Children.

[twinkletoesimnot]

Coronavirus: Young people warn of long Covid amid jab drive www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58301011

Article pushing younger people to get jabbed.
Sajid Javid even saying it's a risk for us all.....

We as a family have been lucky enough to avoid Covid so far. The new rules and school return make me feel very uneasy.

Is everyone REALLY ok with this headlong rush to infect our children that the government seem so hell bent on?

This next school year will be disrupted, if teachers are in and out with Covid, or have caring responsibilities for their own children then they won't be at school

But they were already off school with their perfectly fine non-covid children who happened to be a close contact in the last year.

Plus - for better or worse - they will be able to continue to teach even if there is a close contact in the home this year, so long as they have been double jabbed. Perhaps the staffing issues won't be as dire as you think or, no worse than last term?

@Waxonwaxoff0

I think close contacts in the same household should continue to isolate.

I would like schools to have a big enough budget and freedom to mitigate in whatever way they deem to be best.

I know neither of those will happen.
Doesn't mean I have to be ok with it.

@Legoninjago1

I am very scared of schools closing ever again. I am no more worried about my children getting Covid than I am about them getting norovirus / tonsillitis etc etc.

This

@Volterra

I’m not very comfortable after my friend’s teen has developed what the paediatrician called ‘sticky blood’ after Covid (leukaemia scare initially) and it has triggered a thyroid problem so they have gone from doing lots of a sport to barely getting through the school day.

What the answer is I’m not sure but I would like to see something other than all in and pretend it’s not happening.

This is it. Our children can sail through Covid with nothing more than a runny nose or sore throat.... or they can be affected severely and need hospitalisation (young people are being admitted)** or they can continue to be affected after the illness with long Covid of other lingering symptoms. It is hard to know.

The way Covid spread in the last months of school was like wildfire. By the last day of term, half my ds's class had Covid and 5 teachers were infected. In secondary, a large number of the year group were isolating with Covid. With no isolations in the future, surely this will just spread and spread as soon as children are mixing indoor in September.

@IncessantNameChanger

My daughter has missed so much infant schooling she can bearly read or write going into year two. I'm more scared of her being so far behind she is educationally fucked. Even my son who is now in a SEN school.could read and write better at her age.

My son is the same. He’s going into Year 3 and is really behind with his reading and writing. I feel really guilty about it and feel like a failure as a parent. He can’t miss anymore school. The damage done by further school closures would be much worse than Covid for the majority of children.

My daughter has missed so much infant schooling she can bearly read or write going into year two. I'm more scared of her being so far behind she is educationally fucked. Even my son who is now in a SEN school.could read and write better at her age.

This. Last years yr1 have missed out on the building blocks of their education. It's very worrying - I have a son about to go into yr 2 and I'm also very concerned about his reading level.

I think filters can help in schools, with classes that have poor ventilation. The Government are supposedly providing some CO2 monitors which will show there is a problem with ventilation but they aren’t then provide anything that will solve the problem!

[quote twinkletoesimnot]@Waxonwaxoff0

I think close contacts in the same household should continue to isolate.

I would like schools to have a big enough budget and freedom to mitigate in whatever way they deem to be best.

I know neither of those will happen.
Doesn't mean I have to be ok with it.[/quote]
And what about people that have to work ? Yea covid is a risk but so are many other virus etc .. flu is more lethal to children are you scared if that every year !!!! Nothing can be done you get it you get it and I don't want my children fearful of getting it and passing it on like last year ...it is a case of when not if you get covid if you don't want to send them back then homeschool children need normaikitu

Normality

Primary School children are vaccinated (or nasal spray) for flu every year, and I think this year they are offering it to all Secondary School pupils too. So that is a mitigating measure in respect of flu.

@Waxonwaxoff0

So you want something to be done but you don't know what?

Improved ventilation, NPIs such as masks and social distancing where possible and getting as many teens double vaxxed as possible would have been a start.

Basically the things other countries have done to make schooling safer. They've had over a year to sort some of this stuff. It's ridiculous that we are in this situation 2 weeks or so before school return and even more ridiculous that the government are virtually getting a free pass on this because people are acting like this is an unfortunate situation the government have found themselves in rather than one that they have caused.

There are some things that the government can't fix but a number that they can but can't be bothered. That is why England have had much more educational disruption than virtually everywhere else.

I would like schools to have a big enough budget and freedom to mitigate in whatever way they deem to be best.

But what though OP? What can they actually do that doesn't involve huge disruption to education?

We've had this on here from day 1.
OP - "I'm worried about covid spreading in schools. I want my dc's to be able to go to school every day but also want to be sure that they won't catch covid while they are there."
PP - "OK what can realistically be done to stop the spread of covid in schools without disrupting education?"
OP - "I don't know but I want it done and I'm not happy about it."

It's just going round in circles. Personally I'm happy to risk my dc's bringing covid home if it means that they get a proper education. We've both been jabbed and the risk to dc is tiny. It's not perfect but it's the best out of a bad situation.

Asthmatic teenage ds had covid in December. Primary age dd currently has it. Both were mild, as has been the case in all children I know. Most have only had a runny nose/ headache, or milder flu symptoms for a couple of days for the teenagers. Their education is more important at the moment. Ds is going into year 11 and I pray that schools stay functional as so far he hasn't had a full year of ks4.

There are a lot of scare mongering stories e.g. the poster who was looking at bats brains. But the reality is most kids have a very mild cold. We are vaccinated and haven't caught it, and my 4yo has no symptoms. Absolutely no reason schools shouldn't be open. Kids have sacrificed enough.

Yea covid is a risk but so are many other virus etc .. flu is more lethal to children are you scared if that every year !!!

Pretty sure that info is out of date and the CDC have revised that with more data available and we vaccinate children against flu. We've decided not to bother with covid despite our own regulator and just about everywhere else deciding that the benefits of covid vaccination outweigh the risks for 12-16 year olds.

There's a difference between not wanting them to catch Covid and trying to access education and what the Government are proposing (and people are going with) now.

They want Covid to spread in schools, so that children have herd immunity.

Which is fine ...., unless your child is one of the unlucky ones.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay that doesn't help primary schools though.

Where I am, schools opened August 1st. Most were face2face, some required masks, some were mask optional. Three weeks in, the spike is shooting up, especially in the 13-17 yr age group. Not mild cases, but hospitalizations and some deaths. Schools are now closing at least until October 30th, then there will be a reevaluation. Covid immunizations are now being offered to ages 12 and up. Ages 16 and up can have immunization without parental consent.

Not mild cases, but hospitalizations and some deaths.

No mild cases

@GeorgiaGirl52 where are you?

I think I find this frustrating because I'm fed up of people wanting mitigations that are actually pretty useless but just want schools/businesses/workplaces to be seen to be doing something. In my workplace we had to have all of this ridiculous pretence to make customers feel "safe". Measures that did sweet FA to stop the spread of covid but made a lot of extra work for us. It's all for show. Once covid got in to my workplace it ripped through and most of the staff caught it. All of the "measures" that we took to prevent spread were useless. The only way we could have stopped it was by none of us coming into work.

People aren't willing to look at what is realistic, they just want to be lulled into a false sense of security by token gestures.

@Shelovesamystery other countries appear to have introduced mitigating features that seemed to work in schools, although that may have been before Delta virus.

There has been a festival where a number of local teenagers went, a high proportion of those teenagers now have COVID. Hopefully, most of them mildly. But it does show how quickly it can spread amongst this age group

god this is like groundhog day. We've got vaccines now so it's so weird that nobody wants any mitigations apart from that if we won't vaccinate teenagers.

What we can do:

Masks
Ventilation
Testing

It's so so weird that people think that anyone who wants measures against Covid wants schools to be closed. That's the opposite of what I want, anyway. I want proper measures so children and teachers and school staff are facing a lower risk and the school can stay open.

I teach in primary education, as a profession we made suggestions to mitigate the risk of infection.

Smaller classes: not enough money/ teaching staff to facilitate this. No chance.
Masks: horror that children would be mentally scarred for life (doesn’t seem to have been an issue in other places). Nope.
Proper ventilation: no money, open windows. Yes it’s chilly in January, but just get everyone wearing hats, coats and gloves.

So, we are back to 30 in a class with the windows open. But, hey, they’re all great at washing their hands.

My school has been very strict on protocols: often parents have not been happy and staff have had to put in a lot of extra work to avoid inconvenience to parents. However, we have only had 1 case where there has been transmission within a bubble. Other cases have not spread. Not sure how well that will work under the new guidance when we just keep teaching children until they are ill themselves.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@GeorgiaGirl52 where are you?[/quote]
I’m guessing the us. School return has been a disaster in lots of places and some areas are out of PICU beds.

I think it's a big assumption that anyone (incl teachers) will be in work if there is covid in their house - especially children as 1 of the parents clearly has to stay home with them.
Even if the other parent wfh they may have deadlines/meetings etc.
Then there is the grey areas where adults have a sore throat or say muscle aches.

I think the gov should have

• offered vaccines to 12+

That would lower r and would therefore impact primary too Masks to slow spread until r is lower.

Why do our kids have no choices
No choice of online or in person
No madks
No vaccines

Re the kids who cant read. That could be unrelated as some kids take longer anyway. But my question is how much reading have you been doing over the summer? Even if yoi just continue with the same amount as during school so say 3-5 times a week then that is like a whole 1/6 extra progress. And continuing during all holiday time is obviously 1/4 of the whole year.
My dc going into yr 1 is significantly behind where dc1 was at same age- according to school given books but it's because we didnt get given any during the jan-mar lockdown and then they were given those same missed ones basically until end of school year.

No measures ensures many dc will be off 10days with covid.
And also no air purifiers or other measures means lots will be off testing frequently for coughs/temps