Corona Virus: How Are We Doing?

[lane]

There's been a case at the high school our daughters go to. The school said all close contacts have been told to stay home for two weeks, everyone else to go on as normal.

Yes same here - but at schools and college my kids go (plus some others I know) to it seems to be staff that are getting more cases - presumably because the kids don't show symptoms.

 

[C R]

Yes same here - but at schools and college my kids go (plus some others I know) to it seems to be staff that are getting more cases - presumably because the kids don't show symptoms.

We got the letter this evening, so we don't know what school is actually going to be like tomorrow after the announcement. I would expect that at least the whole bus where the positive case travel will have been asked to stay home.

 

[lane]

We got the letter this evening, so we don't know what school is actually going to be like tomorrow after the announcement. I would expect that at least the whole bus where the positive case travel will have been asked to stay home.

What letter?

 

[C R]

What letter?

A letter in an email from school explaining that they had a covid positive student and their close contacts had become told to isolate for 14 days.

 

[Julia9054]

Like most schools, where I work had it's first pupil case at the start of the second week of term. The child developed symptoms on the Friday night, had a positive test over the weekend and the parent contacted school first thing Monday morning. The procedure is supposed to be that the school contacts PHE (or whatever they are called now) for specific advice on who counts as a contact and needs to isolate. It took us 24 hours of hanging on phone lines before the school got to speak to anyone so we had to make those decisions on our own
We identified contacts from seating plans and from talking to the child about who they had been with at break and lunch. 45 pupils were sent home. They are all back now and no one else got it but we were let down by a system not fit for purpose despite following all the government advice to the letter. We are supposed to be advised by experts. We were not

 

[C R]

Like most schools, where I work had it's first pupil case at the start of the second week of term. The child developed symptoms on the Friday night, had a positive test over the weekend and the parent contacted school first thing Monday morning. The procedure is supposed to be that the school contacts PHE (or whatever they are called now) for specific advice on who counts as a contact and needs to isolate. It took us 24 hours of hanging on phone lines before the school got to speak to anyone so we had to make those decisions on our own
We identified contacts from seating plans and from talking to the child about who they had been with at break and lunch. 45 pupils were sent home. They are all back now and no one else got it but we were let down by a system not fit for purpose despite following all the government advice to the letter. We are supposed to be advised by experts. We were not

We've been fortunate. We live in a relatively rural catchment, with so far low incidence, and this was the first case in the high school, so far no cases in the primary school our son goes to.

 

[marinyork]

Is it me or do we have a series of local lockdowns - where almost everything is open and then much head scratching as the cases surge upwards.

Most of these lockdowns aren't really lockdowns at all.

For the mental health of some of the population I'm not sure why you would call them lockdowns. It's unhelpful. In some cases it's very, very unhelpful.

I agree that there isn't as much difference as is made out. It sounds better to the government than close some stuff early and mix outside and close some stuff and mix outside in fewer specific places.

Just similar thing to March with 'essential' travel. My travel is considddddddeerably more important than youers. And so it's essential.

 

[lane]

A letter in an email from school explaining that they had a covid positive student and their close contacts had become told to isolate for 14 days.

Yes had quite a few of those over the past two weeks. The college my son goes to just sends one email a week now updating on the number positives (students and staff) for that week!

Nottingham where he goes to college has most cases in the country - but is not in tier 3 because we don't yet have enough feeding through to older people and filling the hospital up. You might think it would be a good idea to do something now to stop that happening but why not wait until it has then do something - this is so fxxxxxx stupid it is beyond belief.

 

[marinyork]

Which is probably why, we have week or so of feverish discussion about what new restrictions Boris is going to bring in, the as soon as he does the agenda moves straight onto what new restrictions Boris is going to bring in..... So we had rules of 6 and then straight after discussion about new tiers or a circuit breaker - and then as soon as the tiers are introduced we are discussing if we will have a circuit breaker. A few weeks ago I predicted a lock down on the 20th November - I think that's still looking the likely date. It may be termed a circuit breaker but once introduced we will stay more or less locked down.

Rule of six was all right. It's meant that the large numbers of groups that were 10s/12s/18s/30s and some of which were meeting indoors has come down to lots of sixes and fewer groups taking the piss.

The new tiers, big social groups have already worked out that you can meet outside in pub gardens for tier 2. So this is happening without the social distancing (2 metres of 1m+). It's not happening indoors, so that's good, but extended social events with 6 households on a regular basis.

 

[lane]

To be fair my son won't be able to meet anyone inside - and he sometimes does meet people he does not go to college with so will be some impact possibly. However I don't think many people bother to follow the rules now.

 

[lazybloke]

Like most schools, where I work had it's first pupil case at the start of the second week of term. The child developed symptoms on the Friday night, had a positive test over the weekend and the parent contacted school first thing Monday morning. The procedure is supposed to be that the school contacts PHE (or whatever they are called now) for specific advice on who counts as a contact and needs to isolate. It took us 24 hours of hanging on phone lines before the school got to speak to anyone so we had to make those decisions on our own
We identified contacts from seating plans and from talking to the child about who they had been with at break and lunch. 45 pupils were sent home. They are all back now and no one else got it but we were let down by a system not fit for purpose despite following all the government advice to the letter. We are supposed to be advised by experts. We were not

Our local school seem to have bypassed the PHE or local Health Protection Team involvement (or at least they've failed to explain it) and have sent an entire year group home in response to a single confirmed infection. Then another infection later in the week , and another year group sent home - that's a total of 500 pupils.

 

[C R]

Our local school seem to have bypassed the PHE or local Health Protection Team involvement (or at least they've failed to explain it) and have sent an entire year group home in response to a single confirmed infection. Then another infection later in the week , and another year group sent home - that's a total of 500 pupils.

Possibly took the belt and braces approach because they had trouble getting help from public health officials, like the case of @Julia9054's school.

 

[lane]

Our local school seem to have bypassed the PHE or local Health Protection Team involvement (or at least they've failed to explain it) and have sent an entire year group home in response to a single confirmed infection. Then another infection later in the week , and another year group sent home - that's a total of 500 pupils.

DfE advice can be very inconstant - I know where they were told to send a whole year group home with one case but other times close contacts, and then asked why a year group was sent home before!

 

[lazybloke]

Possibly took the belt and braces approach because they had trouble getting help from public health officials, like the case of @Julia9054's school.

Well the 2nd wave is well and truly here, and whilst Boris & chums continue to ignore SAGE advice I'm happy to support schools implementing their own belt & braces restrictions, as long as they do it sensibly eg with small bubbles.
For example, why is Y7 a single bubble of 250 pupils, when none of the form groups mix?

 

[lane]

Well the 2nd wave is well and truly here, and whilst Boris & chums continue to ignore SAGE advice I'm happy to support schools implementing their own belt & braces restrictions, as long as they do it sensibly eg with small bubbles.
For example, why is Y7 a single bubble of 250 pupils, when none of the form groups mix?

The problem is it is difficult to keep parts of a year group separate when they are split up for various things like different sets for ability - they will inevitably be with different children in different classes. Plus teachers go across year groups. My personal opinion is the bubbles in secondary schools were window dressing by the Govt with no real impact - but hey that's like lots of other things such as pubs closing at 10pm etc.