What are your predictions for this school year?

[Sheepsheepmoresheep]

Be interesting to look back. I didn’t think they’d close the schools again this time last year, but I was wrong!

I don’t think they’ll close the schools again … but we’ll see!

Jourdain, what I see on here is a range of views - some who ridicule fears (on every thread), some who focus on worst case (on every thread), some who focus on education, some on mental health, some on the CEV, some on the young, some on the elderly. Yes, some on both ends of the debate post extreme posts on many threads, but the vast majority, while bringing their own agenda and their own viewpoints, have valid points to make. I may not agree with them, but I see no reason to mock or belittle them.

@TheKeatingFive

To be fair, some of you (and you know who you are) do tend to seep into every Covid thread like the Grim Reaper, intoning, "Doom, doom, exponential growth, sitting ducks, Long Covid, vaccine-resistant variants, Lockdown Christmas..." You cannot be too surprised that people get a little...weary

Don’t forget the noisy data

This thread is the perfect MN CV storm. Covid, schools, new variant. Wind em up and watch em go.

also a load of nonsense from the same old posters minimising covid, yada yada flu etc

Watapalava, I understand you ate posting your own viewpoint - which you are entitled to. What evidence do you have to claim that ‘parents’ - as a general group, countrywide - feel exactly as you do?

It's hard to tell how the next school year will unfold as so many of us had very different experiences last year. Some schools had endless repeated isolations and disruption and some schools had no isolations or disruption at all. My dc primary had only 1 bubble closure the whole year (typically my ds class) whereas the primary school down the road regularly had at least 1 or 2 classes isolating at any one time , twice the whole school closed completely.

Not sure if I'm going off at a tangent, but delta variant has been mentioned few times. It won't help schools (or any other workplace) that the symptoms common for delta variant aren't the main three that allow for pcr test

I've spent two weeks with all the snotty coughy symptoms of delta variant. It's def not a normal cold. My eyes were sore (same as when I had covid last year) and I aches. But I didn't have a fever, continuous cough or loss of taste. I was able to do lateral flow test ( notoriously and proven unreliable) but not pcr to confirm either way. Therefore my employee insisted I couldn't isolate. I've managed to wfh and avoid others but had I gone in to work and did in fact have delta variant, I could easily have infected loads. This will be same with schools. If they do t test people then it'll spread like mad

Also think this school year will be near normal

If they vaccinate enough secondary school children, that will help things along a great deal

Chaos from government and lots of sickness. Not just covid. I reckon there will be flu, colds, vomiting bugs galore. Plus staff shortages.

Covid will rip through schools in the first half term, but without isolation for contacts, disruption won't be too bad...maybe a week or two on average and I imagine many won't bother testing for very mild cases (which the majority will be). The more parents and schools treat Covid like any other illness, the less disruption there'll be.

Once we get to November, it will have burnt itself out unless we go back to isolating contacts and there's overzealous testing... which will only prolong disruption.

At least people have stopped pretending that covid doesn’t spread in schools.

Chaos between now and Christmas and then possible closures from January

@noblegiraffe

At least people have stopped pretending that covid doesn’t spread in schools.

This the denial of objective realty this time last year was very annoying

Trying to point it out was called ‘scaremongering’ right up to the point where the govt had to close schools nationally.

Any virus spreads in a school, always has always will do. In terms of covid the vast majority of dc are not effected severely or long term, that's fact , statistics show this. The main issue of spread within schools was how it transferred to the wider community, as in adults especially those Vulnerable either due to age or health concerns. I dont believe for one minute the closure of schools was to protect children from covid, It was for mainly the adult population benefit not saying that was wrong btw
Hopefully the vaccines and possibly boosters in the CEV, and some herd immunity from previous infections , mean that whilst yes we may have some children ill for a short period, it will be mild majority of cases are and a lot of community cases (adults)will also be mild. Long term mass school closures should never be a thing again, whilst I'm not dismissing the possibility of short term individual closures IF staffing were to become an issue, these scenarios should be less likely than last September now adults are vaccinated and have a lower chance of catching the virus, and also children benefit from their parents being vaccinated for it to come into the household altogether, after all covid doesn't just breed in schools, someone needs to bring it in from the outside first.

@Jourdain11

To be fair, some of you (and you know who you are) do tend to seep into every Covid thread like the Grim Reaper, intoning, "Doom, doom, exponential growth, sitting ducks, Long Covid, vaccine-resistant variants, Lockdown Christmas..." You cannot be too surprised that people get a little...weary.

I happen to get rather weary every time our government make yet another fuck up.

@TheKeatingFive

To be fair, some of you (and you know who you are) do tend to seep into every Covid thread like the Grim Reaper, intoning, "Doom, doom, exponential growth, sitting ducks, Long Covid, vaccine-resistant variants, Lockdown Christmas..." You cannot be too surprised that people get a little...weary

Don’t forget the noisy data

This thread is the perfect MN CV storm. Covid, schools, new variant. Wind em up and watch em go.

No one has mentioned a new Variant.

This is just the whole "cheese in coffee" bullshit all over again. Making up things that were never there in order to try and make those who dare to express an ounce of caution look bad.

Nobody mentioned a new variant on this thread, perhaps. I don't think you'd need to look far to find a scarey "new variant" post though.

I don't make shit up to prove a point.

One day there was a Covid scare
A variant that wasn't there
T'was mentioned yet again today
I wish that it would go away...

Polls of about 1500 people

This is how polls actually work.

@borntobequiet

Polls of about 1500 people

This is how polls actually work.

Yep. I'd encourage the statistically challenged (hi @Watapalava!) to check out the Law of Large Numbers.

There's nothing realistically to suggest that tens of thousands of children are going to end up with Long Covid (whatever you class as Long Covid...) and there's really nothing to suggest that this virus has a worse effect on kids (and families) than the many other viruses Well, nothing apart from the scientific data, no.

My prediction is a very high number of cases, and therefore a high number of children ill for the longer term, with a proportion of them permanently affected.

Hospitalisations of children are currently 30+/day, that'll be far higher a month after schools reopen in England.

It's awful, but our PM genuinely does not care how many children are ill or how ill they get.

Agree you must get a PCR test if your child is ill as you will need the proof for health support and sadly, for some, benefits claims.

@Watapalava

Staff won’t be off because people won’t test

No one is worried and with all disruption of the last few years, parents want kids in school and will go out of their way to avoid any kind of disruption

Parents simply aren’t worried about kids getting covid anymore

Parents aren’t worried they’ll pass it on because of the huge rates of vaccinated adults (I know not all are fully protected after a vaccine but people won’t conaider those low numbers who lets face it will always be at risk)

Parents won’t give a damn about those who refused vaccine

No tests, no cases

No isolations needed anyway as all adults will be double vaccinated by then and kids exempt

So no excuses just like rest of the workforce

Those who’ve refused will be shunned by noses for bringing inconvenience to their team - pay will end for isolations since it’s ‘personal choice’

Most double vaccinated who do get ill get it mildly so whilst they may be unwell, it’s likley only a day or two and not 14 days

I expect this year will be near normal

Is this a personal opinion or just some kind of fantasy you've had? I've only been back in school for a week and it is nothing like "normal", sadly. Lots of children isolating already. (Isolation or Covid positive, I've no way to tell)

I am perfectly able to understand scientific data, thank you. Nor am I "statistically challenged".

I think the point Watapalava makes about opinion polling is, it's really difficult to know whether the "random sample" really is reflective of society overall. 1,500 is a small cohort, too.

well isolation for covid isnt a thing anymore so they must have covid or be off for something else.

Vast majoiry of kids don't have symptoms never mind get ill. IF the 2x week tests stop (pay it does) then disruption will be minimal. The number of actual covid positive cases in school was only a fraction of those actually isolating

Exactly Jourdain - theres another thread on here were majority say they wont vaccinate their kids