To think I should have a right to know how many cases at school?

[Workinghardeveryday]

I have 3 kids, 2 at Primary and 1 at High School.

I have asked this morning if I can be informed of any cases in my children’s classes and been told no.

I am CEV and there is a good chance the vaccine didn’t work. I homeschooled up until March, realised I need to let my kids get a proper education, after all I am no teacher!

I would however like to be able to weigh up the pros and cons of sending them if a child has tested positive!!

Good luck with the birth, @Tinydancer321

Yes everyone will catch it. Yes a bit of extra information would be useful. Yes we are going about our lives - but we might make an extra adjustment to some situations if there has been close contact.

I’m trying to stay away until after the baby. It’s a worry and I feel worried for anyone who is cev and elderly as it’s very nasty. 😢

There are loads of cases in children at our secondary school. Email from school to say keep LFT and then PCR if symptoms and keep off. They have numerous cases in each year group. Teachers are in and working so either had before or vaccinations are working. School is still working as normal.

@Tinydancer321

I’m trying to stay away until after the baby. It’s a worry and I feel worried for anyone who is cev and elderly as it’s very nasty. 😢

It's not very nasty for everyone. Double vaxxed relative with terminal end stage cancer and he was fine with covid. Thought it would be the end. It's strange how some really, really vulnerable go through it ok and some seemingly fit and healthy struggle with it.

If you are pregnant and double vaxxed it will help.

OP, you might be able to put your mind more at ease by taking an antibody test.
You can get one from your GP if you are immunocompromised/immunosuppressed or you can buy one for under £100, I think they are nearer £60 now (and less if you are NHS staff).
This will tell you what your antibody levels to Covid are.
I did one and was told I had a very strong response - so good antibodies!
Information is power - you can reduce your anxiety considerably.

Although Covid is now notifiable to PHE, the previous disregard for the data protection law seems to be petering out.

My school And ds college inform if there's a positive case in class so parents can do LFT or PCR testing if they wish. We can't force it as it guidance but many are choosing to test their children and some are deciding not to send them in for a few days to wait and see how far it's spreading with those still attending.

I can't believe the minimising from some people. especially the "that's no way to live". The OP is CEV so she has to live like this. And too right that she's consider taking them out of school if there was an outbreak. Missing out on some schooling pales in comparison to her kids missing out on a mother. Also, there absolutely are people who are vulnerable specifically to Covid, and not to the norovirus, chicken pox etc. I'm CV rather than CEV but have no problem with norovirus for example. But I could with Covid because of a heart defect that already puts extra pressure on my heart.
OP, for all it's worth, our nursery is still notifying us if there are cases. And we did keep our daughter at home when there was one. Easier, I know, because it's nursery, not school.

@EarlGreywithLemon I totally agree with you. I have no faith is the government choices.

Amazes me how quickly schools send out headlice notices yet covid is swept under the carpet. I woke to a message shared by a parent of a positive child and shared that message to alert other parents. Within 30 minutes there were two more positive children who's parents had tested with LFT.

Now the school have released an email stating there are confirmed cases and that measures are being put in place. These measures are no whole school assemblies, one way system reintroduced at pick up and parents to wear masks on the school site.

It's crazy.

@user147856 it won't help if the results are awful though. Mine were very low.

@tinydancer321, me neither. And you're quite right that government policy is about the NHS not getting overwhelmed, the economy etc., not individuals getting sick or dying. And how you react to it does seem to be a Russian roulette. It's unpredictable. Some people who are vulnerable on paper have got away very lightly, and conversely it has affected some young healthy people badly. Not that many, but enough to worry.
I also find it disturbing how some people are practically rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of "everyone getting it".
Good luck and fingers crossed that your birth goes smoothly, and that you and yours have no brushes with Covid!

@EarlGreywithLemon thank you!
Yes I totally agree. I’m surprised some parents are not doing Covid parties as they seem really excited about it not spreading and no longer needing tests or having to isolate.
Some people
The vaccines have worked well for and others have still been really poorly and needed hospital treatment.

I'm always really confused about posts like this. Surely if you're CEV,then it wouldn't just be this virus that would effect you more than others? Aka surely flu,colds etc would have the same effect. And as others have said,you never knew how many had those before 2019. So...what's changed?

Always the same question.
Not all of us were immunosuppressed before 2019 @wonderstuff123 and even so my household are vaccinated against or have had most common illnesses. Yes I might have picked up Chicken Pox in a supermarket but I wasn't sending my child into primary school to sit next to 5 people with it week after week without any immunity.

Covid is a lot different to colds and flu though. It’s attacks far worse for certain people

@wonderstuff123

I'm always really confused about posts like this. Surely if you're CEV,then it wouldn't just be this virus that would effect you more than others? Aka surely flu,colds etc would have the same effect. And as others have said,you never knew how many had those before 2019. So...what's changed?

In the past I have been notified about chickenpox, measles and scarlet fever in my kids classes. And nits. And KS1 was told about a Noro outbreak with a gentle reminder to encourage hand washing and keep fingers out of mouths.

Should we stop those too?

Or do we allow parents a bit of information about incidences in their classrooms so they can keep an eye out and act where they think it is appropriate.

If you aren't worried about CV nothing will change for you even if the whole class are off. If you have concerns or it might impact future plans you test.

If I were that worried, I would be home schooling. There are lots and lots of resources out there, local groups etc. Having said that, the vaccine, whilst I know not shown to be effective in terms of stopping spread by mass vaccination of the healthy, is, to be fair to it, meant to reduce symptom severity so if you have been recommended vaccination, it should 'work' - that is after all the point of it.
It any doubts, you're right about putting health first though, partly because it's also not great health wise to be in a state of anxiety.

Not sure I can combine home schooling 2 children, one of whom is doing GCSEs, with a demanding job , hospital appointments and disability. And keeping tabs on whether there are cases in any of the groups they attend. Great to know you would though.

@beentoldcomputersaysno
Well said.

Daily Carbunkle:
"The overwhelming conclusion from actual research is that covid doesn't affect children in a serious way, and you're talking about hospitalisation of thousands, organ damage etc. "

These are children. Sorry, but in what other context would an incident that caused hospitalisation of thousands be "not affecting them in a serious way"?
It's this that does my head in time and again, the gaslighting that this is absolutely fine. 84 children have died in the UK, but hey, that's a minority.
When people say "thousands were dying of flu each year" the natural response is surely "wow, that's not good. what can be done to prevent that?" rather than "Oh, okay then, another 1,000 a month on top isn't a problem, then."
It's extraordinary. I don't get why people who normally care enormously are just writing people off as expendable at the moment. Caring and being concerned about that is not anxiety. It's a very natural response to an insane situation.

@duffeldaisy well said. Well summed up. It’s heart breaking when you read people’s opinions on Covid.

Thanks @Tinydancer321. It's a real relief to know I'm not alone in finding it so upsetting. There are so many "we have to live with it now, it's only a minority who are getting long covid/dying" comments, it can be quite depressing and just feel so bizarrely wrong!

Our school isn't naming but emailing if there is a positive case in the class

@duffeldaisy very well put. I honestly don’t understand what’s going on, it’s like we’ve entered some sort of collective delusion. Why have we bought into this lie that this is it now, it won’t get ahh better, so we might as well just accept it? You just need to look at somewhere like Germany, which has a fraction of our cases and deaths, to see that better is perfectly achievable.
And yes, the horrible discourse around the vulnerable, the elderly, and COVID deaths generally. Our current level of daily deaths from Covid is the equivalent of a medium plane full of people crashing in this country every day. Would people shrug that off if it happened? Also, would they still be lining up to fly?
I completely understand people’s worries about their jobs, mortgages etc. But this goes beyond that. People want to ditch even perfectly innocuous mitigations like masks and pretend it’s all normal now - whereas the situation is anything but.

*any better