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?

There is actual evidence that not educating kids is damaging but lots of people ignore that..shutting schools isn’t impact neutral whatever independent sage will tell you. If you want to think about it maybe ask how many independent sage members went to school and question if a lot of highly educated people say “education isn’t important” wether that is really credible..as group i think they have spent slot of timing wanting to shit schools and hope that we all will not look at there qualifications were they may be one of two. Conversations about hypocrisy!

There is actual evidence that not educating kids is damaging but lots of people ignore that.

I really don't think that's true. Everyone knows not educating kids is damaging.

Of course education is important. I don't see one person on this thread arguing that it isn't.

The options are not "keep schools open, everyone gets infected" or "shut the schools, keep children out of education."

We can take measures to mitigate the spread of COVID in schools to reduce the likelihood of children getting COVID so that they can be safe and also learn, as has been suggested over and over again and as is also being implemented in other countries.

My child is quite young -- I'd like her to have some functional brain cells left by the time she gets to secondary.

@whatshouldicallme I politely disagree. We don't have enough data to comment on long term damage yet; neither is there yet much evidence of reinfection. If you want to dwell on the dangers of covid for your kids that's fine but given that they will probably get it anyway and given that so many kids have had it, and are fine, it seems an unhelpful approach to me.

Much prefer it to whole classes being off - mine was off 4 times last school year and it never got passed around. Now some in her class have it but she doesn’t.

But it is! People don’t say it but “we need schools with social distancing and smaller classes”..well that is kids like mine at home watching bbc bitesize because that is the only way to achieve it! Turf a lot of kids out and just educate keyworker kids in a nice socially distanced manor. 30 kids in a classroom will result in covid - if they are 15 yes less risky but what will happen to the 15 not in the classroom?

Because I worry about them! Yes because they will be my kids (you know because whether you get education is down to your parents job!) but because no one has showed evidence that the next Sarah Gilbert def has parents who do the right job! What if they don’t what if we loose an amazing future scientist? And yes if socially distanced schooling is what people want dont we need to end the key worker nonsense! i think we should introduce an entrance test - so a test at 5 decide - a fair way to device who gets one of the those 15 spaces..or does everyone who wants this just assume their kids get a place?..and hasn’t even thought of the 15 kids who don’t?!

[quote Whatshouldicallme]@Faffinator

can't see the point in speculating on potential future harms of the virus for kids when half have had it already.

It isn't speculation, there is actual evidence emerging that even mild infection can lead to long term damage to brain cells. The percentage of children who have already had COVID is irrelevant because we know it can infect more than once.

It seems at the moment that the government's policy is to allow children to repeatedly become infected with a virus that might be damaging their brains a bit more each time. Are you honestly not concerned about that?[/quote]
Most of the evidence shows that the vast majority of children have the virus mildly with no long term ill effects.

@Mickarooni

I’m curious what percentage of UK children are vaccinated against chicken pox? Obviously it’s not available on the NHS, so the cost will be prohibitive for many. Yet, we don’t talk about the potential long term impact of chicken pox. It’s very contagious.

If it were up to me, we would vaccinate all children against chickenpox, I did my best to get it done for my children.

It would be cost effective in terms of parents' time alone, spent at home looking after children ill with a really unpleasant disease.

Yes In the same way we have to let our children get colds and the flu.

No I’m not ok with it. My six year old is struggling to get over Covid as am I and her dad. Poor little thing is exhausted and still coughing after 17 days and I can’t sleep or breathe properly.

I think there’ll be a lot of legal cases aimed at the DfE in years to come. They’ll point the finger at schools who’ll be shocked to learn that hiding behind gov guidance doesn’t work because existing human rights and health and safety laws supersede guidance.

It's really weird m, almost like denial that covid even exists anymore, not a word is uttered about it at both schools here, but it's spreading like wild fire.

When exactly will plan B kick in, soon I hope.

@Dghgcotcitc

There are absolutely ways to mitigate the virus and keep schools properly open (eg investing in proper ventilation systems for all schools, proper testing, a complete course of the vaccine to be offered to children, investing in more physical space for teaching and learning so children can spread out more, investing in more teachers who can teach smaller classes, investing in more forest school/proper outdoor learning programmes etc) . Our government hasn't invested any resource or money in making it happen. They are happy to lazily just shut schools and provide minimal resources for schools to provide virtual learning.

It's horrendous, but it didn't have to be this way. The government have chosen throughout the pandemic not to prioritise children, their health, or their learning.

bumbleymummy. It's so easy for you to make so many irresponsible comments since MN is anonymous, isn't it?
You say vast majority of children have no long term effects, but the recent study says otherwise. Even the mild illness can cause damage.
I really hope people ignore your comment.

@bumbleymummy

There is quite a bit of evidence emerging that indicates otherwise.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7927578/

www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2157

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02599-5

There is also a lot of additional data, dating back to much earlier days of the pandemic, that recognises the significant neurological effects that COVID infections cause in affected adults. There is no reason to think COVID wouldn't also affect children's brains, and that does look like this is what new research is suggesting.

I don't think it's ok OP and hope DD and the others mentioned on this thread get better soon. I too am really struggling with the choice kids/parents have now re: schooling a) accept child will get covid shortly or b) deregister. It's a stark choice. There’s a parent strike next Friday, so I guess others don't like this choice either.

I know there's loads we don't know about covid yet, but what we do know e.g. neurological issues, organ damage, long covid etc is frightening to me. It’s not as frightening as those things being dismissed/ignored in decisions being made about school communities and their families. Cases in young kids are the highest they’ve been to date.

My kids aren't old enough to be vaccinated, but for those with kids that are old enough and want the vaccination, it must be awful knowing that the summer has been wasted. Whilst other countries were addressing ventilation, we also did nothing. The non-isolation of household contacts at this stage also makes no sense, unless we are deliberately removing all safety nets in a quest for herd immunity - irrespective of harm to kids, staff and their families. Deliberate mass spread doesn’t help keep schools open, so that makes no sense either.

As for NHS, there are signs of it being overwhelmed already which affects everyone. I think it’s bizarre that this is our key driver of covid policy anyway. Does it mean that if we had 100 times current capacity, we wouldn’t do anything if that many people were getting sick from covid? Does it mean that if 10,000 people a week die from covid, but we have sufficient capacity in hospital, we normalise that too?

I don't think we've been 'following the science' for a long time - wasn't the wide view that vaccinations could do a lot of the heavy lifting, but that layers of mitigations were needed? We don't even mandate masks on public transport, despite our high cases and (to me) death rates. As younger kids can’t get vaccinated, why did we remove all other mitigations? Where’s the science? Some schools are even doing whole school assemblies.

Forcing normality with high case rates and no protection in place is especially brutal for kids, teachers and their families that are vulnerable. As well as the physical risks, how does that not mess with their mental health? I’ve seen posters raise this and be met with a ‘do something about your anxiety’ type response.

Here’s an article about why they took a similar approach in Florida and how well it’s working out for them. https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/lions-led-by-donkeys/

@Dghgcotcitc

But it is! People don’t say it but “we need schools with social distancing and smaller classes”..well that is kids like mine at home watching bbc bitesize because that is the only way to achieve it! Turf a lot of kids out and just educate keyworker kids in a nice socially distanced manor. 30 kids in a classroom will result in covid - if they are 15 yes less risky but what will happen to the 15 not in the classroom?

Because I worry about them! Yes because they will be my kids (you know because whether you get education is down to your parents job!) but because no one has showed evidence that the next Sarah Gilbert def has parents who do the right job! What if they don’t what if we loose an amazing future scientist? And yes if socially distanced schooling is what people want dont we need to end the key worker nonsense! i think we should introduce an entrance test - so a test at 5 decide - a fair way to device who gets one of the those 15 spaces..or does everyone who wants this just assume their kids get a place?..and hasn’t even thought of the 15 kids who don’t?!

We have some of the largest class sizes in Europe.

Smaller class sizes would be possible (with investment and re-organisation) and would benefit children in all sorts of ways, though that would be a medium to long term project.

Schools are already shutting because of staff and pupil illness, and it’s not even the end of September yet. It will only get worse. Shame our Government didn’t put at least some mitigations in place to soften the impact. In other countries where proper ventilation and mask wearing is in place, and where vaccination programmes for children (and boosters for teachers) have been rolled out, children seem to be back in school learning.

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/sep/24/schools-in-england-struggling-to-stay-open-amid-soaring-covid-cases

I'm in Scotland so return to school was a few weeks ahead of England. The first three weeks were bad with escalating case numbers, coupled with a non covid covidy like bug doing the rounds.

However school case numbers are now falling- we get a daily bulletin from school - and things going back to normal. I expect there will be another bit of a peak post October break, but by that time quite a few teens will have had their vaccine so impact on secondary not so great.

I'm in Wales. Both of my children's schools have asked us (politely because they can't force it) to keep children at home if there is a positive case in the house. No fines will be issued.

@rookiemere

I'm in Scotland so return to school was a few weeks ahead of England. The first three weeks were bad with escalating case numbers, coupled with a non covid covidy like bug doing the rounds.

However school case numbers are now falling- we get a daily bulletin from school - and things going back to normal. I expect there will be another bit of a peak post October break, but by that time quite a few teens will have had their vaccine so impact on secondary not so great.

I agree we’re likely to see the same here

Of course it is wrong!
Children have been treated very poorly throughout this pandemic, with this shitty statement that the virus does not ffect them. And there are plenty of parents still defending this after they had cases upon cases in their own school!

The mitigations we had brought more harm - it’s probably why many parents weigh risk v harm.

If you're worried about your children getting covid keep them off and insist the school live stream lessons. All schools now should have the facilities for this. If you want to send your children in then stop moaning because there's bugger all schools can do to mitigate the problem and constantly sending huge numbers home is incredibly disruptive. I've been live streaming to some students not comfortable with coming in. It's been working fine. Primary age children would however need help at home but that's the choice you need to make as a parent.

I'm OK with it ,I want ds to catch it while he's young in the same way as I was relieved be caught chicken pox as a toddler and won't have to deal with it as an adult when it could be more serious.

I'm double jabbed but I only did it to protect others, it made me feel horrendous. I would rather have caught covid and developed natural immunity .