Stomach Bugs - Reasonable Prevention by School, yes or no?

[LoopyMumbot]

Hi there
Two of my sons have had 8 individual episodes of vomiting since Xmas (sorry to those to whom this is TMI). Now I think that is excessive. Does anyone else? The trouble is I have PTSD relating to a previous incident years back so it's very triggering for me. AND the very unfortunate combination of a (pre-diagnosis) 10 year old autistic child who never know when he is going to be sick - so this can and does create disasters for me. The headteacher says that they DO use bleach to clean up (essential if it's a case of norovirus) but... a class teacher told me yesterday that they don't and they are only allowed to use disinfectant. So if they are using bleach then that obviously doesn't happen until the cleaners come in at the end of the day. Better than nothing, but there's the whole day where norovirus could spread. Does anyone have any thoughts on this please?

Can I ask which probiotics you use/recommend?

I'm an ex primary school teacher and I rarely (if ever) got these sickness episodes despite witnessing more than my fair share. What made it worse in my school was the fact that every single class was carpeted. Not short/hard pile carpet - beautiful quality navy blue carpet.

Not only were we afraid to do art (because of the wrath of the cleaners/caretaker) the carpet absolutely reeked because of 'illnesses and accidents'.

Despite reminding children to wash hands at each break time, I think bacteria abounds as much as viruses.

The practice of sitting children on carpet/carpeted areas in class is not a good practice. In fact I've seen many children picking their shoes or 'friend's shoes' when sat on the floor in assemblies. 🤢

Unfortunately, schools are filthy places. I was once marking a pile of books - opened one and several live headlice were happily walking about. Don't get me started on play dough and threadworms. 🤢

I used to look at the figures and associated graphs religiously. Until I realized that it did not reflect the pattern where I live and that a lot of schools simply aren't reporting outbreaks to the HSA, so the real figures are different. The figs are still useful, yes. The stats were awful for the Winter/ Early Spring 2021-2022 season, when, yes, not just noro but every conceivable virus was having a field day after lockdown. And... that was when my youngest started school. Back then my sons were not great handwashers and inevitably they got ill A LOT. And we had Covid with RSV and, well let's not go there what an even more horrendous Winter that was. Lockdown feels like ages ago. I wonder if, after that Winter and this, things will settle down or are bad noro. Winters here to stay. God forbid.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-norovirus-and-rotavirus-surveillance-reports-2022-to-2023-season/national-norovirus-and-rotavirus-report-week-12-report-data-up-to-week-10-12-march-2023

Re the stats, here is a bit more detail for anyone, like me, who was thinking it was unprecedented. This makes for a bit better reading.