Petition to close schools

[mac12]

Controversial topic, I know, but there's a petition here for those who think schools should close.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300403

Good grief

Do appreciate that people are nervous.

But take all the doctors and nurses and paramedics with school age children out of the workforce, you could have a serious problem if someone you care about needs medical help of some kind.

Bad idea.

Please stop helping to spread panic. There is no current need for school closure.

Absolutely not.

FFS

If the schools close then the parents can not work, among them would be 1000's of doctors, nurses, shop workers etc. basically the country would grind to a halt!

God no

Oh for goodness sake. If you feel that strongly keep your kids at home. Does noone in this country have their own mind any more!

Done, mainly because I think the government needs to know we think they aren’t taking it seriously enough.

What's an appropriate amount of time? Two weeks? A month? Three months?

The government takes advice from actual epidemiology specialists and from modellers. What’s not serious about that?

If we close schools, how long for? It's not like this is going to be a 2 week thing then everything goes back to 'normal'. It's going to be 12-18 months before there is a vaccine, so you really want to keep children out of education for that long? What about the teachers/support staff etc? What about parents for that matter, how many of them are equipped/willing to home educate?

I can see the case for closing schools if they need a deep clean or there are a lot of affected pupils, but not for any other reason, not yet anyway

Yes, that will really help my daughter and the millions of other Y11/Y13s who are trying to finish their courses before GCSEs/A Levels.......

If you want to keep your children off, please feel free!

How long for ? Then what all stay home until it's over ? could take months .
I know it's a worry but how many millions of people live here and how many have been confirmed to have Coronavirus? You need to calm down a little .

No. Stupid idea.

This is an awful idea at this stage - how would parents working in the NHS be expected to cope with the sudden childcare needs?

Done, mainly because I think the government needs to know we think they aren’t taking it seriously enough.

Is closing schools at this point really something you want them to be doing now?

There comes a point where measures to slow the spread of Coronavirus risk doing more harm than the virus itself.

Bloody silly idea (teacher here). We’re gonna be closed for Easter in a few weeks anyway!

I have just looked at the petition.
Almost 10,000 have signed it.

Who do they think will be caring for them in hospitals and walk inc enters etc if all the schools are closed and the country’s biggest employer has to respond to hundreds of thousands of staff who have no childcare.

Where do all these children go ?
Are they supposed to be cooped up for weeks ?

Absolute lunacy

Bonkers. This like flu could go on for months or even a year. My DS has A levels and I have work to do. We are super fine health wise and not in any risk categories. There is no evidence of any outbreaks in London or any risk for our age groups. Silly silly idea.

If they shut the schools, I'm going to intentionally infect myself and ask to be admitted to hospital. Seriously it could be months we'd all go mad.

No- stop with the bloody hysteria. As pp so what happens with regards to those who work in medical/police/fire etc and can't go to work due to this as no childcare? Or is this another 'l'm alright Jack' post?

Someone check my maths, please.

I'm trying to simplify 2 scenarios - say you have a limited amount of time to restrict growth of the virus due to economic implications.

Scenario 1: r0 = 2 for 5 iterations, r0 = 1.5 for the next 5 iterations
1: 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 at r0 = 2, then 47, 72, 108, 162, 243 at r0 = 1,5

Scenario 2: r0 = 1.5 for 5 iterations, r0 = 2 for the next 5 iterations.
1: 2, 2, 3, 5, 8 at r0 = 1.5, then 15, 30, 61, 122, 243 at r0 = 2

Obviously, the final number of fresh infections on the last cycle is equal in both cases, as its 25 x 21.5 in both.

But the sum of the sequence in scenario 1 is 696, and the sum of the sequence in scenario 2 is 492, a 29% reduction in total cases.

My interpretation of this is that as soon as virus spread becomes smoothly exponential, we should implement the harshest isolation policies as early as possible, to limit the total amount of people infected. This implies it is better to act when cases are as low as possible, rather than wait to act until cases appear more dramatic.

I realise my model is very limited, but can anyone find anything that would sway it away from the conclusion that early action on minimal cases is better that later action on larger numbers of cases?

I -think- it means I'd support shutting schools earlier, rather than later, to be honest. But I'd actually like someone else to be doing this maths, with more info, and then explaining it down to me.

How bloody ridiculous.