Rates rising > Kids off school > WTF is the plan??

[HoppingHamster]

I want things to open up. I want vaccines to work. I’ve had my vaccines.

But.

There will soon be thousands of kids off school isolating because they’ve come into contact with someone who tested positive. 10 days off school. I already know of about 50 in our local area through various schools.

If June 21 goes ahead. And we can’t slow the spread among unvaccinated people. And the spread is already increasing statistically among children and younger ages (which it is), where is the plan for keeping kids in school?? For preventing more disruption to their education.

How is it possible to let things open up (and let numbers fly over next few months before more people vaccinated) AND keep kids equally in school? Either you open up and lift all quarantine restrictions. Or you have to do something to plot the spread amongst youngsters.

I’m worried this has been forgotten and it’s going to go wrong again.

@HarebrightCedarmoon Loads of schools haven't had any cases at all since they re-opened… They are only in a few more weeks before the summer holiday in England, and in Scotland they break up this month

Cases are estimated to be doubling every 5-6 days and spreading fastest amongst partially vaccinated and unvaccinated groups (ZOE). 91% are of the new variant (Matt Hancock).

There were 7,393 new cases yesterday. 27% of new cases yesterday were among under 19s, or 1,685. Bear in mind there is still downward effect on these numbers from the half term break. Even if only five contacts for each of these people were asked to isolate, that’s around 8,500 people a day having to isolate, most of which will be school age too.

Even if we halved ZOE’s estimate of the doubling rate and said it was doubling every 10 days (there were 3,100 new cases on 1 June) that would mean 56,000 a day before schools finish. Say the age distribution stays the same (unlikely as schools are open again, more likely to be higher among school age), then that would be c. 15,000 school aged people testing positive. Each of them would then have multiple contacts or even classes having to isolate.

So you see the problem here??

And no one is talking about it, all the news cares about is “Freedom Day”.

Just to stress, that would be 15,000 a DAY, each of which might conservatively generate 5-10 people having to go into quarantine BECAUSE they’re in school. So we’re then in the territory of hundreds of thousands of young people being excluded from school. AGAIN.

My child is in year 10 and doing mocks the next two weeks. His school has never been a problem, he hasn't been sent home once because of covid, only because of the countrywide shutdowns.

@kowari what’s your point?

I'm afraid this is their plan.

Reach herd immunity as soon as possible by letting Delta rip through schools, not giving a flying fuck about the collateral deaths and the hundreds of thousands of our children who will get Long Covid.

How are they going to do their exams if the government shut the schools again?

Are you in the north west OP?

@kowari

My child is in year 10 and doing mocks the next two weeks. His school has never been a problem, he hasn't been sent home once because of covid, only because of the countrywide shutdowns.

But this doesn't mean anything, everyone knows a) some areas are worse than others and b) some schools are worse than others.

But the disruption for those affected is not fun at all.

@kowari no one suggested they shut schools. The thread is about the fact that no one is talking about the growing disruption being brought about by rising cases > more school children having to isolate.

Your son’s school is not immune to Covid and they’re increasingly likely to be facing new Covid cases which could mean many in Y10 will NOT be taking their mocks because they’ll be sat at home. That’s the problem.

All the while cases are rising, childrens education is increasingly suffering too.

I don’t have a solution to it, but the first point is for people to acknowledge that it’s happening.

@Oligodoodle no, relatively low rate area of the SE but even here I know of around 50 children off school in our local area. Are you in the NW, what’s it been like for schools if so?

Unfortunately OP you will be talking into a void. From Sept- Dec last year my school was hit terribly. We have rolling isolations from 3rd week in Sept to Dec and twice we closed fully as we didn’t have enough staff to open. Yr 10 and Yr 11 have been out of school more than in this year. When I posted last year about my concern for their disrupted education my replies were ‘well, Covid isn’t in my child’s school’. No one cares until it effects them personally.

Fortunately my LEA has taken to keeping masks and advising PCR tests for all absences. We are not a hotspot area and since March my school hasn’t had any bubbles close.

@motherrunner sadly I agree.

I would love to see stats on how many are off school, we all know they exist

There's only 124 people in hospital with covid in Scotland so I think there's a bit of scaremongering going on here about the number of new admissions among children.

This gives the numbers in each age group admitted to hospital in the last week (up to Wednesday). Children are not the largest proportion here

@dementedpixie the main point of the thread is about children being off school, not in hospital. There’s not enough data on that yet, and bear in mind there’s also a 2-3 week lag as well. The case numbers were much lower 2-3 weeks ago.

@dementedpixie

There's only 124 people in hospital with covid in Scotland so I think there's a bit of scaremongering going on here about the number of new admissions among children.

This gives the numbers in each age group admitted to hospital in the last week (up to Wednesday). Children are not the largest proportion here

It is not scaremongering FFS, it is vigilence amongst medical professionals and political leaders.

They are fully aware of the numbers but have noticed a possible change.

It would be completely negligent to not be watching this stuff.

@0None0

It is already completely out of control. My school is closed. More than half of our infected children are asymptomatic. However over a third are actually physically ill. And we have 3 children left permanently disabled from covid last year.

It’s made a lot worse by the parents allowing their children not to wear masks in the classroom. The government was plain stupid to say it was no longer compulsory, but they are clearly on a different planet.

Most secondary schools are trying to insist on masks, or at least saying it’s optional.

However it can’t be done without the support of parents, and you only have to look at Mumsnet posts to see how many parents are undermining this, largely out of ignorance. If they actually understood anything about the virus, and the current situation, no one who loved their child would want them sitting in lessons s without a high quality mask over their face, at this precise moment in time

@0None0

I find that really shocking - those poor children. What do you mean by disabled and did they have pre-existing health issues?

I’m not being nosey here - We have a lot of autoimmune disease in our family and I am so worried about my children catching covid

I had glandular fever at 20 and had to learn to walk again, i had such bad CFS after

Totally agree with you. There's been quite a number of threads started about how we can have mitigation's in school to stop having a detrimental effect on education through isolation.

Unfortunately they get waylaid by the few who think we should just let it rip through the younger populations because "they are rarely ill or die"

Somehow in the past year they've not learnt more cases increases the chances of variants.

Children get long covid.

Oh and despite the number of vaccinations there is still a large number of school staff who are waiting for first and haven't had their second.

And again - they may be lower risk if death or even serious illness but schools can run without staff.

We can't go to crowded places and we can't go to a supermarket without a mask.

Yet an unventilated classroom with 30 unmasked children who can't SD - perfectly safe 🤔

Why do people think not opening on June 21st it will stop the spread? It won't. We already have indoor mixing. Let's just get on with it! Not going back to lockdowns now!

I thought they had made an apology about the comments as there hadn't been a worrying rise in admissions children :

www.google.com/amp/s/www.scotsman.com/health/coronavirus/covid-scotland-health-secretary-humza-yousaf-issues-apology-for-causing-undue-alarm-over-soft-play-child-covid-claims-3260925%3famp

Can't run with out staff 🤦‍♀️

P.s. they still wear masks in Scottish schools and we break up in a couple of weeks anyway

@iminthegarden so what do we do about the fact that there will soon be tens if not hundreds of thousands of school children (and staff) all unequally off school because they’re isolating?

We had no COVID in our school until suddenly we did. When suddenly we did it hit us hard and after 3 weeks of cases ramping up we finally had to shut as there no longer enough staff to open safely and also to break the chain of infection.
I work in an area which until this point had very low case numbers. Just because your area has low numbers just now does not mean it won’t have a case. I’m seeing so many schools having the exact same experience that we did- low cases in community, one positive case, suddenly a few cases in one class, class shut, isolated siblings positive in other classes, transmission out of control. Staff continue to catch COVID in schools. We are not all double vaccinated and many are yet to have their first dose.

@iminthegarden

Why do people think not opening on June 21st it will stop the spread? It won't. We already have indoor mixing. Let's just get on with it! Not going back to lockdowns now!

Another one who wants to pour petrol on the fire here.

Cases are already rising... let's make it worse by unlocking further?