Day 3 & school already sent Y11 son home due to high no of C19 cases

[dcthatsme]

So that didn't last very long. It's day 3 of the new term and I just got an email instructing me to keep my 15 yo Y11 DS at home saying he'll need to study online until next week as he's come into contact with a positive Covid case and the number of cases in his year have already reached the government threshold. Well that was predictable! Put a bunch of teenagers in a small space with no masks, no measures in place and no vaccines and what did they expect? I am beyond furious. What planet is Gavin Williamson on? I've watched as friends in other European countries have had their over 12s vaccinated in preparation for the new school year. And so here in the UK we are entering Year 3 of disrupted education. People, what do you think? What is your experience? Should we be lobbying the government to get the teenage vaccination programme rolled out asap. How do you even do that? Jeremy Corbyn is my MP and I think he is on gardening leave. I am not advocating compulsory vaccinations or anything but I would have liked to be given the choice.

I hope they will approve vaccines for 12-15 on Friday but loads of parents won’t do it after the indecisiveness and the JCVI’s opinion on it. Also even if they agree to two vaccines the immunity won’t be working well for 10 weeks after the first vaccine assuming an 8 week gap so it won’t solve anything very quickly. Lots of people seem to be getting positive tests despite two vaccines anyway so it might keep numbers down but not enough to stop outbreaks in schools.

Apparently the threshold is two cases in a cohort which is pretty low but I didn’t think they were meant to send everyone home at that point, just go back to bubbles and clean more or something.

I'm so sorry for your DS OP its a shame the tests before returning didn't pick up the cases before they were back in school.

Poor kids just ready to start a new year and they are 15 and want to be with their friends!

Unfortunately most schools will face similar over the next couple of months. What is the Government threshold for them to go remote!?

day 3? yes wondering how many had 2 LFT before starting school

They aren't supposed to isolate due to contact.
Is it not PCR and return to school if negative?
That's certainly the protocol in Scotland although all our children have to wear a face covering all day.

My dc has been back since the middle of last month and hasn't needed to test or isolate...yet

a8mint it absolutely isn’t statistically safer. Far more kids get heart problems from the virus than the very small percentage that do from the virus and 1 in 7 get long covid. Stop spreading dangerous misinformation and check your facts. OP I totally agree. Friends in European countries like France and Italy all vaccinating their teenagers and their kids are wearing masks in schools & their case numbers are around the 4-5k mark whilst we do nothing and have around 30k cases. You don’t minimise disruption by pretending it’s all over and sticking your head in the sand.

@a8mint

I think the plan is for under 16s to gain immunity by catching covid - it is statistically safer for them than the vaccine. I dont think your soms school is following the correct guidance

Wasn't the conclusion that there was a small benefit to having the vaccine? I don't remember it saying what you've just said

Public Health England ( and not the school) can close a class and isolate pupils if there are a cluster of cases - I thought it was five but could be wrong! Generally, contacts wouldn't isolate but if PHE say you must, then you must!

I thought the cluster also had to be 5.

I’m sorry OP, such a shit show.

We had 7 positive LFTs in one year group but they came in, did the tests then went home so we didn’t close.

The delta strain seems so contagious I can see these being replicated rapidly I am aware of 2 schools locally who already have partial closures and a local college with 8 confirmed staff cases in one department alone...but no closure as not students

@Gingerlovesbiscuits

a8mint it absolutely isn’t statistically safer. Far more kids get heart problems from the virus than the very small percentage that do from the virus and 1 in 7 get long covid. Stop spreading dangerous misinformation and check your facts. OP I totally agree. Friends in European countries like France and Italy all vaccinating their teenagers and their kids are wearing masks in schools & their case numbers are around the 4-5k mark whilst we do nothing and have around 30k cases. You don’t minimise disruption by pretending it’s all over and sticking your head in the sand.

The JCVI are advocating against vaccinating healthy 12-15 year olds be ause they have not had enough time and data to be able to show there us a benefit ti rhe children themselves ?

I think some spikes are inevitable, and I would be interested to know how many of those being identified as positive in the start of term tests are actually symptomatic.
Given that if you have it, the tests will continue to show positive for weeks afterwards, they will presumably be picking up plenty of kids who have actually had it over the summer, asymptomatically (or mild symptoms that families strategically ignored so as not to disrupt holiday plans). Theoretically they should have been continuing with the LFTs over the summer, but I bet many didn't.

It wouldnt be spreading if it was old infection. And lft arent very sensitive - missing 50% of cases

Indeed. But if the school LFTs pick up an old infection, they'll presumably still be sending them home, unless the pupil knows that it's because they had it in August.

You arent supposed to test for 90 days after having a positive test so they shouldn't be picking up an old infection

My year 7 has started online due to covid cases among the teaching staff (he’s been in solely for a short induction, to learn the e-learning platforms and have a covid test).

It’s massively affected his motivation and enjoyment of starting a new school.

Ho hum

The JCVI are purely looking at the risks to individual children on a medical basis and said the picture was very finely balanced.
In my view the negative impacts of disrupted education on life chances and deteriorating mental health mean the case for vaccinating 12-15 year olds is strong.
However having said that many getting the virus now are already vaccinated (me included) and it’s unclear I believe the effect vaccines are having on transmission. As such if teens are vaccinated and catch it anyway there is worry that it will undermine confidence in other more medically important childhood vaccines as all c]vaccines may then be lumped in as ‘they don’t work’. The preventing serious illness part of vaccines isn’t relevant to teens and there isn’t enough data on the impact of long covid to make a call on that. It’s a tough call I think.

Our GP told us before we travelled to Greece this summer, having had teens who had just had Covid, that it's unusual to test positive on a PCR three weeks later.

The 90 day thing isn't common.

My teens PCRs were clear and that was about 6 weeks.

@a8mint

That's not quite what the JCVI say.

www.gov.uk/government/news/jcvi-issues-updated-advice-on-covid-19-vaccination-of-children-aged-12-to-15

There's a lot of confusion on MN about the role of the JCVI (or rather, its interests) To be noted of course the departure recently of the sociologist Robert Dingwall from among its number. Though the question might be asked what a sociologist brought to the table in the first place. Especially one whose views were rather more akin to the people protesting against restrictions, masks, and vaccines...

I do wonder why it's ok to vaccinate clinically vulnerable children but not healthy children when presumably those with underlying conditions might be more likely to suffer an adverse reaction to the vaccination. The reports of myocarditis do seem to be extremely rare and those who get it seem to recover. Some say the risk of contracting myocarditis as a result of covid 19 would be higher. Given the extent to which the vaccination has reduced serious illness and death, surely even if school children continued to catch Covid their classmates would be far less likely to be told to stay home because the overall risks to them and the population at large would be mitigated. My sense is that the vaccinations are more to keep kids at school than protect them from serious illness (despite the fact long covid has been awful for quite a lot of people old and young). I think if already in week 1 of term 1 clusters of children are being sent home to study this is only going to get worse if we don't vaccinate children. There is clearly a fear on the part of the government that too many children could get covid - I'm guessing because of the knock-on effect on the rest of the population (vulnerable people catching it, family having to self-isolate for 10 days etc). If they didn't fear this they wouldn't have implemented the threshold policy. Trying not to disrupt children's education for a third year seems to be low down on the list of priorities.

My primary DC still in school but a positive case in their class already, not even been back a week.

We have three parents positive and the children all in school, can't see how it can not spread.

And it didn't take long, just had the first message through😢

Day 3 here too. Dd has been identified as a close contact of positive children twice already.