Are your kids wearing masks at school?

[Justin Passing]

Cases in schools are rising, and vaccine rollout for kids hasn't got far.
Should masks be mandatory again in schools?

Figures from the states where there's a variety of situations, suggests that mask-wearing works to reduce spread by a factor of 3x to 4x.

This woman says no problem but the logic?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58418767
If we don't want to see whole year groups sent home and so on, doesn't it make sense to kick the problem down the road as well as we can, until vaccines & new drugs get through?
Having one kid in a class of twenty isolating (~as now) may be ok, but if it's several they'd all go home.

Enthusiasm for taking vaccines is high among kids & their parents - enough to make a difference anyway. Read a page of "Do kids spread Covid", and you get "Certainly, but it depends...".

It's true that kids are quite badly affected mentally by all that's going on - ask any teacher. They're keen to get thoroughly back to normal, but is masks in classrooms such a big deal?
They already wear them on corridors etc, though schools vary.

 

[JP_]

Not where my kids go, or my wife's school - they don't where masks anywhere now, been like that since they went back in September.

 

[CBW]

High school - not currently, Juniors they haven’t worn them at all (as guided by the local authority). The virus spreads (as I understand it anyway) through close contact/airborne particles being close - kids all sat around the same desk - likely if someone has it and passing it on increases - they all touch the same stuff. Wearing a mask is supposed to reduce/stop this.

Then there’s the people that just do what they want regardless, like my neighbour (one of her kids is at the same school as my youngest) ignored what was being asked/advised - yet don’t know if she or her kids have had it.

 

[conny]

Our college has made it mandatory to wear them in communal areas and where there is close proximity, i.e. within 1 metre.
Teachers have to wear one when they are in close proximity to students, e.g. when walking around the classroom, between desks etc.
Also required when buying food/drinks in the canteen but obviously removed when eating. Sometimes, when walking through communal areas, students have to be reminded.

 

[Keithmac]

My lad had to wear them in communal areas at the start of this school year but I think they've knocked that on the head now.

 

[JP_]

I am hopeful that the kids are now close to immune. All children at my local schools would have by now been exposed to the virus - they had 2 major outbreaks at the school, one before Christmas and one at the end of term. We are now at the start of October, and there has (touch chipboard) now outbreak at the school - that's 1200 students, plus 100 or so staff, that have not caught the virus yet. They are all still testing twice a week.

That is pretty bloody good, if it stays that way. I was honestly expecting another outbreak, and school closure, by the October half term.

The last time we had covid in our house was when, I believe, my eldest son brought it home from secondary school at the end of term in July. My wife and youngest caught it. I somehow didn't even test positive, although I did have a sore throat when my eldest moaned about a sore throat a week before my wife became unwell. We must have antibodies (plus double jabbed for me) to have knocked it on the head so quickly.

But, a bad cold has been going around the school, which I caught last week. Loads of kids unwell, but all testing negative. Could it be that covid came, but people fought it off and never tested positive? Or was it just a bad cold?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

SWMBO works at a local junior school. If I remember I will ask her what rules they are presently using. Last I think I heard, they had stopped sending whole classes home to isolate, in favour of just the person / pupil who had it. She is doing the regular self tests, they insist on.

 

[Nozzle]

If if had a mosquito problem, I wouldn't use chicken wire to stop them.

Nozzle

 

[Justin Passing]

The US CDC assessment- see Conclusions and Ref 46 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/transmission_k_12_schools.html says/implies that cases rise fast only when community spread is high.
Masks DO work, but they always come with a load of other measures in the schools which use them, so it's hard to separate the mask-in-class effect.

Yes, it may be that there is some background immunity we don't know much about. Kids may have had the virus with negligible symptoms. Lateral flow tests aren't super sensitive, only catching about 70% of positive cases even if a perfect sample was taken.
Natural immunity is not the same as vaccine immunity; it produces less (for the spike) but does have some for other proteins on the molecule which may reduce symptoms. If I knew my kid had either had or been exposed the virus, I'd be less inclined for them to have the vaccine.

Some say skip the mask and chance them getting it - they'll get immunity for the future. Some say skip the vaccine because it does have a tiny risk. That risk is probably less than the covid risk, but they might not get covid.
I personally find masks a bloody nuisance and CBA to wear them - illogical maybe, but true. I don't suppose kids like them much so they may have to have them made mandatory if you think they should wear them.

 

[noseall]

If if had a mosquito problem, I wouldn't use chicken wire to stop them.

Nozzle

If I was to have an operation, I'd hope the surgical team were wearing masks though.

(we get that you are called nozzle)

 

[Justin Passing]

Masks do help, somewhat, that's established.

Maybe it all boils down to whether you think the risk of dying is nine in ten or one in a trillion in the first place.


Scottieland is a bit ahead of England, and it looks like the figures there are rising, to a point where absences will be too high for normal schooling to be sustainable.. No vaccinations. Nicola will intervene I expect.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-58421918