school start delay threat - am I alone being worried and annoyed at the prospect of childcare nightmare for working parents?

[exrebel]

I am so worried at the prospect of school start delayed until November. I am screaming insside with worry. How are we going to find childcare? Because some of us will have to go to work. I am applying for jobs at the moment and the last thing I want to say to a new employer is: sorry but there is no school until November so I cant come into work because I cannot find childcare.

I hope it does not come to this, I want to scream at the scientists who are promoting the idea to curb the spread. we are not going to keep our children in quARANTINE are we? They will still be mixing with other children in the park, in play areas, in playdates, and everywhere we take them to keep them entertained. Or for those that can find childcare, with the other children in the group.

has anyone started to think how they are going to cope if they go ahead with the closure?

Its going to be dire thos autumn and/or winter regardless whether the schools saty closed or not!

Either way the NHS will struggle to cope through illness of staff if not because they are all at home looking after their kids due to school closure!

There will be no Tamiflu left after everyone has phoned this helpline that will be up and running at the end of the week and the vaccine will have ishoos too!

Dunno why they dont say, those that have had Tamiflu go to the bottom of the list for vaccination. It may stop some people from stock piling it for when they need it! And YES i DO know that there are ALOT of real people out there taking/have taken Tamiflu down to genuine need, but come on, people are panicking! That helpline will wipe the Tamiflu stocks out in matter of days of not weeks! Its just so open to abuse!

We are doomed!

LOL the comment re panicking if R4 goes off air!

Its a WAR i tell you! We need some Dunkirk spirit!

That's the thing though, people are panicking and we haven't even seen the worst of it yet, we are still by all accounts at the start of this problem.

If the virus mutates all of us who have been through it already will have to go through it all over again etc.

If they decide to close everything down, schools, clubs, cinema, supermarkets etc there will be mass hysteria, panic buying etc.

We have been told to get in enough supplies for two weeks incase the family comes down with SF, and that's the best idea right now, even if you have had it already, if people start to panic buy then there will be queuing and crowds and more problems, start to buy a little extra each time you go shopping so if there is a mass quarantine then your kitchen cupboards will be full of non perishable items and you wont be queuing.
Once it's in just top up what you use.

I remember the power cuts in the 70's, playing boardgames and cards by candlelight, electricity switched on for so many hours when everyone cooked the family meal and then blackout, nowadays it would be mass charging of DS consoles.

Could it happen? Who knows. Schooling may not be the major thing to worry about if the country goes off sick.

They had school closure policies here in the West Midlands at the start of the outbreak. Apparently made bugger all difference to the spread of the virus.

Worldwide (and that's including countries in the southern hemisphere who are having their flu season right now), the swine flu has killed 700 people. That's still less than the number of deaths we get per year in a normal flu season IN OUR COUNTRY ALONE (about 12,000pa).

It really isn't worth closing everything down for.

I'm not being hysterical Anyfucker what I'm saying is we could do this but as I said to start with we know nothing. Chances are swine flu is going to be around beyond Christmas given the lack of appetite for extreme measures.

bradsmissus - yes that would be a problem - we'd probably have to quarantine anyone who was likely to be sick inside a hospital and let the rest get on with it. And that's unpalatable for obvious reasons.

Oh and as for Radio 4 - I can see a full rerun of the Archers going down well

The other thing I don't get is why the media keeps hyping the "it could mutate to get worse" aspect. Yes, it can also mutate to get milder.

In fact, in some ways it's in a virus' self-interest (not that they're sentient, but you know what you mean) to get MORE virulent and LESS lethal - you get to infect/propagate further if you don't kill your host quickly or make them so ill they can't carry on their normal routines.

That's why the "common cold" is so very common

Rubberduck - I think there is another point which is that it is becoming a badge of honour to have swine flu in some quarters. (I'm not pointing fingers here, I'm actually referring to another site) where people seem to actively be delighting in being snotfilled and coughing

Can I have Marmy after Edam, please?

agree totally wmmc. We could almost completely eradicate this if everyone stayed at home for 2 weeks. Italy quarantined people flying in from Mexico to stop the virus, France are screening people from UK, so are China, and what do we do ? Nothing.

Rubberduck it is in a virus's interests to keep its hosts alive, but in 1918 the first wave of flu was very mild, the second wave started killing people. Of course we are all better nourished and have better hospital care and the outlook is much better, those looking at this are concerned this pandemic may mimic 1918 in getting more severe.

pofacedandproud - well there may be merit in as many of us as possible self-quarantining - this would at least slow the spread - if the virus currently infects 1.6 people exponentially at the minute (this is an estimate from the DoH - and we could limit the amount of people who could get it, perhaps then all those who are out could get it and get immunity and then those who choose to self-quarantine would be very unlikely to get it.

If you allow the virus to run its course the majority of people will catch it and will build up some immunity to it. Right now it is a mild flu.

But if you quarantine the country for two weeks (and realistically that is just not possible anyway) but if on the off chance it was, the virus will lie dorment and will re-emerge, possibly in a mutated form and the impact will be far worse.

The best thing to do is to do nothing and to allow the virus to run its course.

And we've had plenty of pandemics since which weren't like 1918.

I don't disagree that one day we may get a really serious flu pandemic. I just don't agree that current evidence suggests this is it - it may or may not become worse, but it's all speculation. The levels of panic being generated are inappropriate for the level of threat.

Pandemic just means its worldwide. It doesn't make any judgement on how serious that infection is - you could have a pandemic of mild conjunctivitis, but for obvious reasons they don't actually track that.

Blimey wannabe you must write and tell those silly experts at Imperial your tips. Obviously they've been wasting their careers studying the behaviour of pandemics when you can predict their behaviour instantly.

The only point I was making rubberduck was that
scientists aren't sure how this virus will behave.

If those with the virus self quarantined effectively wmmc, then we could slow this thing down quite manageably. But of course a lot of people who have it, and don't feel too bad, don't seem to give a flying fuck about others and go out to the supermarket or to work and the spread continues. [I'm sure lots of mumsnetters haven't done this before I get shot down in flames]

You obviously have to run a skeleton staff Riven, it has been planned for. I'm not saying it is easy, I'm saying it is something they've thought about. Mexico city did it after all. AS I said, it would be much better if those that did actually have it self quarantined once they had symptoms, but that hasn't happened.

but that's all very well in theory, but in practice a 3rd of people who have it don't even know they have it as symptoms can be so mild. So there will be people out there who have swine flu but don't have symptoms who don't have any reason to believe they should be self quarantining.

And it wouldn't just be a skeleton staff would it? hospitals are needed, police would need to be increased to stop crime - luting will be rife if the shops are closed for eg.

There's a vast difference between quarantining a city and an entire country. Plus do we know that swine flu is no longer in meccico? Or have the media simply stopped reporting on it because it's now closer to home?

I think it is a governmet conspiracy.

If all pregnant women, parents of children not going to school, chronically ill people, the mad and paranoid all stayed home for 2 weeks pig flu would be stopped in its tracks. However the economy would collapse in a big messy heap. The government would offload blame onto the people for not being at work and we'd have to start again.

look what 3 days of mild snow does to the country. can you imagine 2 weeks of nothing happening at all?

I'm not an expert wannabe, all I know is it is something that has been discussed and planned for, not necessarily going to happen. When Mexico city closed down they managed to stop the virus at its worst and it is now in decline there.

I don't think it's so much about not giving a flying fuck - I think many people will just write it off as a bad cold and not realise.

I know I had many of the symptoms but no fever. I still don't know if we've had it - I assumed a cold and we carried on, it was only later when school said they had some cases (which we still don't know for sure as they're not swabbing anymore) that made me wonder if that was it. So we probably did contribute to the spread.

It could also be in decline in Mexico because most people who are going to get it have already had it

I reckon I could have had swine flu near the beginning (had been in contact, as per mostly every day)

Had a bit of a bad cold, never had it confirmed as I was busy getting on with it, like you do when you have a mild viral illness !!!

Went back to work in a childrens hospital after the weekend (you do not take time off sick when you work where I do unless you are very ill)

I probably passed it around a bit

That is how it goes

The sick and vulnerable need to take extra precautions, but life has to continue for the average Joe, or else who will look after the sick and vulnerable ?