Looking likely schools will close. When should they be allowed to open?

[Billie18]

For those that believe they should close what would have to change for you to be happy with them opening? Is it a level of vaccinations if so what level? A lower daily hospital admission or death rate? Extra PPE? More Social distancing measures? Or is there a time limit on how long you think children should not be in school? Do you see any of these things changing in the near future?

Will just say that in my opinion they should stay open and I'm very concerned that they are closing.

Speaking out for who @Billie18
Are you somebody’s hero?

Yes I agree with this hopefully a rota could mean all kids get to be in school and have some face to face learning. There does really need to be some sort of plan in place.

@RickOShay

Quite a few people are dying though 474 today. How did those people catch covid in the first place?

You don’t know it came from a school either though...

It started in China supposedly not a primary school down the road so could be caught anyway

I give up

Ever thought about working for the government @HeyBaby2020?
I think you would fit in well.

I am sorry I’m being a bit grumpy tonight, I love my job and my class and care about every one of them and just think it’s so unfair on them because I know they love school and we’re so happy to be back in September! Some of them have horrible home lives (not all obviously)

Hope it is a short term closure and this time next month we can be back in class x

I hope schools do open as I'm a key worker along with my husband and if school is closed I will be stuck re childcare. I work in pathology labs in hospitals testing patients samples. We are already very short staffed and with vulnerable staff isolating thats making a 24 hour shift rota difficult enough. You want to stay safe, you want your children and teachers safe at home. But when you fall ill or need your/family members to be treated or to have surgery or any bloods taken you expect a full service in the nhs. But its us invisible staff that run this service for you. We are also real people, with families. But we continue to work as we care about the people who need help. We may not be doctors or nurses but we also exist! Nobody ever thinks of us as we're invisible. Elective surgeries/emergency surgery /A&E/intensive care /wards/gp services etc all need us to keep working in order to run. Closing schools is not helping anyone. But I do understand that people need to be safe. Its such a difficult situation. Really don't know what the solution is. But if schools don't open... Well the public are not going to recover from the impact on the health care system. It is dire for everyone.

@RickOShay

Quite a few people are dying though 474 today. How did those people catch covid in the first place?

From gov.uk regarding the deaths recorded today -The patients were aged between 30 and 107 and all except 18 of those had known underlying health conditions.

Median age of death is 82. So unlikely that many people over 82 with a pre existing health condition will still be working in school.

@RickOShay

I give up

Did you say what you wanted for schools to be able to open? I'm sorry if you did because I must have missed it.

But the median age being 82 means that half the people who died are under that age. There are quite a lot of people working in schools, and being parents of school pupils, who have underlying conditions. Why do people keep spouting this "underlying conditions" as somehow is ok that they died? I have diabetes. If I die, I'll be included in the stats as having an underlying condition. But I'm only early 40s, and if my mum is anything to go by (also diabetic) I have at least another 35 years of life left in me.

Schools could be made safer by
Rotas for part time school (SD is easier, not allowed by DfE)
Masks being worn by all staff and pupils in lessons (masks would only be effective if everyone is wearing them, but not allowed by DfE)
Using larger public buildings to teach in (community centres, churches, etc, not allowed by DfE, as well as being a logistical nightmare to try to organise)

Those are just off the top of my head. Many things have been suggested by teachers and their unions. All have been vetoed, by the DfE. So now, schools are driving up infections (who could have predicted that?!) And all that's left to do now is move to remote learning to try to get infection rates lower.

For SAGE recommendations to be implemented. Which I believe is to close secondary schools for January, and we don’t know what else. If there isn’t anymore detail for an independent working group to re-evaluate what measures are effective as we have more evidence than we did in September

@Billie18 you are aware of the spectrum for underlying health conditions aren’t you abscess to warts are covered by that umbrella most of them wouldn’t shorten a life span. That’s the bit getting people in a tizzy

@MsAwesomeDragon
The reason rotas are not allowed is because the effects of rotas are likely to be worse than the effects of completely closing schools and focussing on remote learning. Rota systems also don't work in combination with keeping full time places available for vulnerable children and children of key workers.

When the scientist have found out why this mutation is faster spreading & how the spread can be stopped. If children are the superspreaders, then why not vaccinate them to slow the spread down? I know they are the least likely to die but most likely to transmit the virus. That way teachers would feel safer & families on a whole would have less chance of catching it.

I'm sorry but supermarkets are just as unsafe as school... Yes people are wearing masks ( not all tho and no Children are) I think the same amount of children come through a supermarket in a day than there are at a school. Also yes you can control. Numbers in store but once those people are in store they can do and go where they want, a sticker on the floor will not control where a customer goes .. 400 people are allowed in our local store... Doesn't mean they will be spread out etc, they can all cram down one aisle . Then you have loads of customers touching the same products/ trollies /payment terminals etc. Also in a school you can use your authority to stop people getting too close especially secondary school. however some poor 16 year old working in asda isn't going to tell Dave that is built Like a brick Shit House to remember to stay 2 meters from people is he..

Can you imagine the absolute uproar if all supermarket workers went down the section 44 route and were forced to close... You wouldn't all be saying good for you to the supermarket workers would you.

I think there are some key differences between supermarkets and schools though:

1. In supermarkets, staff and customers are supposed to wear masks. Even if the customer is not wearing one, the employee can. In classrooms the government has specifically prohibited the wearing of masks for teachers and students.

1. When people are wearing masks, the risk is only heightened after significant time spent together, around 15 minutes. The longer you are together, the greater the risk. Personally, I have never spent 15 minutes close to a supermarket worker, not even when I'm shopping at the till (and there's the added protection of the Perspex glass there). However, teachers will spend at least an hour in a poorly ventilated room in close contact with students. If I'm teaching A level, then I regularly have two hour lessons. This increases the risks further. At my daughter's college, she has three hour lessons. That's three hours in a poorly ventilated room with no masks on, all breathing in the same air.

The National Geographic has produced this chart on the risk factors... look at how much the risk increases over time.

I think these are significant differences.

@TrySarahTops
Those graphs are demonstrably nonsense I'm afraid. Not only are the masks worn by the public nothing like N95 masks (and the use of such masks wouldn't be appropriate without training people on their proper use) making the graph on on left irrelevant but it simply isn't true that in the absence of masks that even prolonged contact with an infected individual can guarantee infection (which can be seen by the relatively large number of people who don't pass the virus onto their spouse or partner who they are sharing a bed with).

@StatisticalSense

Fair point, but the point I'm trying to make is that the risk increases the longer you are together. Maybe this chart analysing the risk from the BMJ illustrates the point more accurately?

Aaaggh not letting me show the pic. Here's the link to the article:

www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3223

If you can't see the chart, it essentially says:

Indoors, well ventilated, short time (next to any person, given flow of customers) and masks = low risk (Supermarket)

Indoors, poorly ventilated, highly populated, no masks = high risk (Classroom)

Teacher here. I'll be going in for as long as we're open and I 100% do not support any school closures.

Two problems with school closures: a) if we close schools because infection rates are high then we won’t reopen until April at the earliest b) there is no plan to teach over the Summer to make up for this. I could accept school closures if there was a plan for how to catch up.

@SaltyAF

When the public has got behind school staff to demand that schools are genuinely made safer, and when funding has been put in place to facilitate measures to make them so.

This.

God this just goes round and round, doesn't it? Schools weren't closed for six months. No-one missed more than three and a half. Quit the cringe worthy hyperbole.

Nobody will ever agree what ‘safer’ means. If supermarket staff refused to work until their shops were ‘safer’ then who would agree what that meant?

Can anywhere be made ‘safer?’ Is there a consensus amongst teachers about what that means? I work in an nhs office where several caught covid despite all safety measures. Should we close?