If the government were honest about the next 4 months

[RuleWithAWoodenFoot]

They'd say that children are probably going to catch covid, there is nothing to stop this happening. Lots of families will probably catch it off their children, school staff will probably catch it off children too.

Education is going to be disrupted again if the above happens. No way around it. But it could be 'over' by November when the bad weather kicks in and older folk start getting ill as per usual circumstances. At that point booster vaccs could start.

It's definitely 'an approach', but not telling people that this is the plan is unfair. Do you think people have realised this yet? Or are the Emperor's new clothes still in view?

@minipie

I just think it's easy for posters to state that school staff, their families, CEV adults and CEV children need to just get on with it and that they 'feel for them'.

Well what would you suggest sherrystrull? Are you in favour of another full lockdown? It’s also very easy to criticise and say how stressful it all is without making any practical suggestions.

We do not need a full lockdown.

We need to throw everything at this in the hope we can be in as good a position as possible over winter & PREVENT a lockdown later on.

masks, maybe more effective ones (like Germany) www.thetimes.co.uk/article/germany-faces-another-winter-of-covid-facemasks-mcjx67gkq

vaccinating 12-15s (like much of the western world)

putting effort into ventilating schools better

there is a lot we can do that together with the protection we get from vaccines could make a big difference

the vaccines don't seem to be enough on their own to stop a lot of community spread & disruption in schools, given how infectious delta is. We can't get herd immunity with them.

I'm not suggesting another lockdown or closing schools. Why do people assume that's what school staff want?
If I'm ill I can't teach my class. Their education suffers. If my TA is off ill, education suffers, if colleagues are off, education suffers.

I would like family members of positive cases to be kept at home.
I would like the government to recognise the risk to the school community and their families.
I would like money to pay for staff to support schools to ensure education can continue when inevitably staff go off ill.
I would like money so all classes can be ventilated.
I would like money to support children who need catch up.

"I would like family members of positive cases to be kept at home.
I would like the government to recognise the risk to the school community and their families.
I would like money to pay for staff to support schools to ensure education can continue when inevitably staff go off ill.
I would like money so all classes can be ventilated.
I would like money to support children who need catch up."

Your worked in schools throughout the pandemic and some years before I imagine.

So you know none of this will happen .....

I think sadly it's why I'm just so disillusioned.

@herecomesthsun

We need to throw everything at this in the hope we can be in as good a position as possible over winter & PREVENT a lockdown later on.

The irony is that by slowing the spread in educational settings over the first half of the autumn term - and that's all that can reasonably be done even by throwing everything at it - Covid won't have had a chance to blow through by winter and, with Covid rates still pretty high due as a result, a lockdown does becomes more likely as flu and other respiratory illnesses combine with Covid in a perfect storm.

The worst case scenario is that it doesn't 'blow through' but simply spreads through different areas / schools in a long, slow tsunami, keeping cases stubbornly high over a long period - especially if an initial high peak in children / young people then converts into a growing number of parental / teacher age cases (and back into new schools / areas) and then on further if immunity from vaccinations wanes.

@cantkeepawayforever

The worst case scenario is that it doesn't 'blow through' but simply spreads through different areas / schools in a long, slow tsunami, keeping cases stubbornly high over a long period - especially if an initial high peak in children / young people then converts into a growing number of parental / teacher age cases (and back into new schools / areas) and then on further if immunity from vaccinations wanes.

The more mitigations we put in place, the longer it will take to blow through. If you look at the infection curves for the Spanish Flu for instance, it took 2-3 months from the start to the end of the main peak. As we're clearly not at the start of a peak, given how infectious delta is, it won't take long if we allowed it to.

@cantkeepawayforever

The worst case scenario is that it doesn't 'blow through' but simply spreads through different areas / schools in a long, slow tsunami, keeping cases stubbornly high over a long period - especially if an initial high peak in children / young people then converts into a growing number of parental / teacher age cases (and back into new schools / areas) and then on further if immunity from vaccinations wanes.

Also, worst case scenarios are generally ones to actively plan for.

For instance, I'm not refusing to drive to avoid the worst case scenario of being killed in an accident.

... generally NOT ones to actively plan for as though they were the most likely.

Warher, I am not sure, because I am not sure that it would pass through all places and all age groups at the same pace, and some would be sequential. I agree each 'mini peak' might be fast, but the sum of all these 'little peaks' through each area and age group could well be much wider.

@Warhertisuff

... generally NOT ones to actively plan for as though they were the most likely.

The principle of risk assessment is that you imagine the worst case scenario, and decide whether your mitigations are sufficient to make its probability very low.

So in the case of driving, to mitigate the risk of a crash we have MOT tests, license drivers, have brakes and airbags, set speed limits, have seatbelt laws etc etc.

We don't say the only options are 'never go out' or 'drive with no mitigations'.

@cantkeepawayforever

The worst case scenario is that it doesn't 'blow through' but simply spreads through different areas / schools in a long, slow tsunami, keeping cases stubbornly high over a long period - especially if an initial high peak in children / young people then converts into a growing number of parental / teacher age cases (and back into new schools / areas) and then on further if immunity from vaccinations wanes.

I agree. This is my concern too. I think vaccine effectiveness will start to wane just as covid cases shoot up. It’s a perfect storm.

Warherisuff I would love to be wrong because I’ve had enough of it all; however, hope for the best and plan for the worst seems the most sensible approach when the stakes are so high. This government seems to think that ‘planning’ is unnecessary.

@BustopherPonsonbyJones the vaccines still keep people out of hospital and from getting seriously ill. Just not from getting any symptoms.

Why do people talk about them 'waning' like it means they don't?

Plus boosters.

The point about vaccine protection waning is very important.

If you accept that covid is going to spread and we are all going to get it at some point (unless shielding) whatever mitigation measures we put in place, then it’s simply a question of how fast it spreads and when we get it rather than if.

At this point in time (unlike last year) faster spread may actually have benefits, as it means more people will get it while their vaccine protection remains recent and strong. Lots of exposure now will give the vaccine immunity a natural boost while not resulting in serious symptoms. Whereas exposure in Jan/Feb could be much more serious. Yes boosters but only for over 50s at present. And there is international pressure to hold off on boosters to allow developing countries to get first vaccines done.

Also arguably better for the NHS to have more cases Sep/Oct before winter flu and other winter bugs hit.

sherry I totally agree with your suggestions about support for teachers and pupils to help minimise the impact. But I’m not sure I agree about the close contacts isolating, it means many more school and work days missed and will only slow the inevitable (and slowing may not even be a good thing as discussed)

Agree the children won't all get it in one neat peak. As others have said different areas will be hit at different times and also you can catch this more than once, so potentially those who haven't had it start catching and spreading it rapidly in the autumn term and it's still hanging around when the kids who had it last year have no more immunity and they're the next wave, then the kids who had it a couple of months after them etc.

I haven't explained that well but people do keep talking as if this was like eg. measles that you only get once and are then immune to. It isn't. It could spread throughout the whole year with only school holidays to create small fire breaks.

I also have to say that this idea that only a tiny majority of double vaccinated people become infected doesn't bear up to my experience in real life around here as I know of plenty of people who have caught it despite double vaccination and in some cases also having had the virus prior to vaccination.

Plus, whilst there are parents who don't give a shit about sending their kids in with symptoms, there won't be that many teachers, tas or support staff who are as blase about the safety of others - we are meant to isolate and test for symptoms - even if 99% of teachers tests come back negative there's still disruption in the couple of/few days (I don't drive and am reliant on postal testing) it takes to test and get a result. Whilst some posters on here don't give a shit about others I am not going to gamble on infecting a CEV child or a child who takes it home to a CEV parent. If I have symptoms I will be getting a PCR test.

[quote Warhertisuff]@herecomesthsun

We need to throw everything at this in the hope we can be in as good a position as possible over winter & PREVENT a lockdown later on.

The irony is that by slowing the spread in educational settings over the first half of the autumn term - and that's all that can reasonably be done even by throwing everything at it - Covid won't have had a chance to blow through by winter and, with Covid rates still pretty high due as a result, a lockdown does becomes more likely as flu and other respiratory illnesses combine with Covid in a perfect storm.[/quote]
It won't all just sort itself out by winter magically if we send the kids in with the current dumb arrangements. It will be chaos. And we will be in a terrible place as the winter sets in. You have no idea.

@cantkeepawayforever

The worst case scenario is that it doesn't 'blow through' but simply spreads through different areas / schools in a long, slow tsunami, keeping cases stubbornly high over a long period - especially if an initial high peak in children / young people then converts into a growing number of parental / teacher age cases (and back into new schools / areas) and then on further if immunity from vaccinations wanes.

I think that's what "Living With Covid" might look like.

I can't decide whether a sort of high rippling plateau or a bumpy upwards slope is the most likely.

So much depends on our behaviour.

But I do know that hospital admissions, the number of people in hospital, the number of people on ventilation and of course, deaths will all rise as cases do.

No stay home is fine

Postal testing is milking a few more days off

You can get tests pretty much anywhere

Where do I say I need a week? I said it's 2 or 3 days. I live in a village and don't drive. Having a postal vote, when the system is working well, only takes about 24 hours longer than accessing a postal test. At one point it was quicker as no one could get appointments at testing centres.

Not everyone lives in a town or city and in case there were colleagues driving 50 miles to get a slot at a test centre at points last year. Do you live in London?

Postal test, not vote - sorry. It's a couple of days of for an in person test around here and a few days for postal. All of this is reliant of course on the testing system having enough capacity given we're getting over 30k positive tests a day (don't know how many negative ones) even though it's summer and there are not students at school or university currently. I hope I'm wrong but it's not unlikely that we'll have points of it being very difficult to actually get tested.

@Watapalava

No stay home is fine

Postal testing is milking a few more days off

You can get tests pretty much anywhere

I took DD to a testing centre when she got Covid.

It was closed, despite us having a booking - too many staff ill. I didn't drive the extra 10 miles to the next testing centre, because I was in the car with a probable positive case and, though i knew I was in for 10 days of isolation, I wanted to keep it to the minimum by NOT catching Covid, amongst other considerations.

The centre gave us postal tests, which were in the priority postbox an hour later.

The results took 5 days - because of the backlog at the lab due to the July spike.

If this happens again due to overloading the lab and the centres, then am i milking it if I get a postal test? I will be expected to provide cover work for my class whether i am in school or not, until I am literally too ill to do so.

Curious to know where you live that you can’t access a test centre on foot or bike

Missed this bit. Large town, no centre in walking / cycling distance, sorry. There was one but it was closed because the space was needed for 'opening everything back up'.