COVID infected child coming into school

[Dancerinthedark01]

Sorry - rubbish title

But DD11 just came home and says BoyA came into school this morning saying his whole family has COVID. He was late in because he’d just been tested. He then sat there sniffing and squinting his eyes. DD’s description.

Then half an hour later he was taken out of school because test came back as positive.

Is this normal practice now?

If schools stopped banging on about 100% attendance then perhaps kids would not be sent in ill. DD2's school had something in the newsletter about attendance this week and I wondered in these times of Covid and cold/flu season if they were on another fucking planet.

I'm in Scotland where schools do not bang on about 100% attendance- we do not have ofsted inspections that use attendance towards a rating, we do not issue treats to dc who achieve the attendance goal and we do not issue fines for unauthorised absence. The dc are still sent in clearly not well. One parent keeps making excuses for the horrendous cough or hoarse voice saying things like it's from eating ice cream when the dc can barely keep his eyes open. We send him home but he's always back the next day with a new excuse

Seems fair enough. We can't all stay off work and school with every sniffle or we'll all be at home for most of the winter.

I’ve ended up writing to my MP about this asking her to justify this. Especially in the context of slow (or inaccurate!) PCR testing and test and trace not telling parents if their kid is a close contact.

For example, cases are rising in my child’s secondary school and in his year. One of his friends has tested positive on a lateral flow - which I only know because he was told via WhatsApp. DS has now started coughing so obviously I’m getting him a PCR.

But if I’d known about the positive case earlier - I could have got him tested sooner as could others. The school aren’t allowed to tell us if our child is a close contact.

It
Is
Disgusting.

@DocAutumn

Seems fair enough. We can't all stay off work and school with every sniffle or we'll all be at home for most of the winter.

The child was waiting on a COVID test result.

UK has 1000 deaths per week. This sort of boneheaded obstinacy is why.

@DocAutumn

Seems fair enough. We can't all stay off work and school with every sniffle or we'll all be at home for most of the winter.

It’s not about that though.

It’s about giving us enough information to be able to assess if it could be covid or not.

@OliveTree75

This kind of thing is happening all the time in my class. Sick of sending poorly kids to the office to be told they are staying in school because SLT said theyre not going home even though they have covid symptoms/are just generally ill

Yes this is happening a lot at the secondary school my sister is a teacher at. Students with very obvious covid symptoms being told to stay in school by slt staff

@OliveTree75

I was asked to sit in my tiny office with a maskedless kids whilst they tried to contact home to collect him as he had a temp and a cough…. Er no thanks!

It's madness OP. Look at our covid strategy as a country though. Obscene.

My daughter (12) has been off with Covid for all of last week.
The child she sits next to tested positive 3 days before her. We tested her daily from then on and caught it early, before she got symptoms.
She was the third child testing positive in the class.
If the school had reintroduced masks there and then the spread could have been minimised.
A week later, with no measures, 9 children in her class are off with Covid and it has spread to other forms and year groups due to mixing in lunchtime clubs.

Now masks and daily tests have been reintroduced 🙄

I agree with previous posters that in this country the spread is somehow regarded inevitable. It’s not. It’s another government failing.

Its the DfE who have decided that covid absence is now a "normal" absence since it no longer has a special code.
Therefore ALL the covid absence will count towards a schools absence record.
Which means NO school can possibly meet ofsted absence targets.
Handy way to make sure all schools join a MAT, eh?
(Which the DfE have made very clear is what they want)

This is what has been happening from the start of this term. I'm currently isolated from the family as I'm waiting for a PCR after a positive LFT. I'm a teacher, and I had Covid in February/March. I caught that from DP (also a teacher) who caught it from a symptomatic child in during lockdown but dosed up on cold and flu capsules. This was before vaccines and DP was hospitalised (x3 over the course of a month) and is still not 100%. We are now both vaccinated but I am terrified of him (and our DDs) catching it again.

This past week we have sent 31 students home after showing symptoms (the 3 plus headaches and sore eyes) after a positive LFT at school followed by a positive PCR.

And so much for the much needed holiday we have booked for half term. Only in the UK, but after this year and the fact that DP was still unwell over summer, we were really looking forward to it.

I think many people have the same attitude as I have now, so what if I have it.

For the first 45 years of my life I carried on regardless if I got coughs and colds (thankfully I've never got real flu), my kids managed to complete secondary with less than 2 weeks sick in their whole schooling a piece (a week each for chickenpox plus the odd day but not most years as they got
100% attendance prizes most years). I've not taken a day off sick in the 15 years i returned from being a sahm.

Now I'm meant to stay at home because I have the mildest of symptoms, or even none? Well I had covid it was literally nothing, now the vulnerable are double if not triple vaccinated and most of us have had an infection or two it's time to go back to common sense, if you are ill stay home l, if not carry on

if you wonder why other countries have lower rates it's because they are not asymptomatic testing their population!

@gogohm

I think many people have the same attitude as I have now, so what if I have it.

For the first 45 years of my life I carried on regardless if I got coughs and colds (thankfully I've never got real flu), my kids managed to complete secondary with less than 2 weeks sick in their whole schooling a piece (a week each for chickenpox plus the odd day but not most years as they got
100% attendance prizes most years). I've not taken a day off sick in the 15 years i returned from being a sahm.

Now I'm meant to stay at home because I have the mildest of symptoms, or even none? Well I had covid it was literally nothing, now the vulnerable are double if not triple vaccinated and most of us have had an infection or two it's time to go back to common sense, if you are ill stay home l, if not carry on

if you wonder why other countries have lower rates it's because they are not asymptomatic testing their population!

The factual error in your final paragraph is that you ignore comparitive positivity rates, hospitalisations and deaths. You're simply wrong.

The UK has far higher COVID levels.

Because of boneheaded attitudes both in government and the population.

COVID is not the same as the viruses we are used to, however much it comforts the ignorant to believe that.

The one thing I'm not sure of is the relative stupidity levels between other countries and the UK. I can infer it, but have no data.

It’s not about kids absence - if there’s no teachers the schooling will be interrupted -

Local school is sending two year groups to work at home because there’s no teachers to teach.

“if you wonder why other countries have lower rates it's because they are not asymptomatic testing their population”

@gogohm
That is nonsense.

Twice weekly testing for all children plus masks in schools and 3G (proof of having been tested/vaccinated/recovered) when going into venues and having vaccinated children before the school year started is what is keeping numbers down in Germany.

DD1 started to display symptoms Saturday night, Sunday PCR, Monday early positive results.

Monday keep DS and DD2 home and order home tests. School tell me DD2 MUST be in school. I said I couldn’t follow the confusing instructions, especially given that 2 schools and a college are not consistent. Following day keep DD2 home again as asthma cough is worse than usual, DD2 positive but a symptomatic.

Keeping DD2 out has won me no favours from the school, but none of her friends have caught it.

There is a difference between a possibility of catching it and a policy that is designed to infect as many in the school community as possible. It is abhorrent.

Im not sure what you expect people to do. Work are expecting people in. Schools are expecting kids in. People are even saying dont trust the tests we are given, act in ways that could lose us jobs or get is in trouble with attendence. Anything thats not even on the list of synptoms might still be a symptom, and the tests are all inaccurate. .

Oh and kids dont get ill from it so no need to vaccinate kids etc, but of course theyre superspreaders and shouldnt be in???

Massive headfuck

We just had a major outbreak at our school, there are only 3 off now with covid - 2 are teachers!

The chart here shows a peak then big reduction. It can’t be mitigations - but it is good to be on the other side of it

There’s no easy solution is there? Reintroduce masks as so many want on here? But for how long? What happens next year? Or is this our long term strategy now. Mask children throughout their education?

Agree we should have vaccinated 12+ sooner.
Agree filters in schools would be lovely but there’s no money for that. All gone on furlough and the rest.

What are the options now though? What would you do if in power?

@gogohm

I think many people have the same attitude as I have now, so what if I have it.

For the first 45 years of my life I carried on regardless if I got coughs and colds (thankfully I've never got real flu), my kids managed to complete secondary with less than 2 weeks sick in their whole schooling a piece (a week each for chickenpox plus the odd day but not most years as they got
100% attendance prizes most years). I've not taken a day off sick in the 15 years i returned from being a sahm.

Now I'm meant to stay at home because I have the mildest of symptoms, or even none? Well I had covid it was literally nothing, now the vulnerable are double if not triple vaccinated and most of us have had an infection or two it's time to go back to common sense, if you are ill stay home l, if not carry on

if you wonder why other countries have lower rates it's because they are not asymptomatic testing their population!

I urge you, strongly, to go and do a google of comparative hospitalisation and death rates for the UK and other countries.

And then, use logic to tell me how the fact we are testing is the reason for that 🤨

We had 1/4 of the school absent and over 25 members of staff, some of whom are still absent five weeks later. PHE investigated and told us we are doing a grand job. A grand job of absolute carnage.

Yes, we ‘need to learn to live with it’ but this isn’t the way. We have to accept that Covid is caught over and over again (I can assure you that twelve months’ immunity is wishful thinking) and even repeat infections after vaccination are leaving people feeling very sick. ‘Learning to live with it’ is going to mean sensible rules and more time and money spent making places like schools (where we know Covid spreads easily) safer.

Finally, support teachers being given boosters at the point when it seems vaccines wane - so no later than six months after the second. No one can argue now that school staff are not more at risk!