How will schools be able to go back in September?

Boggles wrote: »

Jesus there is a worrying disconnect from reality by a few participants on this thread. Global Pandemic will over just in time to start our school year, that's fúcking convenient.

I imagine they would prefer to be hospitalized with Covid then spend one more minute with their kids. :pac:

It's not that people don't want to be around their kids but everyone will be expected back to work soon. With limited school days, crèche hours and no grandparents able to help out, how do you propose things will function? A lot of people will have to give up work. I know the rules are there for safety and everyone wants to be safe but you can also recognise that they're not workable in reality and they're going to have massive knock on effects.

Boggles wrote: »

You seem to think I don't recognize all that, I do and more. I know exactly what is at stake for everyone, including me.

But people are not paying attention, the steady mantra has been a new reality, a new way of doing things. The global pandemic doesn't end in September just in time for Irish schools to reopen. I hope it does, but anyone saying for certain it will is to be ignored.

I am also acutely aware we have absolute inept leadership in this country, we are still waiting on a plan for the plan do to the plan to get the schools open, precious time being wasted and wasted and wasted.

I'm also acutely aware of the limitations in a vast numbers of our schools.

Instead of capital infrastructural improvements, we went down the far more expensive "shure throw in a bunch of prefabs".

I don't know if you have been in any of these prefabs but they are freezing cold and damp with 25 kids thrown into where they should be max 15.

How do you combat the freezing cold and damp? you run the storage heaters 24 hours a day.

What is a prefab with no air circulation, 24 hour storage heaters running and 25 kids?

It's the perfectly little incubation pod for viruses.

I'm not disagreeing with you about social distancing, I'm very sure it will be needed in schools in September and all that goes with it.

I'm worried about what will happen when as a result, there will need to be one stay at home parent in every family. How will people get by when most families need two incomes?

I will have to give up my job because I'm a lone parent and many others will be in the same boat and have to depend on welfare. Can't you see why I'm concerned for the future?

Snugglebunnies wrote: »

I'm not disagreeing with you about social distancing, I'm very sure it will be needed in schools in September and all that goes with it.

I'm worried about what will happen when as a result, there will need to be one stay at home parent in every family. How will people get by when most families need two incomes?

I will have to give up my job because I'm a lone parent and many others will be in the same boat and have to depend on welfare. Can't you see why I'm concerned for the future?

I have no idea what will happen, but yeah the vast majority of people are concerned, not just you. All though there does seem to be quite a large cohort that think mission accomplished, pandemic over.

But it is a novel virus where virtually the entire planet has no immunity to.

So yeah the future is a concern, but you mitigate that by being prepared.

We ain't.

Benimar wrote: »

Of course you are concerned about the future, and rightly so.

However, that doesn't mean that Social Distancing will just be ignored because it's inconvenient. It will be here in September so the realistic approach is to plan for that as best we can.

Some, like yourself, may be in a far worse position and that is where the Government are going to have to play a part..how they do that is anyones guess. Extra childcare spots? Extra teachers? Paid Leave?

There are issues to be resolved, but ignoring SD requirements isn't the way to go, thats all I'm saying.

September is a long way away . The summer will answer many questions hopefully . My hope is that school will prepare for the worst and can roll back on some measures by September
It would be better in my opinion to have things organised and in place and then roll back than to be ill prepared and not ready

Here is a question, how come it was reported in a paper on 4th June, a friend sent me the link to The Sun, of all papers, that 30 children under the age of 14 got Covid19 last week.

https://www.thesun.ie/news/5504034/coronavirus-in-ireland-30-more-children-under-14-contract-covid-19-in-a-week-while-45-54s-most-likely-to-catch-virus/

"In the last seven days, 334 new cases have been reported by health chiefs.

30 of these new cases have been children under the age of 14.

Eight tots under the age of four have been infected with the killer bug while 21 kids between the ages of five and 14 have tested positive.

19 children under the age of four have been hospitalised.
AGE BREAKDOWN
17 patients between the ages of five and 14 have been admitted to hospital while two have been moved to an Irish intensive care unit.

People between the ages of 45 and 54 are the most likely to contract the virus with 4,503 infected, accounting for 17.97 per cent of all cases.

The hardest hit age group remains the over 85s who account for 26.38 per cent of all deaths.
The median age of all cases is 48 while the mean in 51."

Now I will probably be accused of being alarmist but why isnt this reported clearly in the age breakdown. I am not being alarmist I am just curious why I did not hear it elsewhere considering the amount of articles about schools reopening. THe souce of course will probably be dismissed, fair enough but it is out there to read.

https://www.gov.ie/en/press-release/13375-statement-from-the-national-public-health-emergency-team-friday-5-june/#age-range-affected

there is a breakdown of ages given every and its updated every day. if people want info its easily found.

kandr10 wrote: »

I find it interesting that they said yesterday playgrounds and libraries could both open from Monday. I can’t quite get my head around how that would work and be safe. I haven’t yet had my daughter play with her cousins so can’t justify having her play with a load of randomers in a playground. Then this morning fingal have said they’re not reopening playgrounds from Monday on the basis that they can’t limit numbers, have insufficient staff to supervise them and haven’t been given any guidance on what is needed as far wiping down equipment to keep it sanitary. Same with libraries - they’re operating a click and collect system only in a few branches.
It seems to me saying playgrounds can open and camps can go ahead is the governments way of testing the waters as far as having kids mixing.
Here’s hoping they’re a bit more communicative around schools.

Fine Gael fúcked in the towel last night, ignore them.

Multiple times now they have jumped the fence without any consultation with the people who need to implement their folly.

Zahir Bitter Cellist wrote: »

I think this is where you'll see some push back from the government to NPHET as we've seen in recent days.

It's no longer a case of them blindly following advice, they know we have to get back to normal and restart the economy. And because we have brought things under control they are in a better position to do this now.

They'll have to strike an acceptable balance based on risk to health v risk to economy.

Otherwise who is going to pay for the billions that this has cost us. Because like you many others will have no other option but to give up work if there's no alternative. Meaning more people will be in need of state support and a huge ever growing debt being repaid by less workers.

We will be one of the last countries to reopen schools so we might not have to implement as many changes when our schools open, the virus is virtually eliminated in the community here already so hopefully they will approach it based on the risk.

We were also affected after a lot of other countries though. Naturally things will be opening later here than elsewhere as they get their cases under control quicker.

kandr10 wrote: »

We were also affected after a lot of other countries though. Naturally things will be opening later here than elsewhere as they get their cases under control quicker.

Another people keep going on about schools being reopened all round Europe, they did so under guidance and have implemented special measures, it is not back to normal by any means.

Hopefully it will be a bit better in September but as all the experts national and international have pointed out, this is here to stay, so there will have to be be protocols put into place to keep people safe and plans for localised closures if necessary because a virus does not care how inconvenient it is for us.

Boggles wrote: »

We were also affected at the same time as a lot of other countries or even before.

The difference is they acted decisively and with speed and implemented far better control measures.

When they were shutting down their countries internally and their borders, we were saying "tis grand to go Cheltenham and shure it would be mean not to visit your granny in a nursing home."

Can you remember what Coveney said when it was proposed to shut off flights from Italy when it was obvious the place had lit up over there?

"How would we feel if they did the same to us?"

Feelings, the tried and tested way to prevent the spread of a global pandemic.

It's the reason I get very nervous when people say we are following what other countries are doing in Europe, we are not. We are looking at their outcomes without paying attention to how they attained them.

They did drag their heels for sure. Took far too long to cancel paddy’s day parades etc. A lot of businesses chose to close before being told they had to. They relied too much on the judgement of private sector (as with everything they do). They’re doing the same thing now by saying it’s safe to do certain things like opening playgrounds without giving guidance as to how and leaving it up to the discretion of local authorities.

Zahir Bitter Cellist wrote: »

France who suffered one of the worst situations in Europe (along with Spain and Italy).

Masks still aren't mandatory for younger kids in French schools either, it's only for older ones similar to our own HSE advice.

Lifting of the restrictions has not had a negative impact on the overall reproduction rate of the virus and we're over 3 weeks now with our cases still on a downward trend and consistently <100 per day. Things are looking up!

Yes, France has returned without the need for masks. Let's look at the other restrictions they implemented though:

1. There must be no more than 15 children in a class.
2. No shared toys. (Aistear would be non existent in infant classes).
3. Timed arrivals at schools.