Replacing isolating with daily testing in school, what about primary age dc?

[Wellbythebloodyhell]

It's reported that close contact isolating could be replaced by daily testing come September. What do you think would happen with primary age DC as LFT are not advised on the under 12s? Nor are they eligible for any vaccine should it be commissioned in the UK.
Surely we can't see primary school classes in and out like we are doing now. Primary age dc isolating has more of an impact on working parents than secondary age students who can be left alone for some amount of time. Employers aren't going to tolerate on going last minute absences for much longer, nor can people afford to take them. Not to mention the impact of isolations have on the children.
Will only a positive child isolate in a primary school and the rest carry on as normal?
My DS is 6 with SEN no way would he tolerate testing every day.

I've wondered this too. Two in primary. Guess it's a case of keeping fingers crossed- doesn't seem to be any other plan apart from that.

I also wonder what is going to happen with secondary pupils who can’t tolerate testing, SEN etc

@WhenZoomWasJustAnIceLolly

I also wonder what is going to happen with secondary pupils who can’t tolerate testing, SEN etc

This too. So many if buts and maybes nothing is clear

I was wondering this. I work in a nursery so wondered what will happen for the children there.

Maybe they'll decide that actually LFT's can be used for younger children? Or maybe they'll just have to carry on with isolating. Who knows!

I personally think that they should just have the person who is symptomatic off school and let the others carry on as normal.
The percentage of adults double-jabbed will be so high come September. We have to just bloody live with this virus, just like we do with Flu and other viruses.
This disruption to children's education just cannot continue.

I would imagine it'll just be the case that if your child is unwell, you keep them home. In other words, sensible normality as it was pre covid.

At least, I hope this is what it will be.

@curlyLJ

I personally think that they should just have the person who is symptomatic off school and let the others carry on as normal. The percentage of adults double-jabbed will be so high come September. We have to just bloody live with this virus, just like we do with Flu and other viruses. This disruption to children's education just cannot continue.

Yes I'm hoping this is the case too

I expect it will just be the ill child off school. There's absolutely no way you can do a LFT every day on a toddler or young child - when they're ill is bad enough.

The government are clearly going for herd immunity through infection in schoolchildren, and fuck the consequences.

Only the sick person should be at home. Everyone else carry on as normal. This testing farce needs to stop. No need for it.

I keep hearing about ‘herd immunity’ but how is that possible if antibodies aren’t permanent and thus people can be reinfected. That’s not herd immunity. Sorry for detail!

Hopefully it will be keep poorly children home but let all others remain, same for nursery school. I'll have 4 in primary, 1 in secondary come September. I think we could really do without the constant "bubble bursting" unease hanging over our heads.

@motherrunner

I keep hearing about ‘herd immunity’ but how is that possible if antibodies aren’t permanent and thus people can be reinfected. That’s not herd immunity. Sorry for detail!

Each reinfection should be milder until it becomes just like a cold. No idea how long that takes though.

I have wondered the same. I could probably get my almost 10 year old to test, but it would be very hard with my 5 year old. And whilst my 12 year old has tolerated twice weekly testing for the last 4 months, he is pretty fed up of it, and even for him daily testing on potentially a regular basis would be a lot to ask.

it all raises so many questions. What about secondary kids who refuse to test? And for those who test does a negative mean they can carry on completely as normal or only go to school (which I think current pilots have been based on)? If there are no more bubbles, how will they define close contacts? Will we still be required to household isolate and get a PCR every time someone has a cough? I can’t see how this is all going to work, and it still has the potential to be hugely disruptive.

Exactly as whatswithtoday says.Unless we want to try and vaccinate the whole of the population every year for the rest of their lives, we at some point will need to accept that children's immune systems just have to be exposed regularly to the virus and build up resistance that way, as we do for other viruses that are circulating.This way their likelihood of severe illness as they get older will become far less likely. If you remember the swine flu epidemic, the older generations were significantly less affected than the youngest, presumably because many older people would have gained resistance through similar infections earlier in their lives.

Even worse than this, our county council are going in the opposite direction to government policy and require all self-isolating pupils to take a full PCR test before being allowed back to school.

This is despite the fact that number of cases of positive results from those sent home to self-isolate is actually very very low (which is why the entire policy is going to be scrapped probably by September).

Btw - this is for close contacts, not the actual original positive case. So pupils who were never ill or symptomatic in the first place.

@sempiternal

I was wondering this. I work in a nursery so wondered what will happen for the children there.

Maybe they'll decide that actually LFT's can be used for younger children? Or maybe they'll just have to carry on with isolating. Who knows!

Still need parental consent and staffing to do it.

You won't get that for primary, with the best will in the world.

You will end up with traumatised kids if they try it in an enforced manner. Parents won't tolerate it either.

Sounds like an pilot of mass herd immunity through children. Let’s hope the virus doesn’t mutate into something even more unpleasant.

I suspect there will be a lot of legal suits in future from people suffering long covid effects from having caught it as a child.

@motherrunner

I keep hearing about ‘herd immunity’ but how is that possible if antibodies aren’t permanent and thus people can be reinfected. That’s not herd immunity. Sorry for detail!

1) we don't know how long antibodies last 2) T-cells

Other countries use a spit test.

It’s a shame no Tory pals make those.

@Howshouldibehave

Sounds like an pilot of mass herd immunity through children. Let’s hope the virus doesn’t mutate into something even more unpleasant.

I suspect there will be a lot of legal suits in future from people suffering long covid effects from having caught it as a child.

Suing who? The virus?

If there was an easy way to protect children from getting covid without having significant impacts to other their lives, then we should do that. But there isn’t. So anything we do is about weighing costs and benefits because everything we could do has costs as well as benefits.

It’s just not as simple as “government are monsters who want to put our children in danger”.

@Howshouldibehave

Sounds like an pilot of mass herd immunity through children. Let’s hope the virus doesn’t mutate into something even more unpleasant.

I suspect there will be a lot of legal suits in future from people suffering long covid effects from having caught it as a child.

1. Assumption here that a mutation will affect children more than adults (including vaccinated adults) and that it will originate in the UK (and an assumption that mutuations elsewhere in the world can be kept out which Australia is suddenly realising is unrealistic)
2. That vaccines available will result in less children affected by serious side effects than children who end up with long covid. At this point the jury is still out on this one.
3. What are we going to vaccine children with right now? We are currently vaccinating on the basis of risk. We know children remain at least risk. We have a shortage of vaccines available still - and we may need to prioritise the clinically vulnerable and old people for a third dose on the basis of risk - ahead of children for good reason.
4. We could end up with legal suits in future from people who had the vaccine and ended up with long term side effects after having it as a child AND law suits from relatives of the dead who were not given boosters as they were at high risk due to age discrimination as we were too busy giving vaccinations to kids who didn't really need it.

Its.not.that.simple.

@Wildewoodz

Other countries use a spit test.

It’s a shame no Tory pals make those.

They've been trialled in the UK to see how effective they are.

What if they've found they aren't that effective rather than it merely being about Tory cronyism?

The fact we are talking about cronyism rather than talking about effectiveness first says a lot you as a poster tbh.

Make the case based on science. Its more compelling and if its then obvious there is cronyism involved it makes it harder for these Tories to defend their position...

@Howshouldibehave

Sounds like an pilot of mass herd immunity through children. Let’s hope the virus doesn’t mutate into something even more unpleasant.

I suspect there will be a lot of legal suits in future from people suffering long covid effects from having caught it as a child.

I heavily suspect this too.

Germany uses them and theirs are highly effective.