Primary schools not notifying of cases anymore?

[SkinPaperThin]

I've only just found out off another parent that over the last few weeks there's been at least 4 cases of covid in my daughters class, 2 of which are teachers. Why are schools not notifying us any more when there are cases? Is this the same everywhere? Seem so stupid not to say anything!

@SkinPaperThin

I would like to be informed if there are confirmed cases, no other information needs to be given but to find out 2 or 3 weeks later is useless. I could have got my kids to do more lateral flows rather than only testing them if they seem a bit ill. They are young so subjecting a very resistant 5 yo to nose swabs is not something I routinely do but if I'd known there were cases I would have made sure I tested her more often. My eldest will reluctantly do them and considering that so far she's been in contact with 4 cases and I've not known I'm going to be getting her to do them at least once a week. Bit pissed off about the whole thing tbh.

They'd have to notify the whole school as potential contacts then, it would be impossible to monitor who was with who at any given time. Year groups are able to mix during lunch time in the canteen, in the playgrounds at break, in the hall during assembly time. Your child could quite easily be a close contact of someone in another year group not just someone in the same class. If case levels are high in your area I think its naive to believe there's no cases in your school just because the headteacher hasn't sent home any letters about it. I wouldn't test my 6yo without symptoms because he wouldn't deal with it very well doing it so often , the best I can do is test the rest of the household twice a week in the belief that if he has picked up covid chances are he would have passed it on to at least one of us

I want to know so I can make choices for childcare etc.

@SkinPaperThin but why do more LFTs if no symptoms? It just really isn't necessary at this point.

@SkinPaperThin

I would like to be informed if there are confirmed cases, no other information needs to be given but to find out 2 or 3 weeks later is useless. I could have got my kids to do more lateral flows rather than only testing them if they seem a bit ill. They are young so subjecting a very resistant 5 yo to nose swabs is not something I routinely do but if I'd known there were cases I would have made sure I tested her more often. My eldest will reluctantly do them and considering that so far she's been in contact with 4 cases and I've not known I'm going to be getting her to do them at least once a week. Bit pissed off about the whole thing tbh.

Why do you do an LFT on a young primary age dc?

@RuleWithAWoodenFoot what would you do differently about childcare if there are cases in school?

Some people just want something to fuss about. We didn't get weekly updates on D&V or flu so why should Covid be different post vaccination programme. I can understand alerting vulnerable families but the rest of us just need to get on with it. If you're that paranoid do more LFTs.

[quote userg5647]@RuleWithAWoodenFoot what would you do differently about childcare if there are cases in school?

Some people just want something to fuss about. We didn't get weekly updates on D&V or flu so why should Covid be different post vaccination programme. I can understand alerting vulnerable families but the rest of us just need to get on with it. If you're that paranoid do more LFTs.[/quote]
You don't need me to answer that, you just want to lecture me about 'fussing'.

Not only am I not 'paranoid', I have to do LFTs for my work all the time. My partner, currently ill with covid, has never had a positive LFT. So much for them.

Because a lot of kids don’t have symptoms. If we hadn’t picked up my daughter’s asymptomatic case we wouldn’t have known and been spreading it to other people. As we knew about it we have managed to isolate her and managed for none of us to get it. The more cases we catch the more chance their is to break the chain of transmission.

[quote userg5647]@RuleWithAWoodenFoot what would you do differently about childcare if there are cases in school?

Some people just want something to fuss about. We didn't get weekly updates on D&V or flu so why should Covid be different post vaccination programme. I can understand alerting vulnerable families but the rest of us just need to get on with it. If you're that paranoid do more LFTs.[/quote]
D&v and flu don’t require major disruption by isolating for 11 days though. The isolating is the biggest issue for most healthy people. Staying home for 48hrs after D&V is a lot different to missing 11 days of school/ work.

I can't believe how blasé some people are being about it now. Clearly no one gives a shit any more because "vaccinated". It's almost as if long covid doesn't exist and over 150 people per day aren't still dying from it. But apparently it's actually fine and people who are still worried just "want something to fuss about"

Fwiw I only test my 5yo when she's symptomatic as it's nigh on impossible to do it anyway. What I was saying was that if school had notified us of cases then perhaps we could have been a bit more vigilant with lft's. Its a small school so they don't need to offer a contact tracing service but it would be useful to know "there are X amount of cases in class 3" or "X number of staff are off with covid". If I'd have known about the cases in my eldest daughters class then I'd have been getting her to do more lft's because I don't particularly want her to pass it on to her diabetic unvaccinated grandad, or anyone else for that matter.

I just got an email saying my child is a low risk contact of another child with Covid. So some schools are still notifying. Playgroung gossip is strong at this school though so they probably wanted to get ahead of it.

Op you shouldn't be using LFT if symptomatic- you should be getting PCR

There will always be a relatively higher risk between a primary aged child and an unvaccinated, diabetic grandparent. I don’t think notification from school of only two adults and two children gives you information you need to add to what you’d already be doing as a precaution.

At the moment, it is sensible to proceed as if your child has been in contact with someone positive every day. As a member of primary school staff, I assume this, and take it into account in terms of the precautions I take when in contact with others outside school - i wear masks to protect them, for example.

So if you have vulnerable people who you do not have to visit, then either don't visit or so take precautions / test in advance when doing so.

I agree that cases are likely atm especially since many can be asymptomatic

I’d take advice from recent briefing and do an LFT before visiting anyone vulnerable

For context - if we were still following the same rules as before the summer, we would only have 1 class still in school this week, and that is just for detected cases.

@poshme you can use lft if symptomatic. They want you to get a pcr to be sure but lft's still work with symptoms.

@cantkeepawayforever I do try and limit contact with df but he is stubborn and unfortunately is a non believer when it comes to covid so I can only do so much. I know it's his choice but I still don't want him to get it.

@cantkeepawayforever

For context - if we were still following the same rules as before the summer, we would only have 1 class still in school this week, and that is just for detected cases.

Yep, and I'd have not been in school at all since the second week of September.

@cantkeepawayforeverI do try and limit contact with df but he is stubborn and unfortunately is a non believer when it comes to covid so I can only do so much. I know it's his choice but I still don't want him to get it.

I have a CEV FIL who sounds similar to your DF, although they believed enough to "shield" and stay off work but not enough to actually get vaccinated to protect themselves or stick to lockdown guidelines when they was In place. Anyway, I'm done going out of my way and worrying myself sick trying to protect others who won't protect themselves, it's took me a long time to get to this point but I can tell you I'm happier for it. Of course I'm not going to send my dc there knowing theres a chance they could have covid, but I'm not losing sleep over it anymore.

This is why the UK has the highest rates in children of Europe, with one in ten teens infected in the last couple of weeks. That’s one of the highest rates in any age group at any point in the pandemic.

It’s completely against Public Health good practice, or the World Health Organisation’s advice. Where every case should be followed up with close contacts notified. It’s just good medical public health and really reduces the amount of kids infected. Which is still important, as yes thank god Covid is usually mild in kids. But you infect thousands and that means a lot of kids will be hospitalised, and have long term symptoms. Keeping the numbers low is important.

Immunity from natural infection is also not that great, not only is it extremely risky for any age, but the immunity won’t last long.

You’d hear of a case of chicken pox, or head lice in your child’s class. It’s utter madness no one is notified of Covid. What if a parent was undergoing cancer treatment?

Also, the argument that kids would just be out of school all the time doesn’t hold up.

You isolate close contacts and you reduce the number of cases.

In fact, less children will miss school overall. In the last couple of weeks 250,000 children, quarter of a million, missed school and half of those had covid symptoms.

In Europe, where they have good sensible prevention precautions in schools including adequate ventilation, masks and contact tracing, few children need to miss school at all and few children get Covid. Wish we were in Europe right now our kids would have a better, safer education.

The primary school our dc attend is still letting parents known of any cases. Bubbles are still in place and some events are still being streamed.

At the moment, it is sensible to proceed as if your child has been in contact with someone positive every day.

Definitely. And I think this would be the case even if schools were still notifying parents of every case. It's just that widespread and there are so many asymptomatic cases, so the sensible assumption has to be that your child is being exposed.

You’d hear of a case of chicken pox, or head lice in your child’s class. It’s utter madness no one is notified of Covid. What if a parent was undergoing cancer treatment?

I'm not so sure nits is a good comparison, but chicken pox is - they let classmates know so anyone with unusual vulnerability can take precautions. There are other notifiable diseases where thus wouid also apply (such as measles, where the message wouid also include a reminder to vaccinate those eligible, if not already done)

@CherryBlossomAutumn

Also, the argument that kids would just be out of school all the time doesn’t hold up.

You isolate close contacts and you reduce the number of cases.

In fact, less children will miss school overall. In the last couple of weeks 250,000 children, quarter of a million, missed school and half of those had covid symptoms.

In Europe, where they have good sensible prevention precautions in schools including adequate ventilation, masks and contact tracing, few children need to miss school at all and few children get Covid. Wish we were in Europe right now our kids would have a better, safer education.

This is true about fewer children missing school. When my DD's primary Head said last term that no children with any symptoms of significant illness at all should go into school, attendance went up overall because kids didn't spread loads of diseases among themselves.

Chicken pox is a better comparator yes, but the fact is the school is notifying parents about cases of head lice but NOT covid. Which can still kill people.

I've never heard of anyone dying of head lice.

It's utterly insane.