Scottish schools opening

[chocciechocface]

I was ready for schools opening, but this new research has given me pause for thought. I think this came out after Sturgeon's decision. What do you all think?

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/07/31/georgia-children-covid-outbreak/#click=t.co/Y9gSG9zENz

Quote from the article:

"A new report suggests that children of all ages are susceptible to coronavirus infection and may also spread it to others — a finding likely to intensify an already fraught discussion about the risks of sending children back to school this fall.

The analysis, released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, details an outbreak at a sleep-away camp in Georgia last month in which 260 children and staffers — more than three-quarters of the 344 tested — contracted the virus less than a week after spending time together in close quarters. The children had a median age of 12. The camp had required all 597 campers and staff members to provide documentation that they had tested negative for the virus before coming. Staff were required to wear masks, but children were not."

There was a German study that said exactly that ie they thought DCs were low risk originally but it was just because they had limited exposure. At the start of all this, adults contracted it because they were more likely to be travelling and coming into contact with people who had it, or visiting high risk areas. DCs didn't have the same risk of exposure.

Now community transmission is everywhere, the German study found DCs did contract Covid and they shed the virus at the same rate as adults.

Atm our DCs have been at home with limited exposure. Opening schools back up without limiting numbers or introducing serious precautionary measures just puts us right back to March but with higher risk because community rates are higher and some pupils and teachers will have been on holiday so passing through high risk areas like airports.

Every day I wake up thinking “what am I going to do about this?” And every day I do nothing about it apart from worry. I honestly just don’t want to send them back, but I feel really pressured into it.

I feel like I need a flow chart to help me stay focused on what kind of changes in circumstances might lead to me having reasonable cause to keep them at home. But it all seems like it’s going to depend on hearsay - I haven’t been made aware of how the school plans to communicate with parents and carers if there are suspected or confirmed cases in specific class groups and/or the wider school.

But they haven’t had limited exposure. Schools were open til a couple of days before lockdown when the virus was rife.

Our local park and play equipment has been full of children since they properly reopened at the end of June. No social distancing as per guidance. They are not all local children. The carpark is always full. Even if they were all local there are 6 different primary schools within walking distance of the park. Grandparents, parents and childminders are also much in evidence at the park mixing with the children although socially distancing from each other. There will actually be far less mixing once they go back to school with their own local circle of classmates where I am. I assume all urban areas are the same.

The inside / outside risks are different but it is not true to say that children are currently locked up in isolated home environments.

DD has been going to the park for the odd few hours, but to my mind that’s still much more limited exposure - outdoors, open spaces, air circulation - than being in an enclosed room full of 30 children for hours at a time, all handling the same furniture, equipment and door handles again and again, 4.5 days a week.

Otoh it is the same 30 children every day. If none of them start off infected then the risk of introduced exposure is much lower than in a public park with loads of outsiders of all ages and no hygiene facilities and limited supervision.

Most of my child's classmates have parents who are key workers. I am doubtful that any of them have not already been exposed tbh. Given where we live this will also be true for most of the children at the park. (Hospital staff only started socially distancing from each other and routinely wearing masks at the end of June)

Thanks mumofhunter and lastkisstoo. Honestly though, it’s less ‘eloquence’ and more that these thoughts are well rehearsed: I have spent hours and hours and hours over the years staring into an abyss and trying to understand how to carve a happy life out of awful conditions. I have been in training for this COVID things for YEARS. It would out me to say which country I come from, but I can tell you it’s extremely poor, food shortages, no healthcare and low life expectancy. Now dealing with COVID too, but who knows how bad it is because the government can’t afford to test.

Callisto, senga - yes, I think it is abstract for many. One of my ‘survival tools’ has always been to use analogy to put distance between myself and an event, mainly to try control panic and find a way to logically get a handle on things. Hence the sniper analogy. I do think that’s a fair comparison because more have died so far than casualties during the blitz. I’d even go further to say, if it was snipers and bullets we were dealing with, we’d probably be in a better position because we have the tools (trained army) and experience to sort it out. That isn’t the case with COVID, which is why I find it so frightening.

Dinosaur - it was a Northern Irish guy many years ago who helped me find my way forward. Things were bad. There were protests at home and my government turned out the army and was killing people. I was distraught and telling friends at Uni. Everyone was murmuring and gently sorry, but this guy just looked at me and said, ‘You’re going to have to learn to deal with it, because it’s not going to change and it might get worse’. And he told me about growing up in NI. I’ll be forever grateful to him. For being brave enough to be so blunt. He was totally right.

Senga - on risk. It isn’t true that I’m not willing to accommodate risk. It’s more that for risk to be realistically managed, it requires everyone to understand what risk is and be prepared to adjust. When a parent at my school thinks it’s unfair to send a child home for a cough (because all children get sniffles etc) then I despair.

Also, on risk, I don’t think ordinary people know how to evaluate risk properly. I am no expert and would love a real expert to engage with this, but, for example, the fact that cases are low is not enough. You need to balance both ‘likelihood’ and ‘consequence’ to objectively assess risk.

To try get an impartial grip of my anxiety, I (inexpertly) used a risk matrix off the net to help me (see image). I did it first. I decided it was ‘Unlikely’ the children would come into contact with the virus because numbers were low, but looking at consequence, if DH or I became ill it would be either ‘Major’ or ‘Catastrophic’ because of DH’s underlying health condition. This means my risk assessment is that sending the children to school is ‘high risk’.

I then asked DH to do it without telling him what I arrived at (he uses risk matrixes all the time). He put likelihood at ‘Possible’ and consequence at between Major and Catastrophic. So his assessment of the risk is either ‘High’ or ‘Extreme’.

If I said to people, objectively, for us, sending our kids to school currently is either High risk, or an Extreme risk, they’d think we were just ‘feart’. But we’re not. Now if we were to also factor in Granny - who is 84, has an underlying health condition, and suffers from dementia. It gets worse....

DH then said that to address the risk, we’d either need to introduce measures to reduce likelihood on the matrix or reduce consequence. We can’t do much about consequence, but as treatments and/or vaccine emerge that will come down. So all we have to play with at the moment is ‘likelihood’.

I don’t think the government has done all it can to deal with likelihood. Unfortunately, there is a LOT of resistance from many to many things that can reduce likelihood. There are also people who - incredibly - think the consequence of contracting COVID will almost certainly, for them, be ‘Minor’ or ‘Negligible’. They assume this likelihood for themselves - without any evidence to support it - and behave accordingly.

If it was bullets and snipers, however, the consequence is visually gory and horrific enough for people to automatically prioritise that over likelihood

I am finding your posts so valuable @chocciechocface, for what it’s worth. Thank you

Same here. Thanks for taking the time to write them.

@chocciechocface your posts are really insightful.

When using the matrix the risk is obviously going to be higher if you put the worst case scenario into the consequences? The same could be done for anything...driving a car, crossing a road? Or I'm maybe approaching it the wrong way, apologies if so!

Fluffy - I'm not an expert, but DH does this all the time. He took me through a COVID risk assessment he did for a work scenario. Extraordinary.

I believe you do include most catastrophic for everything, if it is a likelihood. Because you do need to mitigate the potential for that specific risk. DH is definitely vulnerable to COVID.

So, take crossing a road as an example. (I love an analogy). You would start with 'could be hit by car - death'. But then you take measures to bring that risk down: speed limits, pedestrian crossing, road safety education, lollipop lady, looking left and right, listening, choosing a safe spot etc etc. Then you reassess the scenario: the risk for being hit by a car is still there, and so is death, but your mitigation efforts reduces 'likelihood', and that overall reduces the risk of something actually happening. It means you could still be hit by a car, but it's highly unlikely because of everything you've done. Therefore, less risky.

If you wanted to cross the road at say, a Grand Prix while a race was going on, there'd be very little you could do to reduce risk. So crossing the road there would be Extreme Risk probably.

For school openings - the risk to DHs life won't go away, but we can mitigate it by reducing likelihood. I.e. taking the children out of school. The risk would still be there, but with zero likelihood of happening. This is exactly what we'll do the instant we see an uptick in cases from a school anywhere, or even if we see parents being jerks, or the school being incompetent. (I just hope it isn't our school that sees the uptick ... so we're also gambling). But that's all we can really do.

We are powerless while they are at school and relying on government measures.

And thank you all for your kind words. If my experience helps in anyway, I'm more than happy to share it. I feel helpless seeing friends overwhelmed and unable to find a foothold.

The thing about the risk assessment, is it forces you to confront worst case scenarios for all sorts of things, and then do things to reduce the risk. You have to be realistic.

Without going through the exercise, you're likely to ASSUME you will be fine because 99.9% of people are (or so the herd immunity advocates say). But believing that does nothing to actually reduce risk. If you then end up being one of the tiny minority who are affected, you would probably think you are damn unlucky.

I suspect an expert risk assessor would say you weren't unlucky, you just did nothing to reduce potential risk that was always there.

I'd be amazed if an experienced emergencies' risk assessor had been involved in the decision to reopen schools because they include so few safeguards and mitigating steps.
I've been discussing this with friends and reading through our different schools' plans the schools have actively introduced processes that are high risk eg taking masks on and off, DCs disinfecting desks, mixing classes, etc. And no provision for safeguarding against asymptomatic pupils or staff despite an Iceland study showing 50% of sufferers were asymptomatic.
Since government and schools are saying they expect everyone, even those who were shielding, to return to school, I wonder how that leaves them liable in the event of an outbreak.

Reducing risk is fine, but the measures have to sustainable in the LONG (not in the medium or longer) term, without impacting too much on day to day lives.
At the moment there are no alternatives to reopening of schools, as any other "solution" us likely to be worse that the risk they want to reduce.
I was reading the interview to the Swedish guy in the Guardian and to me what he says makes a lot of sense.
www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/09/swedens-covid-expert-warns-uk-opening-and-closing-schools-would-be-disastrous

I think the risk calculation is very difficult here because there are so many harms (or risks if you like) of NOT opening as well as opening which all have to be weighed up. This is where the crossing the road analogy falls down. Both the Scottish and UK governments seem to have arrived at the conclusion that schools have to open whatever happens because the harm to children's wellbeing and education as well as to society (people unable to work etc.) is too great to do otherwise. I broadly agree with this view actually, although I'm also supportive of measures taken to mitigate the risks to teachers and staff like staggered drop offs, enhanced cleaning etc.

For some reason staggered drop offs have been forgotten, at least in our school - despite they were included in the original plan A. That was the one measure I thought would be beneficial without really impacting a great deal on our lives.

Our school is definitely doing staggered drop offs and pick ups. It does look as though different local authorities have interpreted the guidance differently though, which is a bit weird.

Our schools have relaxed entry anyway (primary and secondary). This gives the same effect as staggered drop offs. Also cuts down on traffic and parents congregating in the playground.

Main change is that primary 1 parents had been allowed into the school to settle their children. No parents are now allowed in school or even beyond marked area of playground.

Seems reasonable to flex guidance given differing locations and sizes of schools eg our relaxed entry would make no sense in a rural setting with most arriving by school bus.

@anon444877 I joined that Facebook group for the reasons you stayed. Before the break up for the holidays I received an email stating my youngest 2 would be in primary mon, tues and my eldest at the secondary school thurs, Frid (only 11) so I would have need childcare every day or for one of us to give up work to be at home. There simply aren’t enough childminders in my area or nurseries to cope with the demand that would have came with it and both sets of grandparents work full time. Full time return was our only option, I’m not anti vacc or banging on about not being happy about protocols taken by the school, I would do anything requires to get them back full time

I’m not especially happy about the lack of clear safety policies either, coordinated at a national rather than piecemeal level, or the lack of separate provision for parents or dc who are vulnerable, much as I think in general most kids need to be in ft school and the evidence warrants it.

I am waiting on a call from DHT about our vulnerable teenager. Not at all sure what they can offer - I'm hoping he can leave class 5 mins before the end so be out of a crush in the corridor, wear a mask and, you know, be educated at home, actually.

@Y0uCann0tBeSer10us

I think the risk calculation is very difficult here because there are so many harms (or risks if you like) of NOT opening as well as opening which all have to be weighed up. This is where the crossing the road analogy falls down. Both the Scottish and UK governments seem to have arrived at the conclusion that schools have to open whatever happens because the harm to children's wellbeing and education as well as to society (people unable to work etc.) is too great to do otherwise. I broadly agree with this view actually, although I'm also supportive of measures taken to mitigate the risks to teachers and staff like staggered drop offs, enhanced cleaning etc.

I agree actually, that assessing risk at a national level is different. And that opening schools is probably best.

But I'm taking a very individual approach. For US, we consider this high risk.

Our school has suggested individual risk assessments for vulnerable children, presumably so they can take extra precautions. I wish they'd extend this to include children who have immediate family members who are vulnerable. But then, I ask myself, if there is something more that they can do for vulnerable children, why not do it for all of them.

Interestingly the private, boarding schools have had external risk analysts working on their plans.
I think we all want every child to be educated and everyone (pupils, teachers, staff) to feel safe and supported. It's working out the best way to do that. In some ways it feels like March all over again where we can look to other countries and see what is likely to happen but somehow have to wait to experience it ourselves.

Disappointed this morning with lots of unmasked parents crowding into small lanes and hanging around playground as normal. Our school had put in place a detailed plan but the neighbouring one seemed just to be carrying on as normal, which made it impossible to social distance.