Anyone else looking forward to Friday?

[Overthebow]

My DC had a slight cough at nursery today which staff mentioned when I picked her up and told me to monitor it in case it gets worse. She gets a cough with any slight cold. I can’t wait until Friday when there will no threat of having to pick her up and test her for every tiny cough when she’d be fine otherwise. I’ll be able to get on with my work without worrying I’m going to get another call to pick her up and get a PCR and have to miss more work. I can’t wait, I’m ready to get on with my life without this hanging over me again. Anyone else feel the same?

@Pootle40

Yep still don't get it. We've had many many thousands of people off work for a few days for as long as time. I'm in HR for a large organisation and our absence stats are no better or worse than usual.

The fact they are no better when there was isolation is not that encouraging for when isolation is removed and it circulates freely at work?

@Pootle40

I obviously have no idea how your organisation works and whether wfh is an option but I believe that during the height of restrictions/mitigations some companies reported that attendance was improved because people could work through any illness due to wfh and the general benefits of not having to commute eg. having a preventative effect against people pulling sickies etc.

Another factor is that up till January this year we’d only had approx 13 million cases, that was with active looking for asymptomatic cases and some mitgations. We’re now at approximately 20 million with reduced testing with projections putting the spread of infection in the population at the highest it’s ever been (ZOE estimates about approximately 350k new cases per day).

Unfettered spread and repeated infections (which I’m not saying could be stopped) is going to scale up the number of people who are realistically too unwell to work, even from home, and there is no obligation for employers to facilitate it if it’s even an option. I would be surprised if there isn’t a tipping point where the numbers of people too ill to work is no longer countered by the number of people for whom wfh is an option.

We can sort of see happening on a micro scale without direct economic impact in the NHS. Lots of people unable to perform their role from home has a knock on effect on waiting lists/times. Of course they still have requirements to stay off work and are actively still looking for infections so it’s not a true example but reports are that a fair number of people are actually too ill to work which would have the same result.

I now work in manufacturing logistics and one (not all) of the factors contributing to material shortages globally is sickness due to covid and various knock on effects from that.

It will be an improvement in general society that people will only be off for the time that they need to be off. At the moment people are potentially off for 10 days waiting to test clear when they may only have needed a few days if that.

We hear more from people commenting about more unpleasant doses, that's the way humans work, but the reality is that it is a regular cold-flu range illness. We seem to have forgotten that colds and flu and other common illnesses such as norovirus can be unpleasant or serious for the frail or unlucky.

DS2 has mild asthma that tends to present as a cough depending on weather conditions or post-cold. It'll be a blessed relief not to be second-guessing every little cough and even taking precautionary days off school here and there because of the uncertainty that he'd get sent home anyway.

More and more people are gaining natural immunity in addition to the vaccination benefits. The virus isn't novel any more and as people are reinfected over time, more and more people will have better immune responses leading to milder illness.

@TabithaTittlemouse

No, we are both in jobs which will continue to request that we test a few times a week.

Are they providing tests for you?

Our school already said send them in if well enough! We've never done lateral flows have been contacts multiple times and never caught it. Shared drinks with someone who tested positive hours later.

The majority of cases we've seen in our friendship group have resulted in WFH no one has needed more than 1 or 2 sick days.

Don't you think there's a chance it might be more of a ball ache though from Friday? At least at the moment you can do a ltf to minimise infection risk that day whereas from Friday nursery might say you still need to keep snotty kids home and will have to pay for a box of tests? I think it's optimistic thinking it'll all be back to normal next week. Nurseries wil still need to follow public health advise which I imagine will be quite strict on coughs and colds

I can understand where you are coming from with childcare OP but I think it's foolish to think that Covid will no longer have an impact on our lives. As PPs have said staff shortages combined with staff off sick with Covid will impact lots of services we use including childcare and schools. We have already been put on notice that staff levels at DCs school are at critical levels and some year groups might have to be sent home. Every day for the last few weeks public transport to work has had services delayed or cancelled because of staff shortages due to Covid. My own workplace is a revolving door of staff off with Covid, some on their second doses which in turn puts pressure on those who have to carry the work load. It's certainly not a time to celebrate.

Yep my nhs work is the worst it's been in terms of staff absence at the moment and most off are off sick with covid not wfh

Not really, since there might be vulnerable children in the nursery who can really get sick if they catch covid. So if everyone tested frequently and were a bit cautious, maybe they could get a little sense of normalcy too.
In my child's school, two kids have got it twice within a month. Several twice within 3 months. Quite a few, worse the second time. So I would just be happy if they test negative and are healthy.

What you, like so many people, seem yo have forgotten is that there has always been "minor" illnesses that our vulnerable children could catch that would make them seriously ill.

I'm the parent of 3 vulnerable children, 2 have brittle asthma, and what might be a sniffle for another child could put them in hospital on life support. Another has epilepsy and seizes if his temperature goes above a certain point, a cold, chicken pox literally anything could cause a temperature and put his life at risk.

Guess what I've never expected everyone to stay at home to protect them. I've protected them when I can, make decisions as to when they need medical help and when I need to keep them home from.school.

@Bizzarely

Not really, since there might be vulnerable children in the nursery who can really get sick if they catch covid. So if everyone tested frequently and were a bit cautious, maybe they could get a little sense of normalcy too. In my child's school, two kids have got it twice within a month. Several twice within 3 months. Quite a few, worse the second time. So I would just be happy if they test negative and are healthy.

Seeing as our nursery has had lots of covid cases I’d be surprised if someone sent there CEV child there if they are that worried about it. Nurseries aren’t covid safe and social distancing is impossible. It is also not the responsibility of everyone else to protect the CEV. It’s really not, and people shouldn’t be made to feel guilty by getting on with their own lives. I will be keeping my dc at home if they are too ill to go to nursery, but they will go in if they are well enough in themselves to go, and we won’t be testing from Friday. That’s sensible and what everyone should do, not continue to test and isolate forever.

But nurseries will already send home a child who is feeling perfectly well but who has chicken pox spots, or who vomits and then carries on with their day perfectly happily because they don't want a highly contagious illness spreading through the children there.

Not one bit as far as Covid response goes. Even if only a third of those in hospital with Covid are there because of Covid, that is still a lot of people.

Lateral flow testing should be continuing in my opinion. However, with the Prime Minister we have, the decision is no surprise.

pootle yes, being off for a few days every so often is really bad. Employers don't take kindly to it. And I can't parent when I'm ill. My kids teachers aren't teaching. Hospital appointments are mucked up.

Employers don't take kindly to it

That’s a good point. When I was in the NHS they used the Bradford (?) formula which basically looked at instances of sickness and triggered various stages of reviews that could possibly lead to disciplinarians etc. I bet no one has adjusted their sickness policies to reflect the prevalence of a new virus.

It’s all very well saying that routine illness exists, of course it does, but prevalence of covid is really high, if we had the same numbers of people infected with norovirus you’d be reading headlines about it. Part of living with it is accepting that people will be ill with it.

It'll be fine as long as you don't need a hospital.

If you need A&E or outpatients or surgery you will have a problem because just at the moment hospitals are over run. Partly because of people admitted for covid, partly because of routine patients who happen to have covid (and therefore can't be near to other sick patients) and partly because so many staff are off with covid.

Even if the staff were not required to stay at home, many people are unwell for a few days and need time off sick. My neighbour is a doctor, fit, triple jabbed but booster was 6 months ago. he's currently in bed with covid so all his patients have been cancelled.
Would you want a child with leukemia to be looked after by someone who had covid?

Definitely. From my experience my kids have had a few damn coughs since covid, tested and always negative. They and covid and they didn't even have a cough!! So a cough is far more likely not to be covid IMO. Kids can have covid with sore tummies, headaches, sore throats etc. We need to stop focusing on coughing, my kids cough all the bloody times. So yes I can't wait til Friday 😅 my Dd gets allergy cough quite often so it'll be nice thinking the school won't be questioning that damn cough every time 😅

I can’t wait for Scotland to relax rules. My whole family including me aged 41 and DH aged 49 have had covid over the last 2 weeks. Not one of us was sick. We had hayfever type symptoms and I felt guilty I wasn’t allowed to go to work when I know we were short staffed and I was well. I felt worse with a chest infection in Feb. My kids are upset they are missing school, friends parties and an activity that was planned.