School with possible positive case in the house.

[Nousernameforme]

I have 3 ds
Unvaccinated Ds1 has symptoms started with a sore throat now has high temp and starting to cough. Waiting results from pcr.
Ds1 shares a room with Ds2 if he comes back positive we will swap ds1 and ds3 so ds1 can properly isolate from rest of house.
Ds3 has school Dp has work Dp will continue to work and will social distance/mask up as much as possible. Ds3 cannot socially distance or wear a mask.
If Ds1s test comes back positive what do I do about ds3s school? I know I am supposed to send him but that feels really wrong. I can't afford a fine for keeping him off and a further 10 days of him at home bored will send me round the bend, but I also can't send him off like a little bio weapon ready to infect whoever he comes in contact with.

It’s also interesting that newsletters are not mentioning cases, or at least my school isn’t.

There is no right answer on this. We have to live with Covid, but I also sympathise with people who are worried. Or who would like to SI themselves or kids when a positive case in household but can’t, for whatever reason. I sympathise with people who do send their kids/themselves to work with a positive case in the household and are called selfish.

It’s really hard.

@Warhertisuff
I feel I did the right thing and I’m sure the parents of the other children would agree if I asked them. I was going to send them in but wanted to give it a couple of days to see if they caught it and they did.
I’m not at all judging anyone who sends their children in as that’s the rule.
My dh will have to go back to work as he’s negative but he’s currently off because I’m breathless and can’t leave my bed so he’s having to stay off to look after our younger dc.

How did you get on @Nousernameforme?

Last week DC2 was a close contact so we isolated alongside DC3 until the results were in (negative) as they share a bedroom.
DC1 went to work as normal having checked with them as he is double vaccinated and stayed away. Had DC2 been positive we would have all isolated and tested.

Our school secretary is currently in work and has a positive DD11 at home (husband wfh). Staff are up in arms as three share a small office space.

You can follow the government guidance to the letter, but still find you are told you are wrong, selfish etc and treated as such if you tell other people.

[quote Frogsandsheep]@Warhertisuff
I feel I did the right thing and I’m sure the parents of the other children would agree if I asked them. I was going to send them in but wanted to give it a couple of days to see if they caught it and they did.
I’m not at all judging anyone who sends their children in as that’s the rule.
My dh will have to go back to work as he’s negative but he’s currently off because I’m breathless and can’t leave my bed so he’s having to stay off to look after our younger dc.[/quote]
Me too, I phoned school this morning to say dd2 was on her way in, had tested negative so nothing I could really do, I’m sure other parents won’t be happy, I’m sure the taxi driver isn’t happy either but I’m just doing what we have been told to do.

@lovemusic33 You could have made sure other parents are aware too.
At least give vunerable families as muvh info as possible

[quote Covidworries]@lovemusic33 You could have made sure other parents are aware too.
At least give vunerable families as muvh info as possible[/quote]
How? My daughter goes to school by taxi (over a hour away), I don't know any parents, I have no way of letting anyone of them know 😐. My daughter has SN's so she has no real friends hence why I don't know any parents. It's not my job to inform parents.

I’ve been over cautious and told quite a few people that I saw last week that I have covid even though they are not officially on my test and trace. There are a few with vulnerable family members and I’d rather be as transparent as I can be. It’s so hard though as the rules have changed so much.
As I said earlier, my dc should have gone in today after negative pcrs yesterday but I kept them off and now they’ve had positive lfts
I just hope that they are not as poorly as me

@Lovemusic33

Did you let the school and taxi know?

Ffs I've just been told I can't end my 10 days at 10 days because of the government computer system.

To explain - my symptoms started on 4 September, absolutely no doubt. I did a pcr but didn't realise you have to register the barcode. So a few days later I had to do another one. I was isolating the whole time anyway. My 10 days should end today but because you can't backdate the start date as more than 5 days before the test, the earliest I can say symptoms started on the system is 7 September.

The guy at 119 can't change this and 'can't advise' me to end my isolation at what I KNOW is the 10 day mark. I could be fined. But to not do so means I have no way to get my child to and from school. This is nuts.

[quote Covidworries]@Lovemusic33

Did you let the school and taxi know?[/quote]
Yes, have spoken to the taxi company and the driver, of course they are wary but agreed that they will take her as she's under 18 so doesn't need to isolate.

The headteacher at our school now has Covid, as does his ECV wife. Both are really poorly despite being double jabbed. No doubt they caught it from a family who have Covid at home. If anything happens to them it will be an absolute disgrace! Those 2 teachers have more decency in their little fingers than the whole of this government And trust me, the headteacher dying or losing his wife will affect the children more than having to isolate a few times if someone at home has Covid.

@AntiMaskersAreTwats I love your user name. I hope the head teacher and his wife are feeling better soon! It’s awful. Thing is I presume there are many kids and families who have no symptoms who are carrying on. (Reasons lft should of still been done weekly).
The government are not protecting teachers or school children. It’s so wrong. I don’t know why the bloody government go from all to nothing! 😡

I’m teaching children who have positive cases at home. Tbh, I thought I would be more freaked out than I actually am (maybe just resigned to catching it). The students around them didn’t seem overly impressed though - at least I can move away in class. It did make me think whilst I was walking down a crowded corridor in lesson changeover, ‘I wonder how many of these students are close contacts?’.

DD is positive. I phoned my other kids’ schools and they all said to send my other kids in, after I had kept them off yesterday, once their pcr tests were negative. Only one school requested that lateral flow tests be done.
I think the issue is that at some stage we have to get used to a new normal, given that we are where we are (yes of course I wish it were different and I don’t agree at all with many of the decisions taken so far, it’s been a shit show, although I do have a tiny bit of sympathy for the government because making big decisions blind is far from easy, we had to make decisions based on low data for our company and in a state of some panic because while the pandemic developed, no-one knew anything yet we had to make decisions to keep our company going). All adults have now been offered the vaccine so in theory the most vulnerable are protected unless they have chosen not to (or cannot be vaccinated - which is the biggest problem that I can see).
One of the schools said that the data shows that not all kids in a family will get covid anyway so they are now more concerned about further ruining kids’ educations than letting them catch what for most kids is a minor illness.
I’m a SAHM so I can keep my kids off if I want to, not everyone has that option.

@Choccorocco and that’s it’s really all children will catch it esp as they have better social life’s than us face it lol.
For me I’m in limbo. Due in 9 days, I have mine home as they have a cold (I don’t want their immune system picking anything else up). I really want to keep them
Off till I have had the baby. As i really don’t want Covid while giving birth or for the first week. After than I’m fully aware of we can’t hide. But Im not sure how I’m going to get away keeping them off any longer 😂🤦🏼‍♀️

I don't think keeping households at home really matters now given how widespread it is in school

Ds is now a contact of 6 positive kids (4 in his close contact group) and 3 of his other friends have positive siblings.

I spoke to a friend yesterday who said similar for her dd in school

Its rife - i reckon most kids are a contact of someone at the minute.

Its unmanageable given majority asymptomatic. Our school is continuing 2x weekly on site testing

Interestingly no one has contacted me from T&T yet so that's waste of time and one of these contacts was from a sleepover!

Ds is still in school

Meanwhile in other countries they are tracing cases and isolating. In china they are currently squashing an outbreak which started by a man testing positive after mandatory 14 days return isolation to country and a negative test.
They are taking this very seriously.

I’m a teacher. A few kids were wearing masks yesterday. I presume this is because they have positive cases at home and are trying to be responsible, but have to be in school.

@AttaGirrrrl

I’m a teacher. A few kids were wearing masks yesterday. I presume this is because they have positive cases at home and are trying to be responsible, but have to be in school.

I have sent my dd in with a mask, have told her to wear it in the taxi But it’s hard when she has SN’s (she has always been exempt anyway) but I feel it’s all I can do to protect others.

I do feel for teachers, they are aware of what’s unfolding and know they are at risk of catching it. Chances are there are many cases that are walking around school not knowing they have it, all my LFT’s have been negative despite having covid, dd1’s LFT was negative at school a few hours before she came down with covid so she would have been carrying it and possibly spreading it for several days before. But we also must realise that 50% of kids have possibly already had it.

Yes it’s spreading fast through schools which is pretty scary but are people getting seriously ill? Most are not and most don’t have hardly any symptoms (me being one of them).

The only worry is too many members of staff getting it and the school being unable to stay open, we could possibly looking at a circuit breaker or extended half term?

Well right now cases are down. In Scotland too. In Leicester where schools have been open for a month and there has been very little impact on case numbers, so there’s good reason to feel positive for now.

@Bizawit cases are certainly not low in the uk in schools. Also many are not known because kids don’t show symptoms.

[quote Tinydancer321]@Bizawit cases are certainly not low in the uk in schools. Also many are not known because kids don’t show symptoms.[/quote]
Define “low”. What I meant by my statement was cases are going down/ falling, including in Scotland and Leicester where schools have been open a while.

The pcr came back negative, thankfully I still honestly don't know what I would do had it been positive. Dp would have had to work but we wouldnt have let anyone come into the house or gone out, dds college could be online
I think telling the school and letting them decide then if they said it's up to me I would have kept him off.

@Bizawit Not sure where you're getting your Leicester info from. Cases are skyrocketing in some schools there. Think more than 1 in 4 kids out in some year groups.