Can we unlock the schools at start of Feb?

[MeandT]

I'm totally supportive of the lockdown BUT by the end of next week, case numbers nationally will be the same as they were at end of November. Hospital admissions are falling again.

Rather than going back into tiers with the shops and food pubs open (where all the spreading happened in December), can we not issue all the teachers with N95 masks (and vaccines for the clinically vulnerable), make all the kids wear triple layer face masks all the time, and just get on with the important job of educating this country's kids in person? Starting again 1st of Feb.

AIBU to ask if we can send the kids back as soon as we hit the case rate we unlocked at on 2nd December?

IABU= no way, the cases will shoot up too quickly again, even if they all wear masks all day.

IANBU = yes, get them back before half term, the only reason it went nuts in December was because everyone was out Christmas shopping and seeing family.

As they've said they'll give two weeks notice to reopen they would have to announce tomorrow in order to reopen in early Feb.

Falling figures look to be regional. NW and NE are starting to see some troublesome areas again. I suspect either they'll wait until figures are very much down nationally - at least to 5000/day or less, preferably 1000/day (if we drop at 20%/week that will take a while) or reopen on a regional basis as was mooted before.

YABU.

Wasn’t there a voting thing on here earlier? Or is my tenuous grip of the plot I thought I had now totally gone ?

It's probably been moved to Coronavirus topic. Pity there isn't a voting option in this topic

@ineedaholidaynow

It's probably been moved to Coronavirus topic. Pity there isn't a voting option in this topic

I agree. It was about 75%yAbu when I saw it last.

Let's get schools open ASAP.

So not my imagination,.that's a relief. Yes was about 75% YABU when I saw it.

@rosie1959

The only country still in lockdown ? France Spain Germany Italy ..........

For the sake of accuracy/info France isn't in lockdown, but it is in a 6PM to 6AM curfew.

No, unless teachers are prepared to test everyday, everyone wears masks, groups are much smaller and bubbles kept apart, so no mixing of teachers etc

That won’t happen, so no

I think your forgetting that numbers at the end of November were very high. Just because that’s when we loosened restrictions before doesn’t mean that’s when we should reopen schools again.

They need to be much much lower than that before we consider anything.

The new strain is complicating matters because of transmission rate. From what I can make out. It's not just a numbers game.

The start of Feb is earlier than earliest predictions, it’s a little over a week away.

[quote notimagain]@rosie1959

The only country still in lockdown ? France Spain Germany Italy ..........

For the sake of accuracy/info France isn't in lockdown, but it is in a 6PM to 6AM curfew.[/quote]
Primary schools still open in Italy.

No.
They need to vaccinate all school staff. (Two doses, not the half arsed single dose plan.)
Masks for all and staggered classes. I don't think it'll be safe until after Easter.
And not to open pubs and restaurants yet. Schools need a fighting chance of making it though the last term.

Until the government comes up with a serious and comprehensive plan to make schools safe we are going to continue ending up in this mess with bubbles bursting left, right and center.

@kowari

I agree, they need to go back. Primary full time and secondary part time for now I think.

This. My 4 year old misses her class so much and her teacher was happy to go back after Christmas until Boris closed them. She's still in anyway with keyworker children plus in an evening doing the work and reviews of home schoolers, so has more work now.

Italy put billions of euros into their schools to make them safer.

We have done very little, bar give them a load of lateral flow tests, which the MHRA think are unsuitable for the original purpose.

We could open schools a lot quicker if we put measures in place to make them safe.

So if we repeat what happened in November when we came out of lockdown we might get a month or two then face this all over again.
We need to get numbers right down and have a serious plan in place to make it possible for all children to return to school.
I really hope we learn from the mistakes in September and don’t just open all schools as they were before.

I was under the impression the government have already said no schools will reopen until AFTER half term at the earliest. That means Monday 22nd February. 2 weeks notice for that would be Monday 8th February... That's still awhile away. Do it's not completely impossible yet!

Fwiw, I reckon primaries could probably open then. But only them. Nothing else as well. Secondaries will be most likely not until after Easter. Or maybe on a rota system if before then.

She's still in anyway with keyworker children plus in an evening doing the work and reviews of home schoolers, so has more work now.

It’s not about individual teachers wishes and workload though. I would imagine most teachers have a higher workload than now, that doesn’t mean schools should open.

School staff members are mostly (though, not those in Sp Ed) coming into contact with fewer people now though, which I think on the whole, is making schools safer and helping reduce transmission.

Plan for Easter return any earlier is a bonus

We want this to be the last lockdown and no more in-out nonsense so we need to get it right this time.

Masks won't solve shared toilets. Everyone forgets that covid is present in fecal matter and urine which has shown to be aerosolised when the toilet is flushed without the lid down. Ever notice a similar trend in school and public toilets? That's right. Never any damn lids on the things.

Also there's never enough toilets in schools for the bubble system to work. My daughter's class has had to share it's loo with 2 other bubbles and as a result they were out of school more than they were in because of endless spread back and forth.

Schools need money to solve these issues, money that the government refuses to bloody give them. If they hired a set of portable toilets it would ensure at least in primary schools that bubbles could be separated properly. God only knows about high schools though.

Yes I think they should, at least part time. Household mixing is massive at the moment, a large percentage of kids are either in school or in someone else's home in a childcare bubble or has someone coming into their home to teach. Our school has at least 25% in and then must be. 10% being conservative in a childcare bubble, that's 150 families mixing but without safety measures you get in school.

There's also the safety issue, every man and his dog have offered to teach my kids or entertain them for an hour when I work. What other situation would we even imagine leaving a 5 year old alone infront of a webcam with an adult we barely know (I have politely declined each time)

Schools have been closed for 5 weeks now with minimal change in figures. Primary schools in most areas were fine to be open. Ours have never had a case.

So I say primaries opening where covid levels are stable but further restrictions on other activities and investigation into business allowing adults to mix at work without protection when it's not necessary to do out of home.

Of course it is horrible that people are dying, but death is actually what will happen to sll of us anyway -and for arbitrary and unfair reasons. Shakespeare died at 52 - an unbearable waste of genius.
Schools should be going back NOW and the tiny minority of people at risk of hospitalisation or dying should be taking whatever measures they feel they need to isolate - if they want to.

I am a secondary teacher and I hate the destruction this is doing to my pupils.
Nobody had been even remotely seriously ill from Covid in my school though lots (including me) had symptoms a year ago before there was any testing.