there really have been calls for all schools to close and a lot of parents are somewhat jumpy around that.

I guess the problem is defining what makes a school safe. My kids school have had no cases, two staff members have had to self isolate through close contact outside of school otherwise staff have been in work. The school are very tight on cleaning and keeping to guidance, the school is safe in my view and I wouldn’t support it closing.

My kids school are so strict when it comes to covid I honestly don’t think they could do more. Personally I’d rather my kids were in school so I’m glad the government is also pushing for schools to stay open.

Some people do want schools closed though and have said so.

I don't disagree about making schools safer. Hopefully this mass testing that is planned for January will help with that.

It tickles me that the general public couldn’t be trusted to vote correctly for Brexit but should be trusted to decide whether schools close or not.

Well I have never heard one teacher call for schools to be closed. Mainly cos it's loads more work for us ! But the current model is not working.
Safer is quite easy. Masks in rooms, screens, some blended learning if needed to ensure corridors are not heaving. And testing, not by teachers but by medical staff (as was promised in Sept).
Please don't think this won't happen to you. Our school has bubbles, regular cleaning, gallons of sanitiser and masks in corridors. Staff never in same room as another one (except poor LSAs). But still we have been hit hard. It's a pesky virus.

Mass testing is currently supposed to be undertaken by school staff. From 2m ? I'm not v gentle and will likely maim many children

mums one teacher on here told me that my 6 year old can learn in a room on his own whilst I worked in a separate room and when I questioned this, suggested he had behavioural issues if he could not.

That is one person, and I know most teachers only want safer schools and its horrific that its not happened.

The message on here gets so mixed. I don't support a blanket closer of schools but I do think decisions should at times be made locally.

I am not really sure how a teacher can be expected to do a test!

We don't need all secondary school children tested once a week, I would much prefer its targeted at areas that need it most and extra resources in place for kids who have missed the most school.

Also i would start vaccinating teachers this week and then 2nd jag in January.

We don't know about long term effects on Under 18's and the possible link to increased Type 1 diabetes is worrying.

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/201473/covid-19-linked-increase-type-diabetes-children/

@Covidnomore when you say teachers should be vaccinated now, effectively what you are saying is that teachers should be prioritised above the care home elderly and NHS staff. Is that genuinely the order you think it should go in ?

@Covidnomore vaccine would be lovely. I'm 53 with a heart issue and it would make me safe. But Government won't offer it to school staff as then they'll have to admit that schools are not COVID safe. Which any idiot knows but then this is the government we are talking about.

@rookiemere not above, at the same time. And I say that as a mother of a medical student and daughter of a care home resident. We are currently at same risk unfortunately and to get schools back to normal sooner we need to stop getting sick.

But @mumsneedwine there aren't enough vaccines or resources to do everyone in the first tranche. So the government and scientists have to make hard choices.

I also believe that teachers - particularly those with health conditions - should be high up the list, but the hard fact at the minute is vaccination priority is being given to reduce mortality rates. The government can't magic up more vaccines until they get approved.

@rookiemere no but they could do what France is doing and at least put us on some priority list. As currently we are not. I may get it around Easter if I'm lucky. Let's just hope I don't get it eh.

rookie care home elderly and NHS staff are not the only ones being vaccinated at the moment.

I don't see why teachers are not in the highest group for vaccinating, at least in the hardest hit areas and those most vulnerable.

There is no ideal answer. Hopefully the Oxford Vaccine will be approved very soon which will increase the capacity.

Teachers probably need the vaccine more than some NHS staff. Obviously frontline NHS should be prioritised but some NHS staff don't have any contact with patients at all. Some work from home. Do they need the vaccine ahead of teachers who are surrounded by hundreds of kids all day?

I agree it's surprising that teachers aren't in any of the priority categories for the vaccine.

I think the vaccine prioritisation is a really interesting debate and also controversially I think the government has done a decent show of putting faith orders in for multiple vaccines at a point at which not many believed that a reliable vaccine could even be developed.

An alternative to focusing on reducing mortality could be reducing spread and somewhere like a school is well placed to deliver mass vaccinations to pupils and teachers alike ,in a way that multiple care homes are not.

Sadly the vaccine cannot be delivered fast enough. My octogenarian DPs in Scotland believe it will be February before they get it, I'm over 50 and I reckon summertime for me. Hope it can be done faster.

@trulydelicious

Both the virus and these new vaccines carry risks

That’s right.

Risks of Covid: being seriously unwell for a week or three; permanent disablement; death. Probability of these varies massively with age and health status but even the young and ostensibly healthy can suffer badly.

Risks of the vaccine: sore arm/fever/feeling fluey - self-limiting in a few days, take paracetamol if you need to; anaphylactoid reaction - hence, advice to those with previous allergic reaction not to have the Pfizer vaccine, and requirement for everyone to wait 15 minutes after administration; something as yet unknown - but rare, because IT HAS NOT YET HAPPENED. If it happens, it will be one in many tens, probably hundreds, of thousands. And for almost everyone, the risks from Covid are higher than that. Perhaps not for fit young adults, but by the time they are offered vaccines, there will have been millions of older adults vaccinated and it is likely that any rare side effects will have emerged. So advice to younger adults may change.

There are several threads where posters express concerns regarding Covid vaccines being so new (mRNA) and the fact that delayed onset side effects are not known.

That is partly because delayed onset side effects have never happened with any other vaccine. Scientists have not to my knowledge suggested any mechanism by which that can happen.

When they do this they are flamed and are told that they should be forced to have the vaccine anyway as they should do their bit for the sake of the herd (by forced I mean services being refused to them if they do not comply)

There’s no need to flame people. The government have said the vaccine will not be made mandatory. Personally I believe them.

The frustrating thing here is that people keep on talking about the risks of the vaccine and appear to pay no attention whatsoever to the comprehensive explanations which have been given multiple times about why their concerns are not well founded.