Are teachers more at risk from covid?

[notevenat20]

Did anyone listen to More or Less discuss this?

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rvjr

What do you think?

What strikes me about this thread is the talk about teachers being privileged because we have unions. They’re not all powerful you know...Also, a union is only as strong as its members. If you want to have more clout in a workplace, then most or all people need to join the union. Most unions have lower subs for workers on low pay.

Going out about the risks of other jobs is just detailing the debate - everyone deserves workplace safety if they can’t work from home, but in schools there’s a serious risk of transmission, especially in primaries/nurseries where masks can’t be worn by teachers. I don’t think any teacher is saying we should be ahead of CEV and vulnerable people, but if schools are to be reopened, school staff should be vaccinated and we should have measures such as effective ventilation systems to prevent the driving of community transmission.

And by the way, the unions have been saying this since September, and begging the government to make schools safer. They wanted them kept open, and closing has been a last resort as the government simply didn’t listen. We want to be safe. That isn’t unreasonable and we aren’t martyrs, regardless of our risk of death.

*Some of the Teachers (other school staff are available) especially on here do nothing but mention themselves and it really is getting totally ridiculous.
*
Meanwhile most other keyworkers who are in reality more at risk are getting on with the day job.

I mention my own experience as I feel it's important to put out there that we can and do catch it, and can and do become ill enough to need hospital treatment, even if we don't die.

Yes, I have an underlying condition. So does that make it okay? My underlying condition isn't something that would generally lead to a restricted life span or that I'd be expected to die from.

And I'm still getting on with the day job. I haven't stopped my day job. I was answering parent questions from a hospital bed. When my FIL died I took off 1.5 days for his death and his funeral. When my nana died I took off a day for her funeral. My other Nana's funeral was in the holidays so didn't affect work. I've been getting on with work since March constantly including giving up some of my holidays unpaid.

In real life few people know much about how covid has affected my life. Mumsnet, however, is different, because I feel it's important to tell people that schools aren't the safe little bubble many posters want them to be. Are you now suggesting that even on MN we can't discuss our experiences and express our concerns?

And if other key workers are feeling at risk I totally support their rights to talk about it, to fight for their rights to have protective measures in place and if they need support I will support them. I didn't realise it was an either or situation.

It was on the news Teachers have been using an NHS staff link to book the vaccine jabs. It probably isn't just teachers but the news mentioned teachers.

I work in a nursery school. Our headteacher was asked by the local authority to put forward the staff members who work in close contact with any children with particular disabilities or vulnerabilities, so that they can be vaccinated. I am one of them. When I booked my appointment using the link I had been given, it was definitely a link aimed at NHS and care home staff. I checked and was told to go ahead and book.

I imagine our local authority will have been sending the same advice to all schools here, as will other local authorities. I guess this could be construed as queue jumping but I certainly wasn't intending it to be. So before everyone jumps on teachers and school staff, there could well be valid explanations for this.

What I am so confused about after this past year is why some parents want schools back. Because they seem to hate teachers and have no interest in their health, and frankly seem to think they are a waste of space. So why on earth do you want them looking after your children ?
Wish I could get the vaccine quicker (I'm in group 9) and I'm not risking my life to go back to full school until I've had one.
Please tell me one other profession that is being asked to be in close contact with hundreds of people everyday with no masks, screens or distancing. I can't see my mum because it's dangerous but I can be in a small unventilated room with 30 people in school. Weird

@BustopherPonsonbyJones

Quite right, truely. I am terrified - like a lot of teachers. Unfortunately, I don’t see a lot of empathy on here for teachers, especially from the Us for Them brigade. People ‘like me’ (and there you go again with your generalisation) have stopped worrying about the ‘general public’ doing anything to help and have realised we will need to fight for safer working conditions ourselves, Let’s be honest, even your faux outrage for the conditions some of the working class find themselves in only extends so far as to be used as a further stick with which to beat teachers. Show some real compassion by setting up a thread asking for their working conditions to be improved.

What would be the point of my setting up a thread when rather than working posters to come to a resolution some teachers on her choose to insult them. Yes I can clearly see you get odd posters determined that schools go back this minute no safer. I have never been one of them

What I keep telling both sides is stop pigging comparing occupations and insulting the people you need to be working with to get schools back. Every time teachers jump on a poster does that you annoying many more people that just read these threads. Which means you lose support for the very thing you want. It isn't rock science. Pick you arguments and be careful not to just jump onto posters that are just expressing concerns or worries. Obviously you are free to kick the shit out of posters that state incorrect facts or just clearly are here to insult.

Ok finally the fact that you have chosen to argue with someone that actually is on your side proves my whole point. Back in November I thought a campaign through mumsnet could be push into the media. Mumsnet has had a couple of very supportive ones before. However your type of posts have pushed that further away. Though I am not terrified like you to go back to work. I want my school colleagues to feel safe and for the secondary not to have to many vacancies over the next year. It is hard enough to fill gaps in some departments being a state secondary school in London.

My local London schools have been full of cases since November. We had to close our secondary 3 weeks before Christmas holidays. This problem isn't just a far flung thing to me. It is something shocking we have been dealing with since November. Until the new variant came along we only had a couple of cases in sixth form. We got lucky.

Seriously I am out🤯

People would rather argue crap than actually achieve anything. Waste of time. No wonder there isn't a national campaign to get schools safer. I am beginning to think some posters are deliberately pretending to be teachers to wind people up. Undermining any discussion. Making sure readers are so pigging annoyed they don't even bother to read the threads any more.

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

Seriously I am out🤯

People would rather argue crap than actually achieve anything. Waste of time. No wonder there isn't a national campaign to get schools safer. I am beginning to think some posters are deliberately pretending to be teachers to wind people up. Undermining any discussion. Making sure readers are so pigging annoyed they don't even bother to read the threads any more.

Yes I agree. I genuinely think this might be the case because no teacher I know in RL is this obtuse.

Every time teachers jump on a poster does that you annoying many more people that just read these threads. Which means you lose support for the very thing you want.

But what puzzles me is why teachers have to 'persuade' parents to support them in fighting to make schools safer? Surely it's in every parent's interest for schools to open in a way that makes it feasible for them to stay open? Anything else is totally short sighted. So teachers shouldn't have to tread carefully in order to avoid upsetting parents and therefore damaging their cause - it should be a shared cause, equally important to parents, teachers, students and any other interested party. I think these conversations are always framed as though it's a 'teacher's fight'. (Although agree that everyone should try to be civil!).

So how do you suggest we join the fight to make schools safer? Write to our MP? What else?

I think less polarisation between parents and teachers/school staff would help for a start, an acknowledgement that we all want (broadly) the same things. Yes, write to MPs. The NEU and Independent Sage have both produced proposals for how schools could be made safer so perhaps everyone needs to get behind those. Other than that - I wish I had the answer.

Talking of real life, I also never encounter parents in RL who speak of teachers and teaching in the way some MN posters do. Quite the opposite. It cuts both ways.

People will say on MN or to friends on FB what they might not say or share in the non virtual world.

So, what I was trying to say is I know some parents of kids I teach don't like teachers. They wouldn't ever say it to my face at a parents' evening though. Just as I, or any other teacher, wouldn't express our personal (or educational, largely) fears to parents at a parents' evening.

MN is a different space.

Some of these sainted 'real life ' teachers who never complain and are just getting on with the job are on MN for all you know, being quite vocal. I only found out what one of my colleagues really felt about something when I spotted her on here!

@pinkpip100

It was on the news Teachers have been using an NHS staff link to book the vaccine jabs. It probably isn't just teachers but the news mentioned teachers.

I work in a nursery school. Our headteacher was asked by the local authority to put forward the staff members who work in close contact with any children with particular disabilities or vulnerabilities, so that they can be vaccinated. I am one of them. When I booked my appointment using the link I had been given, it was definitely a link aimed at NHS and care home staff. I checked and was told to go ahead and book.

I imagine our local authority will have been sending the same advice to all schools here, as will other local authorities. I guess this could be construed as queue jumping but I certainly wasn't intending it to be. So before everyone jumps on teachers and school staff, there could well be valid explanations for this.

Yes, I don't know why people are blaming teachers or seeing it as evidence that they're being pushy here - the news story itself makes it very clear that the link was sent directly to teachers and they were told in the accompanying message that they could use it. If that was wrong then it's the people sending it out at fault, not teachers for using something sent to them. People are acting like the link was circulating generally and only teachers were grabby enough to use it but that wasn't the case at all!

I don’t think there is a clinical need for vaccinating most teaching staff but psychologically they will benefit and we need to get them done so they can return to work.
I have worked face to face with patients since June last year. It is stressful but someone’s got to do it. We have PPE but a mask is not 100% effective we have always known that they are not particularly protective for airborne viruses. You accept that your going to end up with the odd cold or flu courtesy of a generous patient. If your under 60 and not super vulnerable ( it astonishes me just how many teachers are CEV but still expose themselves to disease carrying children all year round) chances are Covid will be a minor illness. Long covid is a disease of the worried well, it was meant to be applied to those who following a long stay in ICU would take some months to rehabilitate.

@Angrymum22 as a GP I totally disagree with your comment about long Covid being a disease of the worried well. We have a very large cohort of patients struggling, some of whom will turn out to have cardiomyopathy or pulmonary emboli when they can finally get into long Covid clinics.

I'm really struggling to understand why everyone is focusing on the clinical risk of teachers. Surely by bringing down transmission amongst a large workforce who come into contact with hundreds of families, we will bring down community transmission and the risk of further mutations.

Surely by bringing down transmission amongst a large workforce who come into contact with hundreds of families, we will bring down community transmission and the risk of further mutations.

I completely agree.

Lots of professions are at risk. I certainly would not want to be an airline member of staff at the moment. All that air circulation in a limited space with passengers sitting virtually on top of each other.

Vaccinating teachers does not stop circulation of the virus and therefore its important to get those top 9 groups vaccinated as soon as possible to reduce the number of people dying unnecessarily.

If we can get to Easter there probably would have been the opportunity to vaccinate the vulnerable, vaccinate teachers and allow the children to return to a fairly disruption free summer term.

If we can get to Easter there probably would have been the opportunity to vaccinate the vulnerable, vaccinate teachers and allow the children to return to a fairly disruption free summer term.

But only if there are other measures in place in schools - particularly smaller class sizes, improved ventilation and mandatory masks - Otherwise the summer term is unlikely to be free from disruptions as there will still be high levels of the virus circulating.

Surely by bringing down transmission amongst a large workforce who come into contact with hundreds of families, we will bring down community transmission and the risk of further mutations.

I think its the children that are doing the community spread not the teacher's. Only 1 or 2 teachers, 30 children!

I know from my own village that children are bused to school, that is likely to be a main source of transmission. I would not want to be the bus driver!

More or Less should be compulsory listening!

The reality is that everyone who has to go to work outside of the home is at higher risk than those who don't. The occupations with the highest risk are those who are in close proximity with lots of different people (rather than the same group every day), I don't think anyone doubts that so eg medics obviously, but also transport workers, retail and hospitality, public facing council workers etc. The next group would be those who work in close proximity with others but a closed group so teachers, factory workers, offices.

All teachers over 50 should be offered the vaccine by April and my drs at least is prioritising teachers, police etc over 50 for leftover vaccines and have already called those through group 6 for scheduled vaccination.

Are as a group teachers more at risk than these other groups, no they are not, are they at more risk than my wfh dp, yes they are. Individual risk is different to group risk, and most gps are sympathetic to those who make a case for increased risk based on proper medical reasons. Teachers are not a homogeneous group so giving the vaccine to 25 year olds who teach in a village primary ahead of middle aged factory workers because the latter haven't got as much lobbying power is wrong.

1 or 2 teachers who may turn out to be super spreaders who then pass it on to their class who then pass it on to 30 families! Vaccinate all public facing employees as well as groups 1-9. The urgency to get teachers done is more about us not having a surge in infections when the kids go back to school.

Well the guardian is reporting the deadline for the 9 groups is may in time for local elections.

It is quite likely that schools will be back in march but with no change to guidance etc to reflect transmission risk of the b117 variant (which is true for all sectors) so will have to see what that does to transmission rates. I'm certainly hearing of more cases locally in supermarkets etc than last year.

Having caught covid in October and suffering from chronic fatigue since, and having had my asthma massively deteriorate I am personally very worried about catching covid again. Best hope ( partial) immunity lasts longer than 6 months.

daisy have you seen school bus drivers? They have perspex screens and are supposed to wear masks.

Ours refuse to leave their cab and have been told not to tell kids to put masks on and teachers are required to get on the the bus at the end of the schoolday to persuade maskless kids to put them on. I know who is more at risk there.

Actually, a lot of people haven't looked at the data: after the sterling work of the powerful transport workers' union (and the reduction in use of public transport), bus and public transport workers are now very low down on the list of fatalities and infections.

There are a lot of people on MN who do want to charge teachers with lying/pretending/magnifying.

I am fairly sure by CV 52 year old DH won't have been even partially vaccinated by March 8th but we'll see.

Have we forgotten there are two doses?

@Piggywaspushed. Have you looked at the data. Bus and transporter workers are high on the list.