Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Covid

Mumsnet doesn't verify the qualifications of users. If you have medical concerns, please consult a healthcare professional.

No more masks in classrooms - hurray!

912 replies

TeddingtonTrashbag · 07/05/2021 06:37

Hurray!
I am a secondary teacher and just hope it really happens.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/06/exclusive-end-masks-classroom-boris-johnson-defies-unions/

OP posts:
Thread gallery
11
Watapalava · 15/05/2021 14:53

it has 8000 students

cantkeepawayforever · 15/05/2021 15:07

We are protecting NHS i thought so all these restrictions are unnecessary

Oh FGS. We won't KNOW how many hospitalisations there will be from a big rise in cases until at least a couple of weeks after that increase in cases starts. Deaths then follow a couple of weeks more.

So saying 'let's keep masks for a couple of weeks, to see how this Indian variant behaves' is SO much more sensible than saying 'hospitalisatons are low even though cases are rising'...
'oh, hospitalisations are rising but it's OK, deaths are low'....
'oh, deaths are now rising too, why didn't we keep the cases low 4-6 weeks ago??'

Volcanoexplorer · 15/05/2021 16:35

My school is in Lancashire and I’ve just read an email saying as of 5pm last night we’ll still have to wear masks until 21st June. My heart sank. I’m so fed up with them! Lancashire is a huge county and numbers in my part are very low. In fact I’m about 5 minutes away from a neighbouring county who will be mask free. Loads of the kids live in the other county too. We’re miles away from Bolton!

Watapalava · 15/05/2021 16:39

Volcano I’m same

3 cases in whole district last 7 days

LynetteScavo · 15/05/2021 17:15

DD has said she will continue to wear a mask in school to avoid the germy germs of breathing people Grin

twelly · 15/05/2021 18:56

The virus is a threat we know that - but we need to get back to normality, we cannot keep going on with this constant fear, the impact upon society is just too much

cantkeepawayforever · 15/05/2021 19:04

@twelly

The virus is a threat we know that - but we need to get back to normality, we cannot keep going on with this constant fear, the impact upon society is just too much
I don't quite understand how the two parts of your point can be reconciled.

The virus is a threat.

If we pretend everything is normal - mix normally, everywhere; take face masks off, everywhere; attend mass gatherings, everywhere; travel, everywhere - that threat becomes greater, and therefore more scary.

A threat creates fear, and impact upon society. Pretending the threat doesn't exist does not remove the fear or the impact on society - in fact, it prevents us getting back to the normality that we all crave, because it makes the threat much larger and the impact on society that much greater.

NO country has succeeding in living a totally normal life in the face of the virus while putting absolutely no limits on people's behaviour.

In fact, the reverse - the better the controls (e.g. closed borders, rigorous test and tracing, even very draconian lockdowns far beyond what we would find acceptable at far, far lower case numbers), the more normal a life has been achievable for more extended periods of time.

twelly · 15/05/2021 19:33

My point is the virus will always be a threat - the country did not adopt zero tolerance as many Far East countries did - therefore we need to get on with life and live with it. The government made masks mandatory at some point during the pandemic which people were expected to follow, now the decision has been made that they are no longer mandatory in certain instance - so people do not need to wear them in those cases.

We need to follow the regulation that the government has set so that means no masks in the school situations (or at least a choice not to wear them.)

CallmeHendricks · 15/05/2021 19:44

I wonder if there is a link between those who advocate "just getting on with life" and their low risk of dying from/suffering Long Covid?

I'm double vaxxed and strong and healthy. I still feel that I should be cautious in mixing widely with others, and I can't imagine feeling comfortable in a large crowd for a long, long time.

cantkeepawayforever · 15/05/2021 20:51

I wonder if there is a link between those who advocate "just getting on with life" and their low risk of dying from/suffering Long Covid?

Absolutely. Though i think there is also a small subset of the very elderly or ill, who have used up a lot of their remaining years / months in lockdown and who want to be able to live the very end of their lives with greater freedom to do what they would like to do and see who they would like to see.

UsedUpUsername · 16/05/2021 08:50

@CallmeHendricks

I wonder if there is a link between those who advocate "just getting on with life" and their low risk of dying from/suffering Long Covid?

I'm double vaxxed and strong and healthy. I still feel that I should be cautious in mixing widely with others, and I can't imagine feeling comfortable in a large crowd for a long, long time.

Why? The vaccines are much more effective than your average flu shot. You’re fully vaxxed just get on with it
Hanidjed7 · 16/05/2021 09:39

I was thinking the same @UsedUpUsername @CallmeHendricks has said she's strong and healthy and has been fully vaccinated! What on earth.
People with this attitude are clearly happy to have the rest of their lives paused, there is no hope for these people.
If fully vaccinated healthy adults are still scared - the world is done. Think it's one the saddest things I've heard.

FrippEnos · 16/05/2021 10:14

UsedUpUsername and Hanidjed7

I'm not sure that you understand how these vaccines work.
They are only 95% effective, this means that you can still get the virus (mild cases, be asymptomatic etc.) and pass it on.

For teachers in schools were the majority are not vaccinated this could cause a major rise in infections and spread.

CallmeHendricks · 16/05/2021 11:02

Stand down! No need to panic or worry on my behalf.
I'm perfectly happy in my family and social life and have no intention of living like a hermit indefinitely. I've been mixing with many, many more people over the last year than many people on this thread, in my role as a teacher. I know what crowds in cramped, unventilated spaces are like.
I just have no wish to lick door handles, hug strangers or get up close and personal to thousands of people at concerts or airport arrival halls at the moment. I'm quite confident I can live a happy and fulfilling life for the time being without that.

CallmeHendricks · 16/05/2021 11:04

And any of you with children in schools at the moment should be bloody glad that I and my colleagues have been being cautious, or as much as we can be under the circumstances.

There's plenty of hope for me.

UsedUpUsername · 16/05/2021 11:50

@FrippEnos

UsedUpUsername and Hanidjed7

I'm not sure that you understand how these vaccines work.
They are only 95% effective, this means that you can still get the virus (mild cases, be asymptomatic etc.) and pass it on.

For teachers in schools were the majority are not vaccinated this could cause a major rise in infections and spread.

I think you are the one that doesn’t understand how they work:

One common misunderstanding is that 95% efficacy means that in the Pfizer clinical trial, 5% of vaccinated people got COVID. But that's not true; the actual percentage of vaccinated people in the Pfizer (and Moderna) trials who got COVID-19 was about a hundred times less than that: 0.04%

Maybe you should worry about measles and mumps too!!!1111!!!!

the two-dose measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine is 97% effective against measles and 88% effective against mumps, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

www.livescience.com/amp/covid-19-vaccine-efficacy-explained.html

BustopherPonsonbyJones · 16/05/2021 11:53

I’ll bet the families of the school in Northants where they’ve discovered the Indian variant running rife through the school wish the children had worn masks. Let’s hope the adults in the school and the parents of those children have had at least one jab and it isn’t virusing through the community as we speak.

PS - I’m not scared as I’m lucky enough to have been vaccinated. It hasn’t affected my intelligence though, so I can still be in disbelief at some of the stupidity displayed by our government when we were so close to getting back to normality. Covid loves schools. Schools are full of people who don’t socially distance. Those people should wear masks until we know what this variant is capable of doing and until all adults are vaccinated.

mrshoho · 16/05/2021 11:58

Maybe you should worry about measles and mumps too!!!1111!!!!

Why? Why say this? If there was a large outbreak and no children had been vaccinated against MMR then yes I could understand. What a strange thing to say.

itsgettingwierd · 16/05/2021 12:02

@motherrunner

If the Science says ‘no masks’ then it should be ‘no masks everywhere’.
This is the exact response most people I know have had.
itsgettingwierd · 16/05/2021 12:04

@mrshoho

Maybe you should worry about measles and mumps too!!!1111!!!!

Why? Why say this? If there was a large outbreak and no children had been vaccinated against MMR then yes I could understand. What a strange thing to say.

They did about 25 years ago when there was a sudden increase in cases.

There was a mass vaccination programme of children in secondary school. I remember it. Being queues up with sleeve out of jumper, jab whilst standing and went to mech to sit for 15 minutes and then back to class!

UsedUpUsername · 16/05/2021 12:21

@mrshoho

Maybe you should worry about measles and mumps too!!!1111!!!!

Why? Why say this? If there was a large outbreak and no children had been vaccinated against MMR then yes I could understand. What a strange thing to say.

Lol are we going from the vaccine isn’t 100% effective to think of the unvaxxed children?

Of course, measles and mumps actually kill healthy children so it’s very different. Try again.

mrshoho · 16/05/2021 12:59

? Confused I wasn't the person who brought up mumps and measles. I was questioning why they would be saying this when we are dealing with a completely different situation.

cantkeepawayforever · 16/05/2021 13:09

For measles and mumps, we have herd immunity thanks to the extremely successful childhood vaccination. That meas that, if there IS a single case, the infection cannot spread because the likelihood of the infected person encountering sufficient non-immune people for an outbreak is small.

However, if there were over 2000 confirmed cases of measles or mumps in the community EVERY DAY (and many more infected), then yes, it would spread. Controlling a disease of this type is a combination of decent vaccines AND very low case numbers.

So I am in a completely different position, as a partially Covid-vaccinated person, in a situation where cases are likely to rise rapidly and are already in the thosands per day - the average secondary is c. 1000 people, and roughly 1 in 1000 people in the ONS survey are infected with Covid - than I am as a measles-vaccinated person where there are 810 cases in the entire country in a year (2019 data)

TeddingtonTrashbag · 16/05/2021 13:15

I will be interested to see if any pupils on my classes choose to wear masks. Assuming only those whose parents brainwashed them into wearing them before they were mandated.

OP posts:
Piggywaspushed · 16/05/2021 13:18

Are you going to say that to them? Or their parents? This has been your mantra for a while. I look forward to hearing all about your disciplinary when you tell children their parents brainwash them.