Is it ok we are just letting our kids get Covid?

[Moonopoly]

DD5 has just tested positive for Covid. There have been several cases in her Year 1 class but school remains the same. Under the old rules the ‘bubble’ would have closed and she would perhaps have stood some chance of not getting it.
Is it ok that we are letting the government pursue a herd immunity policy with a novel virus amongst our kids?
We seem to be the only country doing this?

Today there's an article in Sky, that states 1 in 10 secondary pupils have ongoing symptoms post contracting covid more than a month later. That's ONS data not made up nonsense.

This is an absolutely disgusting experiment this sorry excuse for a government are playing on our children. It's inhumane.

I'd be interested to see that article @marieantoinehairnet . If that's genuinely the case I struggle to see why the Medical advisors were so equivocal about the benefits of vaccination for teens.

Here it is:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/covid-19-one-in-10-secondary-school-pupils-with-coronavirus-suffered-ongoing-symptoms-ons-research-finds-12420369

It depends what those symptoms are though. With everything from covid toes and a bit of a cough, to anosmia through to severe lung and kidney damage under the umbrella of long covid, I'd like to know what the typical ongoing symptoms were for children after four weeks.

Oh, it's tiredness. Thanks for the link.

For those at the back shouting that we need to ignore it and concentrate on other illnesses, you can’t! Someone dying of covid in front of you gets treatment over someone “well” at home with cancer. The way to get more cancer treatment is to slow and stop the spread of covid to free up staff, not encourage it to spread.
Also join the long kids covid group and the parents having to give up work to look after them.

How is Scotland doing with long term symptoms?

I get the impression from posters that it was a peak that passed and then it’s feeling more normal.

Thanks @marieantoinehairnet I have just skim read, but it seems for the majority they're reporting still feeling tired and it's only 12.9% (so roughly 1/100 as we're already at 1/10 to begin with) that experience more serious long-term symptoms.

I mean obviously it's something to be avoided if it could be done so without causing other unintended negative consequences, but feeling tired for a period after an illness is common for many illnesses and I believe ( sadly no handy article to quote) that long covid in children and teenagers is much lower than it is in adults.

Feeling tired to exhaustion level at 12 isn't normal - sorry but it's just not

It is following a virus.

Well I just think we could be preventing this quite a bit by doing more, which is not what we're doing right now, right now we are burying our heads in the sand.

We do not know what this weakness and tiredness equates to long term, weakness of the heart, the nervous system etc

What it equates to?

It likely equates to being knackered on account of fighting off a virus. It likely equates to this idea that we should just pop back to normal in days and insist that all kids resume their usual schedules as soon as possible with little down time to rest and recoup.

Nope sorry, still don't agree, health over wealth every time

Honestly, it is still early days and we don't know the long term effects of covid infection.

Annoys me that so little care is given to health

I care plenty about health. I'm just not willing to manufacture any grave concerns off the back of tiredness at 4 weeks post virus without further evidence of its likely cause.

We do know the harms of what’s been done to school age over last 18 months though.

So that leaves us with not much to go with. Ventilation- huge cost not against it but benefit/ risk and delay - numbers needed

Masks - not great in classrooms for dc and how long for? same analysis

Vaccination probably biggest change factor which we are doing. Some won’t agree with JCVI delay but they’ve been robust throughout

See you on the "told you so" thread in about 3 years time ...

Even if you do in three years time no country will stop a child getting delta

It comes down to vaccination age groups

[quote Moonopoly]@NannyOggsward why is no other country doing this then? Why are we the exception (again)?[/quote]
Here in Texas we have no mask mandate. We get emails from school to say your child has had a positive case in their class, isolate for 10 days if you want to. Totally leaving it up to parents. In their return to school guidelines the county health department is supposed to send a further note if your child is a close contact. Have yet to see anything of the sort, none of my friends have seen one either.

My son wanted a test after a class positive last week, we got it, was negative, the Dr said she had to advise CDC guidelines which was to isolate for 10 days. Schools are not enforcing it at all.

not sure what "robust throughout" means

masks- how long for?

not too long - vaccination/ boosters & maybe the very worst of the winter which could again hit schools, so just a few weeks/ months

& dependent on school vaccine uptake/ flu & RSV etc

it's not clear quite how bad winter will be

we expect it to be difficult & the % infection in young teens is high

but then things might improve in which case we could relax measures

really to reduce disruption as they are better off in masks in school than at home

I think the masks really helped with the return March 8th till May, together with testing

JCVI -
I’ve been fine with their decisions.

I think they are experts and know more than mners

Others may feel differently

In ROI there are no masks in primary and close contact isolation / testing has just stopped.

Up until early June, I think the JCVI were doing just fine.

However, I think that getting kids 12-15 vaccinated in the school holidays would have had a number of advantages. Especially vulnerable ones. I might have mentioned that on here once or twice.

There does appear to be a body of medical opinion in agreement with that.

However, better late than never I guess. And I am very grateful that we did eventually get the authorisation from Prof Whitty.

The thing about Evidence Based Medicine is that you can actually discuss the rationale for medical decisions you know, even if you are in a different specialism - and even if you aren't a doctor.

@herecomesthesun mask wearing 'dependent on vaccine take up' leaves us in limbo again though doesn't it? The % vaccinated at which you would agree that masks can be dispensed with in school is undoubtedly different to mine. And so it goes on.

I also supported mask wearing in schools in March - mainly as I thought it would reduce the number of close contact isolations. But I will repeat what I have said before: as a teacher, my experience is masks are detrimental to participation, and therefore to learning. Getting through the winter and then to an indeterminate future point of sufficient vaccination implies a lot more mask wearing to me.

Also, as a general comment on the thread its worth considering that continual/ excessive levels of parental anxiety are also detrimental to children's health.