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?

Seems like every school or area you live in depends on advice.
Some schools are being transparent our senior school won't quantify number of cases or confirm staff have covid.

This is latest guidance we have so if close contact at home then keep off.
But I guess the covid postive children sat next to her and pulled out of class won't be defined as close contact as unvaccinated under 18s don't have to isolate as close contact only if they have symptoms or postive test.
In considering not sending mine I next week.
No idea if we back in bubbles ie year groups if whole years be sent home again.
We have 3 days left until half term.
So many teachers off and cover teachers trying teach 2 classes at once and stressed out kids not to mention risk they taking just by getting on the bus which is packed with people with no mask just to get to school to be exposes to covid and chappy cover teaching.

Figures that matter and should worry parents and schools.

The ONS said

1 in 60 adults has covid in England 1 in 45 in Wales.
1 in 12 secondary age kids
45k plus cases a day is a underestimate
The last 2 weeks testing has been inaccurate so postives have been at school or workplace.

No idea if half term will help the issue.
We told family we won't be visiting them its too risky.
We won't be doing any activity that are indoors packed with people no masks or meeting up with multiple freinds from different schools.
Feel like hibernating. Me and younger 2 nursery age and primary are so poorly and awaiting home pcr lft are negative.

Thankfully gps have arranged my asthmatic 15 year old get covid vaccine elsewhere not school I dident think she would be classed vunerable enough and her school 1 is nearly month away.
I know vaccines don't help stop transmission but might stop her getting super poorly if she does catch it after half term.

My 12 year old year 7 will have to wait for school one.

I am disappointed in local public hekath teams I thought they had more powers and school had greater discretion if they had an outbreak.

Yes that sounds about normal.
Sibling of a Covid positive child came into my classroom coughing and sneezing, stayed for a whole lesson. We gave her an lft in school and it came back positive, as did the subsequent pcr.
A few days later I came down with Covid as did my several colleagues and my whole family.
Yeah it's a great policy the government have there.

DS’s school last week sent a letter saying they no longer needed to wear masks in communal areas (masks had previously been advised by the Government due to high rates in the local community). This week we have got the warn and inform letter which is the first step advised by PHE when cases start getting high in the school!

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

Follow the examples of other European countries. A bit more distancing. Masks (not necessarily in school, but in public enclosed spaces). COVID passes for some events or locations. Self isolation if a household member is positive. It’s not that hard. Neither does it restrict people’s freedom very much, quite the opposite as they don’t have to constantly expect to pick up the virus.

There’s a lovely quote from a chap living in Italy in the Guardian today. ‘ We have more restrictions, but I feel so much freer here.’

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/15/why-are-britons-so-much-more-relaxed-about-covid-than-europeans

I felt the same when I was in my home country in the summer. As an example, not a single one of my friends there has had to miss a holiday due to Covid (apart from during the fairly short lockdowns). They’ve all been merrily travelling places, going on summer holidays, skiing etc. Nobody I know there has had Covid. Here in the UK, almost everyone I know has had to cancel holidays because someone in the family tested positive or had been a close contact.

While we were in strict lockdown, my friends over there were going into the office, out for meals, to meet friends. Yet their numbers never got as bad as ours, because the government had made it very clear that it expected people to behave sensibly, and mitigation measures were in place.

@Delatron

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?

Mask wearing if cases are high, not all the time. Say it 10% of a school population have tested positive. I would include KS2 in this. Remove once the outbreak is contained. Find money for ventilation and sanitisers. It’s a cop out to say there isn’t any. We find money for all sorts of crap and this is important. Cancelling HS2 might fund it! Start changing things now even if it can’t be done in one go. Children with positive cases in their close family stay off school as most do seem to come down with it. No one should be allowed in school whilst waiting for PCR test results. If you want any teachers left, get rid of the hybrid learning. We can’t teach those online and at school at the same time. Fund an online programme of study or additional teachers. Do more research to see how long people remain infectious to see if we can cut it down from ten days to make it more manageable. The bubbles are nonsensical so they can go. Provide booster jabs for school staff six months post second jab. Priority access.

But I guess the covid postive children sat next to her and pulled out of class won't be defined as close contact as unvaccinated under 18s don't have to isolate as close contact only if they have symptoms or postive test

The biggest headache is that schools arent the ones defining who close contact is - it relies on the parent/carers passing details to test and trace. But in secondary schools I don’t know 90% of the parents or kids so how can they expect us to do that!

@Opal8

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)

Absolutely @Opal8 And the focus on 'the curriculum' with no concessions for a pandemic. And safeguarding raised, again with no thought of COVID.

We've had two inadequate schools this term already. Meets the governments 'academy' agenda, as LA maintained schools, in the LA I work for had stopped choosing this route. The only new a academies are those sponsored due to OFSTED judgements.

Privatisation of education by the back door.
Shocking.
Even more shocking is that parents and the general population don't care.

I wonder if any schools have received the much publicised CO2 monitors from the Government. I know our local ones haven’t

• Privatisation of education by the back door. Shocking. Even more shocking is that parents and the general population don't care*

They don’t know what academisation actually means.

They’re following government policy…

If you voted TORY you voted for (some people’s) WEALTH BEFORE HEALTH…

Meantime, children will get COVID and some will develop Long Covid and in the future we will wonder why we valued health so little. We are dicing with our all our futures.

I’m not sure it is privatisation. They still get money from the Government. The local academy to me isn’t sponsored by anyone and is on their knees financially just like most schools

3asAbird

Our senior school sent home 2 kids today as positive lft but negative pcr but we south west so maybe we have different guidance.
From next week we back into bubbles “

They could well have had one of the estimated 43,000 incorrect PCR results. Understand the majority were in the SW.

@toomuchlaundry

I’m not sure it is privatisation. They still get money from the Government. The local academy to me isn’t sponsored by anyone and is on their knees financially just like most schools

The control is taken away from local government and moved into quasi private entities.

Extra layers are added so as a parent and a local voter you cannot have any influence over how the school is run. Any governor board is just a sham.

@areyouinsane

They’re following government policy…

If you voted TORY you voted for (some people’s) WEALTH BEFORE HEALTH…

Meantime, children will get COVID and some will develop Long Covid and in the future we will wonder why we valued health so little. We are dicing with our all our futures.

Yep.

Something like a response to a global pandemic should not be in the hands of politicians. Experts should be leading this - and by experts I mean those with experience I handling pandemics, which rules out 99% of our current set of scientists.

Surely the only way for your child or yourself never to get a Covid (since it’s now endemic in the population) is either constant suppression (and even then cases will be circulating) or zero Covid (not an option).

There will be Covid every year. How are you going to stop your child from catching it? You won’t. I know this is very hard to comprehend. But half hearted mitigations merely artificially suppress it.

I would rather my child have it now rather than not be exposed then get it when they are 40/50/60 when it will be more serious.

@Delatron

Surely the only way for your child or yourself never to get a Covid (since it’s now endemic in the population) is either constant suppression (and even then cases will be circulating) or zero Covid (not an option).

There will be Covid every year. How are you going to stop your child from catching it? You won’t. I know this is very hard to comprehend. But half hearted mitigations merely artificially suppress it.

I would rather my child have it now rather than not be exposed then get it when they are 40/50/60 when it will be more serious.

Nope.

I want to know if my child has it which requires proper test and trace.

I’m not worried about them catching it. But I would quite like to know if they do - then I can keep them away from vulnerable people in the meantime and if, god forbid, he got long covid - we would have an understanding of the root cause.

I don’t understand the fatalism of so many people. It’s unacceptable and unnecessary.

We don’t have the nhs to handle this, so unless you want to have years and years of waiting lists then we have to get a handle on it. Or invest in our health service.

You cannot ignore the impact of covid on our public services. Lockdowns, mask wearing, social distancing and vaccines have all reduced the pressure on the NHS - no single measure does it alone. Until we get to a decent level of vaccinations and boosters, the other measures will be needed to some degree or another.

It’s not going to go away though! Yes it’s shit. Yes we need to hugely invest in the NHS. Yes we need to change things in society to accommodate living with Covid. But many on here are taking like they thing we reintroduce masks and by next winter it will be gone. It won’t.

Typos but you get the gist.

Masks will stop Covid and it goes away forever.

If the government plans to vaccinate 12-15 year olds in order to prevent 30,000 infections then it would have made sense to try to reduce infection spread in schools before they had been vaccinated. If you can't be vaccinated within a month of infection, having a huge infection rate reduces your potential pool of children getting the vaccine.

@Delatron I might agree if getting Covid once gave you lifelong immunity. Even immunity for a few years. But it doesn’t, your subsequent infections might be even worse, and so letting the virus circulate at high levels and completely unchecked, as the UK is doing now, will just mean people get sick over and over again, thousands will die before their time and tens of thousands will have long term health problems.

At the very very least all teenagers should be double vaccinated as that is one of the mitigation measures we have at our disposal, but the 12-15 rollout has been an absolute joke and there aren’t even plans to let teens have a second jab.

Boris is totally out of his depth and so it seems he has just given up on trying to steer the country trough the pandemic.

Schools bang on about attendance because it's on the Ofsted criteria.

Teachers won't strike because there's no support for it, the public thinks we're all work shy child haters who want even more days off. See threads about scrapping the directed time cap.

I agree all children should be double vaccinated.

Other than that you’re looking at measures forever? Or until when? And what happens then?

I think our only option is to focus heavily on improving the NHS and divert huge amounts of funding to that. Vaccinate as many as possible. Research new treatments. But I don’t think masks for years is the answer unfortunately.

£ for the NHS yes - but until we recruit thousands of doctors and nurses who are leaving in their droves due to stress we are stuffed… Maybe we can hire from abroad? Oh wait - the govt don’t like immigrants…

Existing HCPs do need better support to help them stay in their jobs.

Masking up in schools (for those who are able) would help.

By suppressing numbers we are suppressing Long Covid which is ruining lives right now.

Other than that I would keep some mitigation measures for now, as in my post below. At least until teens have been jabbed, the vulnerable have had their boosters and winter is over. Nobody knows where the pandemic is going but doing nothing at all is clearly not the answer right now.