If you're keeping primary kids home - how and why?

[Indecisivelurcher]

What I mean is, those parents choosing to keep primary aged children at home for a couple more weeks. Why? As in, do you think something will change in a couple more weeks? Options being schools will shut totally. Or the new variant will be shown to be no higher risk to children? I suppose I mean, what good is a couple more weeks? And how, I mean how are you managing around work, are you using leave? Are you working around the kids? In the first lockdown I was luckily able to reduce my hours, and then later on dh was furloughed. But neither option is available now as it would be personal choice.

I'm keeping mine home because I'm CEV and DH is mid fifties. Yes, we're still more likely to survive it than not, but if I get it, I don't want to at the point at which hospitals are on their knees and the standard of care is lower. Or where someone younger or healthier gets my spot in ICU.

That's the selfish reason. Unselfishly, the government are being utterly irresponsible opening schools when hospitals are so overstretched. I'm in tier three and the hospital is being filled up with patients from tier 4 over 100 miles away. Obviously the right thing to do, but if hospitals in lower tier areas are to support other places then we need our local rates to stay low.

Lastly - solidarity with the teachers. They've been treated appallingly through this and scapegoated by the people who should be protecting them. Schools should not be open in their current form when Covid is so rife.

(As for how, fuck knows, I'll worry about it on Monday)

@oohmamama

Zoe is saying Schools are not safe.

Yes this is because of how Schools fit into the wider Community.

But also the new more transmissible strain of Covid and no mitigation measures in Primary Schools is a game changer, education settings are now the number one infection risk location even above shopping, are you aware of this new clinical evidence from the past few days?

Mine is home until Spring at least - I deregistered her since Gavin Williamson was set on fines for missed attendance 🙄

My child is very young, I’m available to teach her at home and happy to do it, so for us it made sense. Mostly I just wanted to give her certainty and stability instead of the constant ‘schools might close’ thing. Plus I was unhappy with the quality of life at our school under their new covid procedures.

@oohmamama I don't understand why in the face of overwhelming clinical evidence people think they need to shield their children from this? I am following the clinical evidence , I am CEV and my children cannot due to their disabilities able to distance from me.

On the how, move to voice call not video call (ask or claim a problem with IT). Do all calls on a mobile and mute yourself unless you are speaking. Deal with the children with your body and keep your mind on the call. So much of parenting is physical and can happen without needing to speak much.

[quote NotSoHappyNewTier]@oohmamama

Zoe is saying Schools are not safe.

Yes this is because of how Schools fit into the wider Community.

But also the new more transmissible strain of Covid and no mitigation measures in Primary Schools is a game changer, education settings are now the number one infection risk location even above shopping, are you aware of this new clinical evidence from the past few days?[/quote]

I can't make my point any clearer to you.

What I am saying is that I understand and accept all the other reasons for not sending your children to school

What I don't understand is parents who are fearful of their non clinically vulnerable children getting sick from covid. Because it does not happen.

[quote AldiAisleofCrap]**@oohmamama* I don't understand why in the face of overwhelming clinical evidence people think they need to shield their children from this?* I am following the clinical evidence , I am CEV and my children cannot due to their disabilities able to distance from me.[/quote]

And as I have already said - I understand this reasoning.

What I don't understand is why people are keeping their kids off because they are worried about them getting sick.

Non clinically vulnerable children do not get seriously ill from covid.

@oohmamama

The new variant is the concern as nobody knows the impact which is an added risk with a novel virus.

What evidence are you using to back up your statement that Children are not affected?

Non clinically vulnerable children do not get seriously ill from covid.

We have a new variant. It treats children more like adults.

We haven't yet had a chance to see exactly what that means in terms of illness progression. It's positive that children are not getting sicker. However there is no doubt that there will be much greater numbers of children who are ill and a proportion of those will require medical care. Even if that is a small proportion of the total number, it may be a very large number if the figures involved are high enough.

Your comment is simplistic and misleading. Until we know more, we could say that you may well be generally right. That's not good enough with the health service on its knees, transmission 50% better and opening non-distancing schools on the agenda. It could go wrong and you, with no accountability, would be nowhere in sight, just as those urging everyone to go on holiday back in March were nowhere to be found during the April surge.

@oohmamama What I don't understand is why people are keeping their kids off because they are worried about them getting sick.
Missed that, well if I wasn’t CEV I would be sending my kids in next week primarily because I would want to do my part in keeping others safe. Also I would worry about long Covid re my teen.
And thirdly we do t know what long term damage Covid-19 could do to children, so if the rates are sky high it’s just safer for them to be at home fur everyone’s sake.

My main concern that the children will bring it home to me/ my partner. Even if we aren't hospitalised I dread the thought of me and DP both being ill and unable to look after our children. I also know a number of people in their 30s and 40s with long covid. One is off work for 3 months already. Death isn't the only negative outcome, many people would lose their jobs with 3 months off sick.

I also worry about possible worse impacts on the DC from the new variant. I think the risk is low but I would like to wait and see more data before sending the DC back.

I'm undecided what to do next week but it seems inevitable that schools will close soon anyway.

@Satsumatrifle

Non clinically vulnerable children do not get seriously ill from covid.

We have a new variant. It treats children more like adults.

We haven't yet had a chance to see exactly what that means in terms of illness progression. It's positive that children are not getting sicker. However there is no doubt that there will be much greater numbers of children who are ill and a proportion of those will require medical care. Even if that is a small proportion of the total number, it may be a very large number if the figures involved are high enough.

Your comment is simplistic and misleading. Until we know more, we could say that you may well be generally right. That's not good enough with the health service on its knees, transmission 50% better and opening non-distancing schools on the agenda. It could go wrong and you, with no accountability, would be nowhere in sight, just as those urging everyone to go on holiday back in March were nowhere to be found during the April surge.

Where is your evidence that the new strain 'treats children more like adults'?

@Satsumatrifle

Non clinically vulnerable children do not get seriously ill from covid.

We have a new variant. It treats children more like adults.

We haven't yet had a chance to see exactly what that means in terms of illness progression. It's positive that children are not getting sicker. However there is no doubt that there will be much greater numbers of children who are ill and a proportion of those will require medical care. Even if that is a small proportion of the total number, it may be a very large number if the figures involved are high enough.

Your comment is simplistic and misleading. Until we know more, we could say that you may well be generally right. That's not good enough with the health service on its knees, transmission 50% better and opening non-distancing schools on the agenda. It could go wrong and you, with no accountability, would be nowhere in sight, just as those urging everyone to go on holiday back in March were nowhere to be found during the April surge.

But I'm not urging people to go back to school.

I've said I agree with every reason for not sending children back to school.

Other than they are worried for their children's health because there is, at present, no need to be concerned about children's health.

Children do not have the receptors for the virus which is why they don't get sick or long covid. It would take a seriously fundamental change in the virus to enable this to happen. If you don't understand how viruses work you might struggle to understand this - which is why it's important to listen to the scientists on it.

All this change has done is to increase transmissibility.

And of course increased transmissibility means more seriously sick children, that's how correlation works. But there is no increase in vulnerability if they're not already ECV.

[quote NotSoHappyNewTier]@oohmamama

The new variant is the concern as nobody knows the impact which is an added risk with a novel virus.

What evidence are you using to back up your statement that Children are not affected?[/quote]

If you understand the changes that have caused the new variant you will understand why there is no change to the risk to children - see my previous post. Of course, no published research as yet.

Positive clinical evidence of this is that there has been zero increase in the admission of children since the new strain emerged.

Honestly I'm not even sure why I'm posting. I don't necessarily agree with children going back. I think I'm just fed up with the fear which is being unnecesssarily peddled. I would hate to be someone who is anxious already reading these threads full of half truths by people who don't understand the science of the virus.

Keeping mine off. Y5 and reception. Youngest is ECV. Not worth the risk. I've been honest and the school said it will go down as unauthorised......so be it. Fine me if they like.

Keeping mine off. In the Midlands in tier four and the rate of infection in the school area is 800 in 100,000 but as the towns average is less that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone in charge (it’s 440 for the town as a whole).

I will lie when they are due in on Tuesday if there hasn’t been a U-Turn.

When my kids get viral illnesses they always go to their chest and it takes ages to clear. The same for me. Both myself and OH aren’t in the greatest health anyway (hypertension. Always vitamin D deficient despite supplements) but trying to rectify that.

I was happy to send them in prior to Xmas but The rate is high and it’s only going to get higher

If I need to then I will deregister and try homeschooling for a year. Mine are still under 8 so they are still young. I am also lucky enough in some respects to be able to shift all of my work to evening work if needed as self employed. That’s the only benefit of being self employed for me at the minute!

Phew, DD's school has just emailed to say they've taken the decision to close.

That's 6 out of 28 primary schools in my town have now announced they're closed and 1 more has announced a last minute inset day tomorrow while they consider closing.

This is a shit show, the country has totally lost faith in the government.

We've got an inset day tomorrow. But with no vulnerable people at home, we are happy for dd & ds to go in on Tuesday. I expect it'll send rates up across the country though.

Dd school has just sent a bit of heavy handed email basically nipping any excuses in the bud.

The one that gets me is that they are saying "if your child has been in contact with someone in the support bubble who has symptoms, that person must get a test. If it's positive the child must get a test also. There are no exceptions to this".

Well, what if my family member, who is in our support bubble was here on Friday and came down with symptoms today.

What if he didn't get a test? He doesn't go out of his house anyway, has a shopping delivery booked for each week. Just self isolating for 14 days is no great shakes to him so that's what he's decided to do. No benefit of getting a test if he is retired and needs no time off work etc.

Dd doesn't have symptoms, but we should self isolate for ten days because we were in contact with him in the 48 hrs before symptoms started.

So what would they like us to do? Insist the family member has a test?

@oohmamama

I don't understand the 'keep my children safe' argument.

I get the 'one less child to teach' argument

I get the 'one less child to spread it to the vulnerable' argument

I don't understand why in the face of overwhelming clinical evidence people think they need to shield their children from this?

Perhaps your children aren't clinically vulnerable? No disabilities or conditions which make them much more likely to die of covid? Well congratulations if that's the case. Turns out not everybody's life experience is the same as our own, who knew eh?

If it's all the same to you I would prefer to be alive to raise my child. If I catch Covid i have a much higher chance of dying that the average woman my age. Or is my desire to live also difficult to understand?

The main point you seem to be missing is that people's health varies wildly from child to child and parent to parent, stop generalising.

@DayBath

As I previously said - I understand the argument to protect the clinically vulnerable.

I don't understand the argument that somehow covid is dangerous to non CV children.

I'm sorry you are finding covid tough, having clinically vulnerable children must make it very difficult.

For the first time in all of this, I am more wary of sending my child into school this week. It’s not because of the CV risk to her, or us. It’s because of what the scientists are saying, because more info is needed about the new strain, because locally we’ve jumped from t2 to T4 overnight, because case numbers across the country are becoming out of control, because of the impact on the NHS, and finally because of the working conditions teachers and school staff are being expected to work in due to all of the above. It’s not just about my child or my household.

Keeping ours home (one primary aged child). Why? All the reasons. One less child in a classroom, one less contact for her poor teacher, numbers are crazy high, numbers in our area are rocketing fast, hospitals are already struggling so why add to that, and also, frankly, although we're in the "not at risk" categories, even the young and fit can get a pretty bad bout of illness even if you don't need a hospital bed, and I've got too many younger children (including newborn) in the house to want to risk trying to have to look after them whilst wishing I could sleep all day. And the whole long covid thing. I'm not arrogant enough to presume it wouldn't affect me the same as it might affect anyone else.

How? I'm a stay at home mum and a former primary school teacher, with several years experience teaching my child's year group. So I am definitely one of the lucky ones. Though I hated it last March with toddlers competing for attention.... and I'd never choose homeschooling as a way if life, but for now I consider it wisest. I regret my child missing out on the social side, but we have other kids in the house for her to play with, and she's getting better at video chats...

I'm hoping it'll not be a long stint, so maybe if schools close in the next week or two, numbers will fall and we'll feel able to pop her back in thereafter. As it stands though, the govt seem to be driving numbers up, so I guess it could be a long slog for us....

Our school are opening but have said be extra careful and if there is the slightest doubt our child is unwell to get tested.

Our council has said they will not be taking action if Parents don’t send kids to school.

Really interesting reading this thread and seeing how many people are considering not sending their children back to school.

Wondering how many of those have socialised, seen family and shopped up to and over Christmas. Seems a bit hypocritical if so.