Instant dismissal of any who take part in such strikes may well nip that in the bud. Unfortunately much of the teaching profession is so interesting in making a tory government look bad they have forgotten about the needs of the children they are supposedly employed to benefit.
Teachers need to realise that a large portion of society realise that if they weren't moaning about Covid they'd be moaning about something else.
Are you actually mad? Have you not seen the effort that teachers have put into place to ensure that your children are continuing to be educated, to set hubs and schools up for key worker children, checking in for those in the vulnerable groups, supporting families with drop offs of food parcels, those who have grievances? I suggest you take a step back and rein your neck in before you consider ever telling a group of teachers that they are putting something other than children in their best interests.
1) There is no evidence that transmission via children as vectors is less than or more than an adult. At all.
2) Though children are less likely to be symptomatic, the ONS statistics have shown there to be no difference in the positive diagnosis rates in children compared to other age groups.
3) We still have no idea if the risk groups this virus presents harm to. We hadn’t even considered BAME groups as being at a higher risk of mortality than white groups until now.
4) Children in Europe and America are suffering from Kawasaki-like syndrome which has been shown to be due to the virus. Again, these have been in healthy children. We don’t know how these children are going to be impacted immediately or in the future.
5) Bringing together 15 children is asking for trouble. At the moment, I case you hadn’t noticed because we put ourselves and political ideologies in front of children and their needs, we are looking after pretty much the same groups of children day in day out. Bringing together further children risks there being a much larger spread of disease and illness. Yes, thankfully most children suffer no symptoms and have extremely mild cases of disease, however they are asymptomatic a lot of the time. As vectors, disease can be passed from family to family much quicker than is happening now. Some families have shielding parents, some families have vulnerable children. What is in place for that?
6) How can we be certain that children coming into school are not unwell before exposing us to risk? In the week the isolation protocols for families came in, we had parents bringing children in with new, hacking coughs whereby parents kept telling us their child wouldn’t be picked up because the cough was nothing to worry about and they had sought medical opinion. When we have asked for evidence, this was denied on confidentiality grounds. Three days later, the family isolated for fourteen days. Even with us trying to reduce the risk to other children and ourselves, it was extremely difficult. Other children would come in, visibly tired but looking OK. Get to lunchtime and the children complain of feeling ill. “I had a temperature in the night and mummy gave me some calpol”. If you think for a minute that every single parent is going to be honest about their children being truly asymptomatic or healthy to be in school, then take a closer look.
The reluctance to return to work is one we take with an extremely heavy heart. I am shielding until the end of June, but I am still extremely concerned for my colleagues returning and for the children returning. We have no idea what is going to happen, it hasn’t been modelled correctly and the evidence base for vector transmission in children is wholly anecdotal at absolute best. Children are being impacted by the virus and severely in some cases, but we have no idea who this risk group is. The children who are vulnerable have all had the option across the country to be taken into school with the children of key workers, and that has been extended since the lockdown has been relaxed. As a country, teachers and the rest of the sectors have put their blood, sweat and tears into ensuring that children are not too affected by this break in their education. I apologise profusely if this hasn’t happened in your case (by the gross accusations you’ve made it sounds like it’s possible), but to whitewash the whole profession based on this is ludicrous. Yes, we have our interests at heart, but first and foremost is the impact the potential infection risk posed to the children and their families.
