Schools reopening

[user1468867871]

AIBU to share with you UsforThem. It is a group of mums who are campaigning to send children back to school as normal with no restrictions. They can be found on FB and Twitter #UsforThem. There is also a link to sign the petition on FB

[quote BelleSausage]@TrustTheGeneGenie

No need to resort to name calling.

Just shows how right I am. You can’t even address my points.[/quote]
You're not right!

Us for them are campaigning for schools in Leicester to stay open. Because they know it's children like those who need it the most.

Your points are irrelevant because they're entirely made up.

@BelleSausage

The us for them group don't agree with the local lockdown or school closures in Leicester BECAUSE of the reasons you've stated.

This is frankly like my toddler getting angry with the wind. It’s a fucking national emergency. Just because they don’t want it to be happening doesn’t mean it will go away.

What would actually help is mandatory mask wearing. Everywhere.

Scotland’s plan is sensible. It reduces the likelihood of second, third or even fourth outbreaks and the need to go back into lockdown.

Part time in school, with social distancing and part time online schooling.

However, it would require investment and help from the government. They obviously cannot be fucked.

Schools cans and are pivoting to online teaching and are providing tech for kids to use. If they are seeing their teachers for 30% of the week then they are getting the socialisation and direction.

Plus, because it is government mandated, it puts more pressure on employers to be flexible with home working. Which they don’t have to be is schools are fully open.

How are parents supposed to cope when their bubble has to self isolate because of an outbreak.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has thought through how screwed over they are going to be by these guidelines.

Scotland's plan is a full return to education in August. Any blended learning is a contingency.

And the blended learning was a disaster - most kids getting much less than 50% face to face teaching. No thought about how the online lessons were actually going to be delivered in a meaningful way. No thought about these who don't have adequate it or internet provision (even in my village "super fast" broadband is only available to a portion. And is patchy. No thought as to how parents could home educate and work - oh yes the whole employers need to be flexible speech was ill thought out and ignores business needs. People would seriously have to consider giving up work.

Just because it went poorly to begin with doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build on it.

What is the fall back for the second wave? Are you suggesting that schools are never closed for coronavirus outbreaks again?

That effectively limits the people who can attend school. What happens to the others. Or is that not your problem?

And don’t give me the horse shit about it only being a tiny percentage. A tiny percentage of 8.5 million is still tens of thousands.

Can I just add that the schools opening isn't the cause of the outbreak in Leicester (As a previous poster pointed out that it coincides with the incubation period of the disease).

It is actually suspected that the outbreak came from a factory who were exploiting their workers, boarding up their windows and pretending to be shut and then not paying their workers unless they came in, sick or otherwise.

Tbh I agree that children have been badly affected by this pandemic, but not by the virus. By having all of their rights stripped away. Completely, it is inhumane.

There have been studies that have been done listed below if you fancy a read, which show the negligible transmission rates and risk between children. Any society that can throw its childrens futures under the bus to protect against a virus that for 80% is mild, that 95% will survive is quite frankly batshit crazy.

And before anyone trots along with "you obviously haven't lost someone to Covid" yes I have. Statistically. She had actually recovered and died a few weeks later of a pre existing condition, but that didn't stop the government labelling it as a covid death.

I also have a brother in a home who has been unable to see anyone for 101 days now.

Anyway, if you fancy a bit of bedtime reading, go for it.

Lu X, Xing Y, Wong GW. COVID-19: lessons to date from China. Archives of Disease in Childhood. Online First: 12 May 2020. doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2020-319261

Zhu Y, Bloxham CJ, Hulme KD, et al. Children are unlikely to have been the primary source of household SARS-CoV-2 Infections. The Lancet preprint. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3564428

Danis K, Epaulard O, Bénet T, et al. Cluster of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) in the French Alps, 2020. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 11 April 2020; ciaa424. doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa424

Gudbjartsson DF, Helgason A, Jonsson H, et al. Spread of SARS-CoV-2 in the Icelandic population. NEJM. 14 April 2020. doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100

Lavezzo E, Franchin E, Ciavarella C, et al. Suppression of COVID-19 outbreak in the municipality of Vo, Italy. Preprint. medRxiv 2020.04.17.20053157; doi: doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157

van Dissel J. COVID-19. Technical briefing to Parliament. Rijksintituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/886997/s0291-dutch-parliament-role-of-children-in-transmission-220420-sage31.pdf

Jing Q-J, Liu M-J, Yuan J, et al. Household secondary attack rate of COVID-19 and associated determinants. medRxiv 2020.04.11.20056010 pre-print. doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.11.20056010

Annemarie BD, Ewen MH, Christopher AG, et al. Features of 16,749 hospitalised UK patients with COVID-19 using the ISARIC WHO Clinical Characterisation Protocol. medRxiv. 2020.04.23.20076042; doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.23.20076042

Theodoratou E, Dozier M, Li X, Xu W, He Y, Kirolos A. Review: What is the evidence for transmission of COVID-19 by children [or in schools]? UNCOVER. Usher Network for COVID-19 Evidence Reviews. V001-03. Edinburgh: Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh. 6 May 2020. www.ed.ac.uk/usher/uncover/completed-uncover-reviews

National Centre for Immunisation and Surveillance. COVID-19 in schools – the experience in NSW, 2020. Available: ncirs.org.au/sites/default/files/2020-04/NCIRS%20NSW%20Schools%20COVID_Summary_FINAL%20public_26%20April%202020.pdf

Heavey L, Casey G, Kelly C, Kelly D, McDarby G. No evidence of secondary transmission of COVID-19 from children attending school in Ireland, 2020. Eurosurveillance. 28/May/2020; 25(21): pii=2000903. doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.21.2000903

Robert Koch Intitut. Wiedereröffnung von Bildungseinrichtungen –Überlegungen, Entscheidungsgrundlagen und Voraussetzungen. [Reopening of educational institutions - considerations, basis for decisions and requirements] Epidemiological Bulletin 19/2020. www.rki.de/DE/Content/Infekt/EpidBull/Archiv/2020/19/Tabelle.html

Munro APS, Faust SN. Children are not COVID-19 super spreaders: time to go back to school. Archives of Disease in Childhood. Published Online First: 05 May 2020. doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2020-319474

Things to accept:

-there is a global pandemic.

-the UK is one of the worst hit countries in the world (so far).

-the data on the role of children spreading the disease or not is far from conclusive.

• face to face schooling is going to continue to be interrupted by the ongoing situation.

We can adapt or fail. Failing to adapt and find new ways will be a disaster for our children. Why are you refusing to adapt?

*Things to accept:

-there is a global pandemic. well, yes a pandemic, just means that it is global, it doesn't add to the severity, its about the travel

-the UK is one of the worst hit countries in the world (so far) that we know of, as not all countries are reporting data in the same way. We wont actually have an answer until this is all over

-the data on the role of children spreading the disease or not is far from conclusive read above, also a LOT of the assertions made on both sides of the covid argument are far from conclusive, doesn't stop people parroting it around like its absolute fact

• face to face schooling is going to continue to be interrupted by the ongoing situation*

There you go, fixed it for you.

I look forward to posting "take it up with Boris" on any England related thread from now on.
I work in a school Trust it's not just my dc I'm concerned for.

@BelleSausage

Just because it went poorly to begin with doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build on it.

What is the fall back for the second wave? Are you suggesting that schools are never closed for coronavirus outbreaks again?

That effectively limits the people who can attend school. What happens to the others. Or is that not your problem?

And don’t give me the horse shit about it only being a tiny percentage. A tiny percentage of 8.5 million is still tens of thousands.

Homeschooling has gone poorly here since the beginning. My children are really suffering as a result.

The fall back should be blended learning but only for as long as necessary to deal
With an outbreak. And it could (which was the governments plan here) be delivered by shielding teachers, and equally should be rolled out to pupils who are either shielding or live with someone who is shielding. This way the resources would be there to ensure adequate it provision too. It should be equal across the board not depending on parental involvement beyond what is normally
Expected of parents.

Many, including us, are back to work and have had difficult choices to make keeping our job in the hope we won't be made redundant and childcare.

Cases here are falling rapidly. Several days with no deaths reported, 4 consecutive. Death numbers are about the same for this time of year based on previous years. Only a small number of new cases reported daily. Hospital admissions for covid are small too.

LivinLaVidaLoki

All of those are your opinion.

Look, fuck it. I can not argue with zealots all evening. I have my own child to look after. I do have skin in the game both ways.

I just think you are wrong. I guess we’ll find out, won’t we.

@Mistressiggi

I look forward to posting "take it up with Boris" on any England related thread from now on. I work in a school Trust it's not just my dc I'm concerned for.

Doesn't sound like you're concerned for their education t all where I'm standing.

Has anyone asked this, but why not close just the factories and isolate the families of the workers as was the case in Anglesey and Cleckheaton? Why schools too? That's the root of the concern and as @TrustTheGeneGenie says, without better data we don't know the missing piece of the puzzle.

@BelleSausage

Things to accept:

-there is a global pandemic.

-the UK is one of the worst hit countries in the world (so far).

-the data on the role of children spreading the disease or not is far from conclusive.

• face to face schooling is going to continue to be interrupted by the ongoing situation.

We can adapt or fail. Failing to adapt and find new ways will be a disaster for our children. Why are you refusing to adapt?

Refusing to adapt? We have adapted. I don't usually sit at home on my arse. I don't usually face redudancy or have to find a new job. I don't usually have to tell a four year old that no he can't see his friends.

We've adapted. But now it's time to adapt in a better way which means children are allowed an education.

I am really sorry but why are people being so bloody dozy about this ..

No pandemic has EVER been conquered because the population was bored and fed up with it.

It will take however long it takes. If you read the news from Leicester you will know that there were an unusually high number of CHILDREN with the virus. All of whom have the potential to spread it to their older family members..

PHE have now released the regional data (from pillar 1 cases at least) and the worst hit areas are those which have high rates of BAME populations living in cramped conditions and often without access to literature in languages they can understand. It would appear that they are being exploited.

This is about poverty.

And we're ignoring it with all the frothing about beaches and protests.

Education is the ONLY route out of poverty.

@TrustTheGeneGenie I agree.

It's easy to say "adapt" but unless funding is poured into education, and quickly then it's the schools who struggle to adapt.

Neither of my children, 1 in primary and 1 in secondary have had any proper quality teaching since mid March. Online lessons would have been such a big help, but no, not allowed. Even that seems to depend on where you live. Instead my youngest has had nothing other than worksheets, to cover work already done. My eldest gets at the most an hour to an hour and a half worth of work per day. Nothing taxing as it's not really being taught.

Parents struggle to adapt as some are working and either are sharing it equipment or are physically at work so cant help
Home school

I think there were a number of children who tested positive in the schools.

Thing is we are learning more about this virus. First we were told that we didn't masks and I think that was the advice from WHO and that advice has now changed.

I assume some of those studies listed above were conducted when schools were locked down, so probably not as helpful when schools are back to full time.

Also there must be reasons why some countries seem to have been hit harder than others. And I don't think we know why.

Also why have these factories suddenly become hotspots, not just in this country. I assume some have been open all through the pandemic so why suddenly hotspots. Also why are they hotspots, is it because they haven't used social distancing measures? If that is the case why are schools being treated in the same way. Schools don't just have children in them, Secondary schools in particular have a large number of adults, some of whom will be in the same room as other adults.

Other countries have opened schools cautiously. Countries that have much lower death rates than ours. They have closed them again when there have been spikes. I would prefer to follow countries where their methods seem to work.

Also why have these factories suddenly become hotspots, not just in this country. I assume some have been open all through the pandemic so why suddenly hotspots

Because anyone can get a test now.

Infections in schools last week were higher than infections in healthcare.

And children do t spread it?

Infections in schools could be teachers no? We don't know whether kids spread it.

If you read the news from Leicester you will know that there were an unusually high number of CHILDREN with the virus.

Hancock said a lot of children were affected. Has he clarified that he meant infected? Affected could mean can't go to school, can't see friends etc

[quote BelleSausage]@tigger1001

So you are ok with not addressing the issue at all and leaving inner city kids to go in and out of lockdown. Shall we do that?

The nice middle class kids in leafy suburbs can have all the schooling then.

None of you have addressed any of the points I’ve made.

Just pretending Covid doesn’t exist is moronic and will cause long term damage to the schooling of millions of children.

It will also put the vulnerable kids who are currently being invited into school for socially distanced provision at risk of no schooling.

If anyone thinks full time school will save their jobs then they are mistaken. How many more times can your companies afford to close and reopen.

Low and slow should be the pace if we want to sustain low transmission.

Look at America. They won’t listen about masks and social distancing and the second peak is building. They are looking at 100,000 infections a day and hundreds of thousand more deaths.

Wake up![/quote]
Have you seen the numbers for Scotland?

Covid exists - no one is denying it. It very well might be here for a long time. There might be a vaccine but equally there might not. Should we not try to find a way to get kids back to school? Or just shrug our shoulders and do nothing.

These kids are our future doctors, nurses, teachers etc. I would love for them to be educated by a qualified teacher. Who knew that was an unreasonable request.

But didn't Matt Hancock say there were children with the virus and that is why they were closing the schools.

I don't think there are any teachers saying that schools shouldn't reopen, but they want them to be safe places, just like those factory workers will want to be safe.

Bearing in mind the Government always say they have consulted with schools and then when the guidance comes out it is very clear that they haven't consulted with anyone!

@ineedaholidaynow

But didn't Matt Hancock say there were children with the virus and that is why they were closing the schools.

No. What he said was vague. He didn't explain it at all.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/matt-hancock-local-lockdown-leicester-18511786

There's been lots of tests and infections in children