Another question: there is a proposal to test all school kids before they go back to school. Why not just vaccinate them and the teachers and they they can back on with life.
Some rambly thoughts:
We broke up at 2.45pm on the 17th. We got the message from the DfE about testing the kids at 2.00pm. We were offered no financial or physical resources to help us to undertake the testing.
To put things into context, I believe they sent in 800 troops to test the Drivers stuck at Dover. They managed to clear the backlog in a couple of days. There were 5000 Drivers. We have 2000 kids and 500 staff.
The instructions from the DfE last term were to try and keep Teachers at least 2 metres away from students at all times. We spent a fortune restructuring classrooms, creating 'safe' zones and installing screens to keep Teachers safe at work (although wearing masks in classrooms was not considered appropriate)
The DfE have now suggested that Teachers do the testing, which would be difficult to do from 2 metres away. They have also suggested getting volunteers and parents involved to do the testing, although it takes at least 4 weeks to get DBS clearance - at busy times, much longer. However, we'd need to be very careful with 'liability' if one of the volunteers/parents gets infected - it should not fall to the school to cover these risks.
Since September, we have had 100's of students/staff testing positive. It has only been the teachers who have been affected seriously - the kids have felt a bit 'fluey' but nothing else. Only hospitalisations have been staff (2). We had to close school for a week as we had over 100 teachers ill or isolating which meant it impossible to cover the classes.
Kids are super spreaders - they are infecting each other and their families rapidly which has wider implications for the community, NHS and the economy. Unsurprisngly, there has been a massive increase in infection rates since Schools returned in September.
Vaccinating kids and staff as a priority would quickly drop the R rate, and reduce the risks to the population and economy.
