anyone else tempted to keep their child out of school next week because of the swine flu epidemic?

[wheelsonthebus]

Just wondering how worried other parents are?

No. How long would you keep your child out for?

There is no swine flu epidemic; flu cases are within normal levels for the time of year.

Why on earth would you keep them off school?!?

I'm not worried as my poor DC have been at home with me and DH who are ill with the flu for the past 2 weeks. Probably not swine flu but we wouldn't really know as we haven't been Drs with it.
They might even be glad to go back to school to get away from us!

no, he's just as likely to get it from standing at the checkout in Tesco or those feral kids opposite .

I'm not about to have lockdown in this house, I'm itching to get back to work tomorrow for my own sanity.

Is Swine Flu back again then?

My DC's school has already had it. As have we. It's just another lurgy.

Did it ever leave? I say 'he'
I have 3 I'm not keeping them home indefinitely

mine had it last yr, so no

If there was a visible end to it then I ma as we have a young baby BUT realistically swine flu will be around for months on end so unless you withdraw them totally and teach them at home its not practical.

I'm pretty sure mine had it last year (although I vaguely gather that that won't necessarily stop them catching a variant of it this year). There seem to be fewer cases this year than last, and if there is an epidemic then it will be around for months, which is a lot of school to miss.

So no.

If the flu gets a lot worse than it is now, keeping some kids off is something that could make a lot of sense, as a short-term measure for people who can do it without missing work. It would reduce pressure on GPs, NHS direct etc. if fewer kids were mixing, even if things weren't quite bad enough for the govt to fully close schools. And it would mean kids kept off school would get flu later in the outbreak (when GPs have more time than at the peak), even if they still get it (you can never guarantee they won't get it at all). A more spread-out outbreak is easier for the system to cope with than a sharp peak.

But, if you do keep your child off, almost nobody will get why, so sadly most people will just accuse you of panicking and being neurotic!

But how long would you keep them off school? Untill Easter?

If someone was aiming to avoid their child getting flu ever they'd have to live in a bubble and keep them off forever!

But just to miss the peak - to make a strategic decision to keep them off to avoid them being ill at a time when the health service was impossibly stretched - as short a time as two or three weeks might make a difference (just guessing).

Not that the health service is impossibly stretched yet - it's not that bad as far as I can see. Yes flu is putting pressure on but they're coping.

It's not black and white - it's not a case of "everything's normal and you'd be mad to keep your child off school" on the one hand and "bad enough for the government to close the schools" on the other. There's a grey area in the middle where it could make perfect sense to make an individual decision to keep kids off for a week or two, if you can do so without missing work.

The trouble is not many people seem to see that grey area so I think anyone doing it might still be accused of 'panicking'.

So when they are home all day, wouldn't you take them with you to the shops to buy food? Wont you let them out in the street or to the park to play with other kids? What if you get visitors?

Well I'd guess that if you'd made that decision you'd also make individual decisions about how much other kinds of mixing you did. Some you might do anyway and some would be as bad as school. So you might do outdoors meeting up but avoid soft play!

There are loads of things where we make decisions that reduce some risk but don't make it zero, but we still do it anyway. This would just be one of those - it wouldn't guarantee no flu but you might decide to do it to reduce the risk over a particular couple of weeks.

Governments have plans as to when they decide to do things like close schools for a week during illness outbreaks. It's a proper part of their planning. The amount of illness has to pass a certain threshold to justify the economic cost of that measure.

As a parent I've got my own threshold for when I make an individual family decision to keep just my children off. My threshold is probably a bit lower than the government's because the economic and social cost to us is pretty low (but not zero, so I wouldn't do it casually). For me it would be if I started to really worry that, if my child got ill, I might not be able to get access to a GP. That's something that would probably only be true for a very small number of weeks at the very peak of an outbreak.

It may never get bad enough for me to keep my kids off school, but I wouldn't rule it out in advance. I don't think any parent should.

Ridiculous idea.

Might as well stay in bed forever, if you worry about all the things that could potentially happen.

Yes - a zombie attack could be a good excuse to stay in bed!

Need to pick your brain btw re: cooking - do you mind?

They would be more at risk of me strangling them if I kept them at home til Easter than from swine flu

Is there an epidemic then? I kept hearing it was all 'normal' for this time of year.

good god!! stop being so pfb and get a grip!

i agree with riv a zombie attack sure, but not a winter bug.

Our school was down to 40% attending before they broke up so hopefully the flu virus will have burnt out before they get back.

It isn't an epidemic yet, no. Large amounts and lots of people in hospital critical care beds - more than last year - but not an epidemic.

Those of you who are saying it's ridiculous - I'm interested, are you saying it's by definition mad or just that you don't see any need to do it right now? (I don't see the need to do it right now, I don't think.)

Is there no level of illness in the community that would make you decide to keep your kids off school for a week or so? No matter how bad it was or how stretched the health service got, your children would always go?

Right - if I have passed the zombie test I would like to know how to make a tandoori paste please. Am planning on trying it with sweet potatoes and/or mushrooms.

I have got natural yoghurt, chillis, ginger, lemon, coriander, lots of spices, garlic - do you think it's do-able?