Kids more likely to get new strain...

[Ohbabybab]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKBN28V2EV

Do you think this will mean school closures?

@CountessFrog

It’s a kick in the teeth, they are knackered. Home working staff getting vaccinated while the covid ITU staff aren’t offered??

Nah.

Absolutely! That's terrible.

How has that happened CountessFrog? As far as I’m aware in our trust all ITU staff have been offered and they are working their way through different staff groups.

As a secondary teacher I can confirm that only Years 11 and 13 are back after the holiday. The other year groups are doing remote learning for the first week at least. I have no idea how long this will last for but I have already had to start thinking about planning totally different lessons.

In a teacher and so far I have been very lucky in that I seem to have developed an immunity of steel over the last 15 years. I've always tended to work with the small ones so an constantly coughed on. My first year of teaching was nothing short of horrific in terms of illnesses but after that I seemed to be fine. I appreciate not all teachers are the same though and am not sure I'd like to think I'll just take my chances and hope for the best.

I think the answer we are looking for is already here - we need to test pupils across the board regularly, isolate close contacts of those who test positive and do away with this ridiculous notion that you can test in place of isolation with tests that are known to result in some false negatives. We also need to look at ventilation in schools and sort this out and masks need to be worn in classrooms for those in secondary and potentially year 6 in primary schools. I say potentially as we don't currently know the viral load of those on the cusp of being teenagers. I also think vaccinating teachers would go to some way of ensuring staff won't need to continually self isolate and therefore have less disruption in schools.

I don't think it is possible for us to have nightingale schools in order to make class sizes smaller as some schools and areas simply don't have the space. Other suggestions might be for those who have space to have ports cabins placed on site which might support some distancing, but the reality is we just need to keep testing, isolating close contacts and get all students to wear masks to attempt to stop the spread - particularly in older year groups and most definitely in secondary.

If proportionally more children catch the virus, we will then start to hear about more children who have poor outcomes, including mis-c, and no one will want that. I think we need to learn a lesson here that we can't let a section of society act as a Petri dish potentially hosting another mutation which could lead to more severe disease. We need to suppress the virus more.

I'm not for introducing a rota system for primary school children but don't know enough about how it might or might not work successfully in secondary to make a judgement there - I'll leave that to my secondary colleagues.

@CountessFrog

Yes. When home working staff are being vaccinated in the same trust.

Wouldn’t you?

I can’t understand why the NHS/social care staff who cannot work aren’t prioritised but equally, too many people working from home contributed to an overall poorer standard of care. I say this as someone in a (social care )client facing role who really wants to be ‘out there’, not working with very vulnerable people in a virtual way.

Bert I find your posts sensible as per usual

@MarshaBradyo

Bert I find your posts sensible as per usual

I may have my fingers in my ears a little with it all and am really REALLY hanging onto the hope that the children who catch the virus tend to have little to no symptoms at all. If it was found out to be otherwise, all bets are off the table at that point and I think I'd be keeping my children zipped in a bubble bag or something.

I also think those who have families who are ECV or CV should be allowed to take their children out of school without being fined as that's a crock of shit right now.

Parents should absolutely be allowed to keep their children at home without fines.

They can't seriously fine parents who want to err on the side of caution now, surely?

@ragged

Death rates in March-April of wave 1 by occupation, men.

... Women's data in the March-June period.

I don't think teachers are near the top of the list.

Thank you for posting.

That's what I had found as well. Data from when only keyworkers were in. I was assuming everyone up thread had seen data from the last month or so when we've been running as normal.

How can anyone think that teachers aren't at more risk than other occupations using data from when schools were mainly closed.

For comparison, this period in my school we had approximately 14 children a day rather than 450 that we've had this term.

If an NHS trust has people working from home and chooses to vaccinate them isn’t the reason because they’re ECV and it would allow them to go back into the work place? Staff who aren’t patient facing are not eligible for the vaccine

I think in the short term things are so out of control they have no option but to close the schools. Things feel totally different today than they were even a week ago. Countries are literally closing their borders to us and we are being warned about possible food shortages. We have got to get the R rate and case numbers down and that's the end of it.

Of course keyworker and vulnerable kids would still need to be offered places like the March lockdown. They can utilise the furlough scheme for other working parents who don't have other childcare options. I think that should include parents of primary kids who work from home. I can't even imagine the stress of trying to juggle looking after a little one and the demands of a job that people went through last lockdown.

Longer term, they need to address school safety - the mass testing is a good idea but it needs to be combined with other mitigations - this could be blended learning, temperature checks, masks, proper filtration systems, or allowing parents who are in a position to, to temporarily home educate etc.

It will definitely help to get teachers and other school staff vaccinated - obviously NHS and other care staff would need to be prioritised, but following that teachers need to be on a priority list. There's a petition here for anyone who wants to sign
petition.parliament.uk/petitions/554316

The plan to keep kids in school who are close contacts of positive cases on the basis of daily lateral flow tests needs to be binned - the tests miss about 50% of positive cases so this plan is frankly dangerous (especially if this new strain is as infectious as they are saying).

The ONS have been hauled over the coals for using fudged data more recently with regard to risk according to occupation. Teachers were near the top, but even so, the numbers were incorrectly presented in the graph, and they would otherwise have been even higher.
@noelgiraffe posted it all at the time. Can't find it now.

Tonight my family has had a zoom call working out how we can work out childcare for my single Mum sister who works full time. Who is going to bubble up. Who out of my other sister and brother in law is taking leave to be at home...
Who will do shopping for our Great Granny, there is so much !
We are doing everything we can to preplan bubbles and pickups. It’s complicated so the conversation needs to start now.

ONS data issue cleared up

www.ons.gov.uk/news/statementsandletters/onsstatementaddressingquestionsaroundtheanalysisofthenumberofschoolworkerskeyworkersandotherprofessionsinenglandwhohadcovid19

You can't "just use furlough" for working parents. You can't be furloughed in the public sector as the job needs to be done, yet your children's school might take their own decision that you're not a key worker. Working parents in the public sector were fucked over last time, and will be again. Don't assume that everyone can and will "just be furloughed".

I'm a secondary LSA (so right in the thick of it in school) and don't feel I need vaccinating over and above more vulnerable groups. I accepted the roll of the dice long ago... but I'm fortunate to be healthy and a low risk age, plus my family don't mix with anyone elderly or vulnerable as our extended family live hours away. I don't go anywhere but to school for work and back, shopping delivered etc.

I will be devastated to see schools close, but if things are really that bad I'm not sure there will be much choice.

That's interesting @MarshaBradyo thanks for posting that. Did we ever get to know who constitutes the mysterious group of professionals who seem to have more prevalence than the key worker group? The key worker group, remember, was restricted to health care and care home staff wasn't it. Teachers had slightly more risk than them. But the "professionals" criteria wasn't defined, and isn't any more clear with the ONS clear up statement.

The secondary school I work for is bringing in instant testing apparently

Barbie yes I had wondered the same and on the graphs thread a poster MRex clarified here’s the post:

www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/standardoccupationalclassificationsoc/soc2020 - here's the detail. It's basically anyone with a degree.

I found it odd that that group was so high tbh!

@Dahlietta

But in terms of priority for a vaccine, someone working in Covid ITU is much more important than somebody working from home, surely? I would say that the fact that this is not acknowledged, after all the stress of the year so far, is provoking a perfectly understandable reaction in *@CountessFrog*'s husband.

Yes I agree with that too.

I am a teacher and I donwant testing, masks or a vaccination. The teenagers I teach are low risk, as am I, and have jumped through enough hoops already. Either have them in as normal or declare distance learning and do it properly. I can't be doing with rotas and tests and restrictions.