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?

My children both had it at the end of August, as described did I. I was delighted.

Over and done with as far as I'm concerned.

We had no isolations until we actually caught it so we were very lucky throughout.

If you do listen to Whitty in particular he isn’t pro disrupting education to mitigate the virus particularly - he talked about caution but his vaccinate kids speech was pretty much “because continued missed school and repeated isolation is harmed up for kids” he def didn’t suggest he was really pro going back to children missing lots of school because we are in a pandemic he actually said missing school is really harmful for children! Yes that was specifically in the context of the vaccine But obviously the vaccine isn’t relevant in the conversation about primary aged children

To be fair the who have said the same re missed education I think globally we are seeing a shift away from keeping children away from school indefinitely because it is increasingly being seen as harmful. The problem is in primary children this will put them at high risk of getting covid because there are no other measures that will make much of a difference masks etc are in practice only window dressing that delay the inevitable if you think how many days a child will spend in primary school before they reach the age of 12.

@Dghgcotcitc

If you do listen to Whitty in particular he isn’t pro disrupting education to mitigate the virus particularly - he talked about caution but his vaccinate kids speech was pretty much “because continued missed school and repeated isolation is harmed up for kids” he def didn’t suggest he was really pro going back to children missing lots of school because we are in a pandemic he actually said missing school is really harmful for children! Yes that was specifically in the context of the vaccine But obviously the vaccine isn’t relevant in the conversation about primary aged children

To be fair the who have said the same re missed education I think globally we are seeing a shift away from keeping children away from school indefinitely because it is increasingly being seen as harmful. The problem is in primary children this will put them at high risk of getting covid because there are no other measures that will make much of a difference masks etc are in practice only window dressing that delay the inevitable if you think how many days a child will spend in primary school before they reach the age of 12.

True Whitty has been the closet to advocating for children throughout talking about harms from closed schools. JCVI too recently centred children but we could have had more of this.

We are back in school and quite keen to stay back in school.

DS is still testing twice weekly.

We would keep our children back off school for 10 days or whatever if it seemed the right, community-minded thing to do - I wouldn't send them in with infection and we would do our best not to spread infection in school.

But given that we are all vaccinated (and DC in secondary school tries to wear an FFP2 mask) we are hoping that we will either evade infection over the winter or get it mildly, fingers crossed.

@QueenofKattegat

Long Covid most certainly isn't

It was reported last week that "long covid" is rare in children. So you will have to stop beating that particular drum.

The research is a bit patchy so far. For example, the largest study only got responses back from 13% of children, and there are widely differing reasons why that might be. Without wanting to worry anyone, this is an area where we will have more data coming in, as it needs to be collected carefully over the coming months and years.

Also, even a relatively uncommon event, in millions of children, would add up to a potentially sizeable number overall.

I'm hoping that the reports will come back that there is a good recovery for the vast majority from this though.

@Moonopoly

They think it will be endemic by next spring so why tear it all up at this point? We’ve come this far.

What's the point? The only difference would be to delay infection by a couple of months. Where's the real benefit?

@NannyOggsward

How do you think something becomes endemic…

Very good point... Covid only transitions from pandemic to endemic once enough people catch it!

What do people understand by ‘endemic’? It just means constant circulation. What’s so different about getting it in spring.

The more kids who get it now whilst the parents vaccines are fairly recent the better. With no mitigation they will likely all have had covid by the time spring comes round. Like PP I just don’t see the point in delaying this. We’re as good as it gets with the vaccines. I think our kids lives will only properly go back to normal once most of them have had it.

@Carameljack

The more kids who get it now whilst the parents vaccines are fairly recent the better. With no mitigation they will likely all have had covid by the time spring comes round. Like PP I just don’t see the point in delaying this. We’re as good as it gets with the vaccines. I think our kids lives will only properly go back to normal once most of them have had it.

100pc agree with this. My children have had it and I'm glad they have. They were fine, despite my teen boys both being the size of adult men.

We need to get on with things. I'm not locking down again unless there's a bloody good reason.

Multiple isolations when there is nothing wrong with them is far more detrimental to children than having covid.

It’s better for your kids to build up natural immunity now while they are young and the virus is less of a worry for them.

Immunity from vaccines only last 6 months roughly. Covid will be here forever. Imagine how many vaccines they’d need to carry them through the rest of their life? It’s better to build up longer lasting, stronger immunity through infection.

@Moonopoly

For those asking about it being endemic… It’ll mean that growth isn’t exponential (which it is where I live) and that chances of you getting it will be less…

I highly doubt that. What area are you speaking of?

Also your logic makes no sense. Reaching the endemic stage through mitigations and tracing only stretches things out, it doesn’t result in fewer infections over all- only delays some. the only reason for doing that is to stop the health system becoming overwhelmed.

I really don't think it's ok.

Some of the comments here seem to think that kids will just have COVID once and if they get it now then it's over and done with. But it's clear that there are reinfections (just because the government no longer count them, doesn't mean they don't happen) and having COVID doesn't give people long lasting immunity.

On the other hand, there is evidence that even asymptomatic COVID can lead to possibly permanent lung and brain changes (obviously they can't say how long lasting those things might be as it's such a new virus), long COVID, death etc.

Why are we risking long term future health of our children and letting it run rampant through schools when they know that some of those kids will end up with long COVID and potentially life long ill health?

A few mitigations in schools/generally (mask wearing, ventilation, social distancing, isolation of contacts) would go a long way to protect a lot of people. As it is, nobody has much protection at all and it wouldn't take much effort (mask wearing, ventilation) to make a big difference.

Surely endemic viruses can be exponential, like a flu season?

Anyway, yes, my older dc will have the covid vaccination but I still expect that all my kids are likely to get it at some point. That's fine. I'd rather they roll the dice with the odds on the wooly and typically minor and temporary symptoms that children experience with long covid than take another series of hits on their education.

A few mitigations in schools/generally (mask wearing, ventilation, social distancing, isolation of contacts)

Those aren’t ‘a few mitigations’ if you do them enough to be effective though, are they? Installing costly ventilation systems in every school in the country, sending home whole classes for repeated 10-day isolations, ‘social distancing’ meaning only part of the class can go to school at any one time…

Millions of people in the country have had covid by now. If it led to mass serious brain damage even in mild or a symptomatic cases, we would have noticed.

I think people use ‘exponential’ to mean ‘lots and growing’ rather than rising at a particular rate.

"Millions of people in the country have had covid by now. If it led to mass serious brain damage even in mild or a symptomatic cases, we would have noticed"

Yes, I presume you've heard of long COVID?

A few mitigations in schools/generally (mask wearing, ventilation, social distancing, isolation of contacts)

The latter two bring huge disruption and are not without harm to people. You have to weigh up with risk to children re Covid - which is very low risk.

Yes, I presume you've heard of long COVID?

Sorry, are we defining long covid as ‘serious brain damage’ rather than ‘any lasting symptoms’ now?

It's likely to be very minor in kids. My kid had it and was symptomless. So now I feel he's protected. Yes he could have spread it, so we kept him home in isolation for 10 days.

@GoldenOmber

Yes, I presume you've heard of long COVID?

Sorry, are we defining long covid as ‘serious brain damage’ rather than ‘any lasting symptoms’ now?

I never used the word "serious" in terms of brain damage. I said possibly permanent.

I suppose it’s possible covid could have the long-term unknown side-effect of making all our elbows fall off twenty years after infection, or anything else. But it doesn’t seem that likely. And keeping restrictions that we know are damaging in place indefinitely should require more than “well it’s new and you never know”.

I don't think it's ok, but so many parents in favour for their children to just catch it , what can we do?
People say children are low risk, but how low, I wonder, especially more children catch the virus.
I think we will know how this will turn out in few months/years. Hopefully the optimistic people are right, and most of children get through this without harm.

I never used the word "serious" in terms of brain damage. I said possibly permanent.

So brain damage in a way that is damaging enough to be permanent, but not damaging enough to be serious, but still damaging enough to be serious enough to keep ‘social distancing’ in place indefinitely, even though you can’t actually see it but it might be there?