Do I send DD into school?

[mishroom]

Positive case in yr2 class last week, and told yesterday. I expect it has been passed onto some classmates. Do I send DD into school tomorrow, knowing there will be some infected children there? My DD had covid back in November. Carry on as normal? Just send her in, and cope if she gets covid again?

Yes I'd still send in

The recommended thing to do would be to send her but of course as her parent that is your choice but I believe if she doesn't go in it would be put down as an unauthorised absence which is bull considering just a few weeks ago whole classes had to isolate for 10 days and now nothing.

You can only hope that it doesn't spread around much and your Dd has some degree of immunity to it after having it herself. Rending he tried regularly clean her hands and I'm sure she'll be fine!

If my DD had never had it, I would keep her home (and am doing so with my DS tomorrow!), but seeing as she’s had it before I would send her in. There’s going to be a lot of this, this winter…

Please don’t keep at her just in case someone else in her class has it. It’s madness. Even if they do, she might not catch it. There was a big outbreak at my DD’s nursery last month, around 50% of the kids got it but 50% didn’t, despite close contact. My DD’s best friend had it & they spend all day together in nursery & go to each other houses after nursery. No covid caught by DD (or us).

Would you keep her at home if you knew someone else had a tummy bug (trust me, ex teacher, the amount of kids who’d inform me they were sick the night before!)? Or a bad cold? Or chicken pox? All of which are on a par with covid in children. It’s not a serious illness for 99% of kids.

You’ll be disrupting her education a LOT this winter if you do this. It’s not fair at all to your kids to do it, it’s their education.

& when you say ‘cope if she gets it again’.. was she particularly ill last time? You don’t have to isolate if shes positive & you aren’t anymore, so it’s not so bad!

Hopefully as she had it ten months ago she might still have some immunity.

Yes, send her in. As others have said, do you keep her off if you hear other infectious diseases are in the school?

@Bobholll

& when you say ‘cope if she gets it again’.. was she particularly ill last time? You don’t have to isolate if shes positive & you aren’t anymore, so it’s not so bad!

Yes she was very poorly last time.

Thanks for your replies and I feel a lot less anxious now. Just feels like nothing has changed - same virus, same unvaccinated kids. Two months ago, loads of precautions were in place to prevent children from getting it and passing it on, but now, it seems to be acceptable to allow it to tear through the class regardless.

A few months ago you were absolutely grilled for sending your child into school if someone at home had the virus, and now it feels like the government are saying 'fuck it'. I feel like we have to change our mindset, yet again.

I understand your worry.
As she was very ill last time could mean she has developed strong antibodies or could mean she is a risk of bad illness again...
Not enough is known about impact of reinfection yet.
Follow your gut feeling, this is what we will be guided by this term. We have asked to be informed if children from positive households are attending school.

Op I agree its a strange change to get used too.

It would be good to know if your dd has anti bodies if she was ill last time.

My younger dd has it and I've been told to work and older dd into school.

The problem is op.. It's going to be constant now.
My dd has it and no letter has gone out to the schools community.
I also know of a few cases in older dd year and again, no one has been told.
I'm working with a + at home, we can't sd and to be honest.. How many colleagues are in the same situation?

If it's any comfort OP our experience (ds1 and me) is that second infections tend to be milder and more child-like. I think you either pull her out of school til spring or carry on.

cold-like

I was also pretty damned sick the first time.

Sorry to hear she was so poorly. You were very unlucky. Most kids don’t get very ill at all. My eldest was literally just grumpy & my 9 month old, a heavy, snotty, coughy cold like thing for a few days. That’s why there isn’t much concern about primary age kids in particular catching it.

You really have two choices. Carry on & send your child to school or pull her out & home school. It’s really important she gets a consistent education, or as much as possible in this current world. I say this as an ex primary teacher. They have missed so much already. Kids just cannot afford to be pulled out constantly everytime someone in their class/year is positive or you happen to know Johnny’s mum is positive but Johnny is in school. We have this scenario tomorrow. My friend has covid but her son in my DD’s class was negative on Thursday. He’s spent all weekend isolated at home with positive mum & positive sister but he’s going into school. Grandma is picking him up & doing the school run 🙈 It is what it is. He’s very likely got it.. we’ll see what comes out in the wash I suppose..