When schools reopen, will you still stay at home ?

[pinkhappy]

When schools reopen, it will be tempting to think that if the kids are in a room with 30 kids all day that you might as well see some friends because what difference will it make. Even harder to resist allowing your kids to see friends after school and on weekends. Who will be able to resist the temptation?

My kids are under 5 so wont be in a room with anyone all day. Hopefully I'll be allowed to take them on a playdate instead.

But what about Long Covid?

Please don't even think this. My DP caught it from a student (in whilst waiting for a test result), tested positive nearly 3 weeks ago and has spent 2 nights in hospital after 2 weeks of being so ill I have been using an office chair to get him to the toilet and back DD has caught it and spent a week in bed, I have it and feel like shite.

Other students and teachers caught it from the same child, who caught it during a sleep over in lockdown. 1 staff member also still off, 2 others who were mildly affected.

I know this is tough. I'm a teacher, I have secondary ages kids, but fuck me this has been the worst 3 weeks of my life. All because a child mixed with another and came to school. Now one of my own children has been very ill and the other terrified her dad was going to die when ambulance arrived for him and we had to hide in a different part of the house.

Try to resist that temptation and I'll go and check my DPs sats before I try to get some sleep.

I hope people aren't this selfish. I work in a school, but I stick to the rules to minimise my bubble for my family but also the bubble of the children I'm looking after! X

This must be a baiting thread.

@Whyarewehardofthinking

Please don't even think this. My DP caught it from a student (in whilst waiting for a test result), tested positive nearly 3 weeks ago and has spent 2 nights in hospital after 2 weeks of being so ill I have been using an office chair to get him to the toilet and back DD has caught it and spent a week in bed, I have it and feel like shite.

Other students and teachers caught it from the same child, who caught it during a sleep over in lockdown. 1 staff member also still off, 2 others who were mildly affected.

I know this is tough. I'm a teacher, I have secondary ages kids, but fuck me this has been the worst 3 weeks of my life. All because a child mixed with another and came to school. Now one of my own children has been very ill and the other terrified her dad was going to die when ambulance arrived for him and we had to hide in a different part of the house.

Try to resist that temptation and I'll go and check my DPs sats before I try to get some sleep.

Hope you and your family feel better soon 🤞

@Tryingtryingandtrying

But what about Long Covid?

Haha! Bingo!

I remember people saying that last autumn. People want schools to open and stay open. Therefore they need to be as careful as possible in every other environment to avoid introducing infections into the bubbles.

Everyone pissing about with the rules is just lengthening this whole thing for the rest of us.

Whilst there are people out there who don't know where they caught covid or who from, there will be people who can work it out. I'd like to think that the family that brought covid to @Whyarewehardofthinking's DH recognise that they are responsible for his hospitalization both by mixing when they shouldn't have been and going to school whilst waiting for a test result. They should be mortified. Schools sometimes struggle to point this kind of thing out - they don't want to damage the relationship with families. But that family should be too ashamed to show their faces back at that school.

Ultimately, if you just do what you fancy, you could well spread covid into a school and a local teacher, TA, parent or grandparent could die.

We won't be able to OP

You see now millions of people have had the vaccine, and every vaccine has a little teeeeeennnnny gps tracking device in, so now the gvmt know where everyone is. So you won't be able to meet anyone because there's now a gvmt sniper hiding on every rooftop to catch everyone who goes out.

I hope not as that is beyond selfish. My lockdown class is 22 children and 4 staff we could have had this attitude all the way through. I haven't seen my family, mum excetra. I have three colleagues still off ill months later from catching Covid from a student.

So you won't be able to meet anyone because there's now a gvmt sniper hiding on every rooftop to catch everyone who goes out.

Something about this doesn't seem right. I thought it was Bill Gates tracking us.

@pinkhappy

So you won't be able to meet anyone because there's now a gvmt sniper hiding on every rooftop to catch everyone who goes out.

Something about this doesn't seem right. I thought it was Bill Gates tracking us.

Oh maybe... I don't know.... Someone is after us though, them and their 12G phone signal...

Yes we will stay home. BUT........ I can see how this easily slips. When the children were at school between September and December, we still had restrictions, and we had the firebreaker lockdown too. But when lining up to collect the children at school, everything felt pretty normal for that short 15 mins and it was easy to forget about covid a little and have a chat with the hundreds of parents all around you. (parents who are all desperate for adult human conversion!)
Add to that the young children when at school start to forget about the social distancing rules ourside of school because they don't have to social distance in the classroom. Meaning that they want to walk home with their friends etc. Which is hard to avoid when your all coming out together and walking in the same direction. And also play out with their friends.
At my particular school they have staggered pick ups and there is 20 minutes between my 2 pick up times. I inevitably have to stand outside of school ( not allowed on the yard) with many other parents for that 20 mins whilst the kids run around together playing :-/
I remember having to constantly remind my kids about the rules, and this will happen again this time.

I agree with @JKW36. I would like to think that lots of people won’t deliberately break the rules but people will inevitably mix more, our school do staggered times but there are still lots of children and parents walking the same routes to and from school, people inevitably fall into conversation. Those people driving are out of the house so see no harm in calling into Tesco as they pass etc.

Of course we won’t! What’s the point of class bubbles and a policy of containment if people are going to go off an not give a flying whatsit outside of school. That’s what spreads this contagious virus! This just makes me want to put my head in my hands and it also make me realise why we are in thurs mess....

More important to stay at home when schools go back as they are adding so much extra possible transmission. The last thing that is needed is people adding more transmission routes.

Also hopefully easier for parents to justify to themselves - they are staying at home to enable their own children to be in school, rather than just to do nebulous things like help the NHS.

I understand that everyone is frustrated but I agree with the previous poster. My colleagues are sticking with the rules to keep the children in our class and their families as safe as we can be.

Please think about staff, children and their families who aren't vaccinated and are trying to stay as safe as possible.

This definitely happened a lot last term- for example during October half term, we had a student who caught Covid after she slept over with her friend from another school. I'm sure in the family's head, the justification was that they'd both spent all half term interacting with 100s of other people, so it was fine!

There was also the issue of explaining to secondary school students why they couldn't walk home in large groups.

If schools are reopen as normal, some students will start socialising again as normal, because some people genuinely don't understand why it's a problem.

Which is perhaps a reason to keep some restrictions on schools- if it doesn't feel 100% normal at school, people are less likely to feel able to behave as normal at home.

@Tryingtryingandtrying

But what about Long Covid?

Assuming you are being serious, how long would you stay indoors personally, or are intending to stay indoors, because of Long Covid?

When the children can go back we will be sticking firmly to the rules - I don’t want anything to jeopardise schools being open because I can’t cope with them shut again

If my children go back to school, we won’t need to socialise out of school as they will be getting their much needed socialisation in school.
If they don’t go back to school we will start socialising out of school with one or two groups of friends.
At the moment I have them sobbing on a far too regular basis at seeing their classmates on Zoom all able to socialise as normal (approx 20 of their classes of 30 are in school) while they haven’t been able to see a friend since mid December.

When the children can go back we will be sticking firmly to the rules - I don’t want anything to jeopardise schools being open because I can’t cope with them shut again

Exactly. It will be the interactions at school that are likely to drive up infections again. If people are socialising outside of school, it will only be worse and result in more virus transmission.

@pinkhappy

When schools reopen, it will be tempting to think that if the kids are in a room with 30 kids all day that you might as well see some friends because what difference will it make. Even harder to resist allowing your kids to see friends after school and on weekends. Who will be able to resist the temptation?

I won't be seeing friends until cases are low. Whilst the new variant has complicated things a bit if you have primary age children they are less likely to catch and spread covid between themselves then adults meeting in a house would be. It might be different if you had older teenagers but as DS is primary age I feel that I would be more at risk of spreading covid if I met with friends than he is at school. So I don't agree with the logic of "as the kids are in school we might as well see friends".

Hell, no

Last thing I want to see is rates accelerating again and delaying safe and sustainable relaxation of restrictions.

Isnt this exactly what was meant when talking about the risk of an 'armistice wave' ?

I want this dealt with as quick as possible; not wrecked by pre-emptive mixing in what could be the last few weeks