Should Schools and Universities Be Closed for 14 Days?

What are your thoughts on this?

" Scott Morrison says Australian schools should remain open for the time being, despite growing calls for them to shut to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Speaking after a special national cabinet meeting today to decide what course of action the nation should take to slow the spread of the disease, Mr Morrison said shutting schools down would do more harm than good.
"People are naturally anxious about the issues of schools," he said.
"As the British chief medical officer observed over the last couple of days, the issue of wide scale closure of schools, and it may seem counter-intuitive, but the advice is this could be a very negative thing in terms of impacting on how these (epidemic) curves operate, for two reasons.
"When you take children out of school and put them back in the broader community, the ability for them to potentially engage with others increases that risk. That's the understanding we had.
"Also issues of herd immunity which relate to children. The other is the disruption impact that could have and put at great risk the availability of critical workers such as nurses, doctors and others who are essential in the community because they would have to remain home and look after their children.
"So while it may seem counterintuitive, there (are) very good reasons why you would not be moving to broadscale closures of schools. That could make the situation worse, not better.
"The states and territories are not moving in that direction."
The PM said the matter would be reassessed on Friday."

Poll Options

  • 588
    YES.. Let's stop the spread of COVID19
  • 243
    NO.. I agree with Scomo
  • 16
    I don't care

Comments

  • What am I, a doctor?

  • +1

    Yes - and no.

    Where possible, education should be delivered online.

    Where not possible, continue with precautions.

    The end.

  • +4

    PM: We are prepare for this there is no need to panic our numbers are still low. Kids need to stay at school look at Singapore…..

    Few weeks later:
    PM: OK, the virus has infected over 1k people, not to panic we still have it under control compares to other country our numbers are still low. School holidays will commence and will give us more time to plan.

    A month has past:
    PM:I am sorry Australia, we didnt expect the spread to be this fast. This is a national emergency, all our hospitals are overwhelm with CR patience. I declare a lockdown, we didnt see it coming!

    • +1

      We will reach the 1k infection number in 5 days, we have 401 reported infections now.

      • +2

        I think 1k by end of Friday, maybe Sat morning.

        • +1

          If you want another prediction >10k by Wednesday 1st April.

          Although with yesterdays numbers (+31%) Tuesday 31st March looking more likely.

          • @trapper: What I noticed from looking at data and France and Spain, when the number of confirmed infections hit 1000 cases the rate of increase became bit erratic. France went from 1000-10000 in approximately 12 days while spain took only 9 days. I think we are somewhere in between.

            • @Trioboy: That probably comes down to the number of tests being done.

          • @trapper: We can already see the impact of social isolation.

            Infection rate has decreased a lot over the last ten days, as a result we only had half my projected total by 1st April, 5048.

            Especially promising news over the last four days with the infection rate dropping rapidly 7.1%, 6.8%, 6.0%, 5.3% lets hope it continues.

        • +1

          I think 1k by end of Friday, maybe Sat morning.

          And Sat morning it was. :(

          • @trapper: I'm back here to say the same thing. The prediction was correct. Sadly, we are in the same trajectory as Spain.

  • +5

    Look, the other day I stopped into Kmart for the last few things I needed for my baby's room, as I was paying I noticed a woman and two kids near the baskets at the entrance of the store.

    Her two kids were wearing masks and they were both coughing their guts up, moving their masks off their face to cough and coughing into their hands, then touching all the baskets. They stood their for a while and then walked into the store to go shopping. Even the woman at the door was disgusted by the fact this woman had decided to bring her obviously sick kids shopping, she said they even looks pale and sweaty. She walked over to the baskets with antibacterial wipes and started cleaning the handles.

    People won't stop taking their kids shopping or to the movies or to the park. Unless of course they close everything and force people to stay at home. A lot of people believe this is "not a big deal" and because of that, they're not going to keep their kids at home where they should be if schools close.

    • -4

      maybe she's a single mom who actually need to buy something.
      maybe she doesn't have a support network to dump her kids for a few hours to get the shopping done.

      what's the gov doing to support people being at home? To make sure that people will be able to get their necessities and food without leaving their house. Is the government relying on deliveroo to be the infrastructure?

      In China I heard you can call the police dept to bring your groceries during lockdown.
      In SK The local gov went out door to door and hand out masks for free.
      in Vietnam they cook and provide you with food at home if you are covid-19 positive

      • +1

        She wasn't buying food, she was in Kmart. What could you possibly need in Kmart that couldn't wait a few days until your kids were better?

        But you kind of proved my point, unless the government closes everything it won't stop. People will find any excuse to justify their selfish behaviour.

        • Lol maybe you don't know this but kmart sells baby food too.
          All i was saying is don't be too quick to judge people from the outside. People also judged others wearing masks long before this.

          Also no one knows what infrastructure the gov is prepared to provide to support a total lockdown. No one has answered my questions hey, so if they do a total lockdown half will complain not being able to get their needs, the other half will ignore and do what they need to do.

  • +4

    Plus if you are wearing a mask don't feel ashame when a person stares at you.

    “The priority should be face masks to use in the healthcare environment, rather than in our community.”

    That is the conspiracy for health care people telling you wearing mask is not effective but only effective to them because they know how to wear them properly?

    All the affected asian countries wears them. Korea, Japan, China, Singapore. They cant be wrong, its just the mentality of western people. If you wear a mask you must be sick.

    • +5

      I'm going to wear a mask. Hopefully, people will stay away from me

  • +2

    Why does everyone think Scomo comes up with these ideas. He is being advised by people like Dr. Robertson, who by all accounts is the most qualified person in Australia regarding this issue.

    • Just because someone is being advised by a medical professional it doesn't necessarily mean that they will listen to it. Sometimes they partially implement the recommendations.

      • +1

        Dr. Robertson, is that you?🤨

        • +1

          Yes it is. How did you know??

          haha, jk.

          I've had personal experience with this that's all

          I was being advised by a top ranking doctor at a hospital on how to improve patient outcomes at the hospital. From this I came up with a plan on how to implement these recommendations and went to the hospital administration with it. They told me to do something completely different that would have potentially improved funding/donations to the hospital indirectly…

          Note: this did not occur in Australia so you don't have to be worried about being treated at this hospital.

  • All they need is a national lockdown for 14 days and…..they need to stop people from coming in. The 14 days incoming overseas passenger self quarantine or face with strict fines is quite dumb as most of the people wont follow it, and they can only fine them if they turn up in the hospital….being sick.

    The 14 days national lockdown will eliminate and identify potential CR carriers. Then reopen the country and future incoming passenger to send to a 14 days quarantine zone before they can be release to the public.

    Time will tell…

    • +3

      It will be more than 14 days imho. Look at Hubei, 54 days and counting.

  • +4

    No, they should not be closed unless a total lockdown is implemented.

    1. Kids out of school staying with grandparents risk their health being in the higher risk age group
    2. Kids will be put into family daycare or makeshift unregistered daycares as desperation sets in for parents who work full time, daycares spread diseases more than schools because of the close contact and lack of teaching for the kids on hygiene.
    3. Parents will have to leave work to look after the kids, putting a stress on their jobs and the economy
    4. Health care workers with kids will have to leave work to look after the kids.
    5. With kids and most likely parents now with nothing to do, they will go to the shops, movies, parks because kids get bored and parents will pull their hair out looking after them for weeks. Increasing people in public places and spreading the virus.
    6. Older kids now without high school / University and parents working aren't going to sit at home and self isolate, they're going to be hanging out at the shops and piss farting around. Something we don't need right now.

    I think putting just the school's out puts everyone at even more of a risk and is unnecessary. We haven't had any spread of the virus from schools.

  • Do we have a Doctor here? I need the opinion of a doctor.

    • +2

      Yes, we have an Emergency Medical Hologram. - Please state the nature of the medical emergency.

    • +1

      We need the opinion of a public health epidemiologist; a doctor is not the most knowledgeable person in terms of epidemiology and intervention…

      • Whoever, someone who is (or soon will be in the front lines) of this impending disaster. Should we wait or should we take drastic action now. What have we learned from the Italian doctors?

        • We have learnt a lot from colleagues all around the world. We have taken drastic action and the experts are continuing to monitor the data and coordinate responses appropriately. The hospitals are preparing with extensive staffing restructuring and changes to ward arrangements.

          We need to all congratulate ourselves and our neighbours for the response that has occurred so far. Praise the positive efforts and put in protective measures against negative behaviours eg. hoarding, and breaching of social distancing requests.

          Things are going to be really tough and will extend for much longer than most people are prepared for but plans exist and we will get through. We should support the people who are continuing to push society on eg. rubbish collectors, emergency services, supermarket staff, and most importantly the healthcare workers caring for our elderly and vulnerable loved ones in supportive accomodation and the community and hospital staff helping the sick.

        • Italy started full lock-down when they had 10k cases, so if we don't start soon it will probably be worse here.

          • @trapper: Numbers have been slowing down a bit. Not sure it's because we are improving or because they are not doing enough tests. I hope it's not the latter. If we have started to flatten the curve that's good news.

    • How about a scientist?

      Just watch this 60 minutes corona virus.

      It has enough information to let you know that wearing a mask when you are outside and social distancing is a must.

    • +8

      I'm a doctor but not an expert and unfortunately the medical community has devolved into a massive group of armchair experts. I've been keeping an eye on information published by the actual public health experts though and in terms of pandemic planning, the evidence behind school closures was mixed and this is because of the change in human behaviour that follows (i.e. school closures makes the assumption that everyone will stay home and self isolate - they wont. Particularly not the thousands of teenagers who stop going to school).

      Here's one paper on the evidence of social distancing (with data on school closures and it's effect) that was done for pandemic flu planning:
      https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/519F9392797E2DDCCA257D47001B9948/$File/Social-2019.PDF?fbclid=IwAR0Lrw1Jur2a3aAG_bWVNkGPpRfkIFlAz9R8fVJZLQvHnS3lQkFO4_It7OI

      And for the maths nerds - log scales are not useful in pandemics because they don't account for human behaviour. For anyone interested in pandemic modelling, this is a good and comprehensive document that also covers the effects of school closures for a variety of scenarios
      https://www1.health.gov.au/internet/publications/publishing.nsf/Content/mathematical-models/$File/pandemic-modelling.pdf?fbclid=IwAR34K1c0BaUq8AXNsY1grNhMnzj-6elaw3LyRUaDD-Zfh27TGjJ_gObhZyo

      The people developing these documents and doing the modelling are the ones advising the government. From what I've read, you don't want to close schools too early because the longer they're shut, the less likely people will self isolate. You want to do it closer to the peak to flatten it out a bit - BUT, this has to be in the context of everything else you're doing too. Super complex stuff, not even going to pretend to understand half of it.

      • Thank you. Some interesting information. Have you guys been briefed about what to expect?

        • +1

          For the hospital system yes, but it's very fluid and advice changing daily. It's all confidential at this stage but I can say that it's completely unpleasant and the mood at work is awful. Also, people (visitors) have already started stealing hand sanitiser and gloves. Current modelling suggests we're about a month out from the peak.

          • +1

            @MessyG: Is there any treatment being used at the moment such as antivirals? I’ve read many country’s had success with antivirals and antibiotics that are already on Australian shelves.

      • School closures without a total lock-down is kind of pointless.

        Social distancing is not going to work, the virus will continue to spread until we have a total lock-down and starve it of new victims.

      • And for the maths nerds - log scales are not useful in pandemics because they don't account for human behaviour.

        What does that even mean? Makes no sense…

        Log scales are very useful when dealing with exponential functions, which this pandemic certainly is.

    • you could look at what the AMA from most states and territories are saying (spoiler: close schools).

    • +3

      No, you need a pandemic expert who understands not just the virus, but the complexity of how it spreads

  • -1

    We're going to turn into Italy soon. Italians only realized it's getting worst when it was too late THEN they did a complete lockdown. The only way to stop the spreading is complete isolation of everything, just like what China did.

  • France is in Lockdown. Whether it is too early or too late ??
    I think the earlier the better, from what is happening in Western Countries.

  • +3

    a child was found positive of this at a school near keysborough Melbourne, the school has been shut down but the school near it has not…

    My nieces go to the school near it found out last week, they have all stopped going due to the school failing to disclose it, they found out from other students

    • they have all stopped going due to the school failing to disclose it, they found out from other students

      wow.

  • +1

    Option 4, fly to Hawaii, let the plebs sort it out.

    • +1

      Fly from one island to another?

  • US just have a banned of not more than 10 people gathering and recommended all kids and young adult/teenager to stay at home for 15 day to slow the spread.

    I think Australia version was 500 last friday updated to 100 today lol.

  • +1

    Poll annotations are terrible.

  • People now start to praise China up and down, but fail to understand why China could while the west couldn't, in a totalitarian regime, central government is the absolute head of the nation, when the brain gives out instructions, the body parts do what to be asked, you can easily lock down the entire population and have someone to dispatch the daily necessities, the head will simply say, "do this, for your country, now go", the body parts then follow, they dont get to talk about remuneration and why this and that, they also dont need to liaison among different interest groups because they own everything (for example, Huawei), the west surely can do this but not in such an easy way and certainly take extreme measure to get there, for now, Australia hasn't reached that point, I hope it will never come.

    • China also only had one initial infection to deal with, and even that blew out to 80k infected before they got it under control.

      We have dozens of initial infections dropped in at random all over the country.

  • +1

    also wearing mask really is a culture thing, its the social norm over there before this shitstorm like tattoo culture in the west, now in the west, you have to take security measure into consideration, in some dodge area, having seen people around with a mask surely will get your nerve up a bit, and people of East Asian countries wear mask no matter the time and situation.

  • -1

    Direct Advice from the Chief Health Officer Regarding School Closures

    TLDR - In our current situation, they do not recommend closing schools because it can potentially increase the infection rate among the kids and their families.

    We should be thankful the govt are listening to the experts and not social pressure

  • At my kids school about 30% of the students aren’t attending due to the panic . I know it’s hard for people to interpret raw data . All the fake news phenomenon has people not even listening to experts .

    • -1

      At my kids school about 30% of the students aren’t attending due to the panic

      Same. I see it as a blessing.

  • Close the schools immediately, you're setting the schools up as incubators. Half the kids could get infected and you won't know it until their parents or worse, grandparents, come down with a fever.

    Nobody is being tested unless they have the trio of symptoms including fever and cough. If kids don't get those symptoms, and most apparently don't, they will go untested in schools and undetected.

    Kids being kids, they haven't a clue what social distancing is.. It's Typhoid Mary on a mass scale, except Mary is 200,000 school kids.

    Saying they're more likely to be infected when they're not at school is a (profanity) fantasy, think about non symptomatic infected kids spreading it to kids who are non symptomatic.

    The "experts" should be jettisoned. Get ahead of this thing, don't wait.

    Consider this
    https://youtu.be/NpUOG8pkDYI

  • +1

    Sydney private Pymble Ladies college school I believe is the first to take action instead waiting like public schools.

    An independent school on Sydney’s upper north shore will become the first NSW school to move all lessons ­online amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

    Pymble Ladies’ College wrote to parents yesterday asking them to keep their daughters at home, with all classes from Kindergarten to Year 12 to become completely online from Thursday in a bid to prevent transmission of the virus on campus.

  • +2

    Scomo is a bloody idiot. He needs to shut the schools now and tell people to stay home. I am a teacher and stuck in a small class with 30 other people with the virus going around isn’t Fun.
    Close schools now!

    • +1

      The longer schools are kept shut, the more likely it is that kids will spread out into the community and spread the disease. I shared a couple of public health modelling documents above. Shutting too early could make it worse. (but fully respect where you're at as a teacher, I wouldn't be happy either).

      • +2

        The kids should be kept home and all the workers. Surely in a family not all are nurses/ doctors

        • Agreed Fozzie.

          If schools remain open, i would recommend sentinel testing on maybe 1 kid per class per day. Just a cheek swab.
          Hopefully they keep coming back negative.

          Disclosure, I'm a geneticist who deals with infection in animal colonies when they happen(annoying, but we constantly test sentinels for infection). My missus is a virologist at the centre of innate immunity and infectious diseases. We're not medical doctors, we're scientist doctors.

        • +2

          If you have a look at the modelling above - the issue is human behaviour. You keep them home now - for how long? What do you think thousands of teenagers being kept at home for weeks on end are going to do? Stay good and isolate themselves at home for weeks to months? It's really tempting to apply single solutions to these things but complex problems like these, that are largely dependent on human behaviour require a lot of work and a lot of prediction. You have to account for behavioural change when you make population level changes and if you don't, you're in trouble.

          • +2

            @MessyG:

            It's really tempting to apply single solutions to these things but complex problems like these, that are largely dependent on human behaviour require a lot of work and a lot of prediction. You have to account for behavioural change when you make population level changes and if you don't, you're in trouble.

            I wish more people read this. I'm an academic statistician who's done a lot of work in health/labour economics. I've recently formed an inter-disciplinary team of academics at my university to try and build a model that predicts the trajectory of the COVID-19 outbreak.

            What we find is that this is a very complex issue and even very small changes in the compliance rate can have a massive impact on the outcomes. In other words, the difference between 90% and 80% of people following a directive to stay home is huge. We also find that because the virus is now global, what we do has very little effect on the increasingly likely outcome that we're all gonna get COVID-19, if not tomorrow, then next month or next year.

            Something else we have to keep in mind as well is that the more punitive we are towards people, the less likely they are to get tested and honestly report their symptoms. There's a really worrying herd mentality starting to take place now where irrational panicked people are bouncing their ideas around in an echo chamber without looking at what the research and what the data says. Somehow everyone is now qualified to have a say in whether we start taking drastic action. I'm genuinely more worried about people than I am about the virus at this stage.

  • +5

    Don't just shut down the schools, the whole country should be in lockdown.

    It's absurd we haven't done this. I don't know what are we waiting for. We're not the 1st, or the 2nd or the 3rd country this is happening to.

    Are we expecting c-19 to just go away?

    It's going to get worst, we know this. It's going to hit us no matter what.

    I'd much rather we just take the hit now, when there's less cases and more chances the hospitals can cope, then to do this in a few weeks when we're in an exponentially worst position.

    • +1

      Yes I totally agree

    • +1

      Fully agree. Feels like we missed the boat to properly get on top of this, so now we're waiting for the absolute last second until the call is made.

      I personally think schools should close.

  • +1

    Thing is kids usually do not keep their hygiene…

    • Don’t get me started 🤣

      • The number of times I have seen adults not wash their hands after going to the toilet…..

        Guess some people never grow up.

  • +2

    You need limited school services. The children of essential service staff - from medical staff to those stocking shelves - should go to school if no one else to look after them. All other learning should be online. If they can force 7 and 8 year olds at my kid's school to be responsbile for BYOD devices, they can bloody well put up video lessons.

  • +2

    Most government pussyfooting around guarantees the explosion of coronavirus worldwide.

    All schools, university and public gatherings all should be banned for at least a month as a bare minimum given it's already been shown the incubation period is greater than 14 days.

    Coronavirus testing kits needs to be made more widely available otherwise you'd be kidding yourself that there's only a few hundred cases in Australia. If you don't test , you don't fking know. It's totally unfair how the celebrities and politicians can feel unwell one morning with a sore throat and they can get a test done while the vast majority of the population would be sent away by the hospital and be dismissed as a common cold unless you start to have a kidney failure or can't breathe. It's ridiculous.

    • and lose 30% of health care workers. What a dill

  • +2

    Might be of some interest: https://www.theage.com.au/national/top-global-health-expert-…

    To summarise, the chief of the WHO's joint mission to China said he only saw very few examples of outbreaks in schools. The direct quote is: "We have no evidence schools are driving transmission. Your cases, your close contacts, that adult population, that seems to be the big driver."

    • What's the conclusion?
      Don't shut down any school and only do so after the outbreak goes out of control?
      And more importantly, tell the kids to not wear masks as per the Australian government's official recommendation?

    • +3

      Logic tells me they cannot find the evidence of school driving the transmission is because 99.9% of kids and teenager does not show any synthoms of the virus and they are most definitely not tested as a main source of cluster for the research.

      From a Google search a US internet research it cost $3720 USD for a test kit and medical check procedures. I am not surprise if we have run out of stock.

      Children,teenager, adults , elderly people. We have all the same DNA structure so I do not see why children/ teenager are not potential carriers just that they are much healthier, stronger and their body immune system are able to fight the virus better.

      What if kids are 'super spreaders'?
      Virologist Ian MacKay from the University of Queensland said making the decision whether to send kids to school was indeed challenging.

      "If we were really serious about flattening the curve [of spread of the virus] we would have to think about closing schools," he said.

      "But we have to balance that against all the social disruption that would cause, including taking people out of various jobs so parents could look after small children at home."

      What the experts are saying about coronavirus:
      Coronavirus is now a pandemic, so what does that mean?
      Health experts say the risk of catching coronavirus on a plane is low
      Your legal rights while working from home during COVID-19
      Experts are saying it could actually be more dangerous to close schools
      Professor MacKay said experts simply don't know yet if children who appeared to be healthy were in fact carrying and spreading the virus.

      "We know children get the virus, but are they creating a major part of the transmission chain, or are they having low viral loads and not passing the virus on?" he said.

      "We need to find that out so we can have a better understanding of the role that schools play in transmitting the virus."

      If a student or teacher tests positive to coronavirus, temporary closures will continue, to allow for disinfecting and contact tracing.

      What's unequivocal is that the best thing parents can do is ensure children wash their hands for 20 seconds with soap and water, and observe good hygiene.

      • From a Google search a US internet research it cost $3720 USD for a test kit and medical check procedures.

        Prob around 40 cents outside the US then haha

      • +1

        Logic tells me they cannot find the evidence of school driving the transmission is because 99.9% of kids and teenager does not show any synthoms of the virus and they are most definitely not tested as a main source of cluster for the research.

        Then why don't you contribute that research to the literature, get it passed peer-review and make a contribution to our understanding of the virus?

    • +6

      It was Chinese New Year and school was mostly closed anyway during that time, and it's still closed now in China so what can they observe from?? I wish the government stop getting advices from the UK please!! Go and get advice from Taiwan or Singapore instead. You don't ask for advice from places that have little experience with pandemic and doing worse than us. It's like a dumb student asking a dumber friend for help with his homework…

      • Lol dumb student asking dumber friends for advice.

        Dumb and dumbmerdumberer

      • Singapore schools are still open?

        • The schools are still open (actually on school holiday right now), however it's not like it's open without any strict measures being put in placed
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH2YT58LDi0
          https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/ong-no-need-to-suspen…

          https://www.moe.gov.sg/news/press-releases/stepping-up-preca…
          https://www.moe.gov.sg/news/press-releases/additional-precau…

          "This means that all external and inter-school activities will be suspended until the end of the March school holidays on March 22. Hygiene protocols will also be stepped up. In primary schools, teachers will take pupils to the toilet to wash their hands before recess and snack breaks. Secondary school students will be reminded to do the same. As schools commemorate Total Defence Day next week, a new protocol will also be put in place: Getting students to clean their eating surfaces after their meals. Earlier in the week, MOE had announced other measures to combat the virus, including suspending large group and communal activities such as assemblies and camps, and staggered recess times.

          At Farrer Park Primary School yesterday morning, pupils learnt that masks should be worn only when they are unwell. This is to prevent germs from being spread to others, they were taught in a character and citizenship education class, during a media visit. "

          "Ms Cheong, a teacher during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) outbreak in 2003, said a lesson drawn from then was the importance of being prepared. Her pupils are used to temperature-taking, with drills done twice a year. The school now has four recess timings, up from two, she added. "We looked at our timetable to see how we could split the children into different groups. And at the same time, we don't want to disrupt teaching and learning in class."

          "Health checks and temperature screening for all children, staff and visitors will continue. The frequency of temperature taking for children and staff will be increased."

          So they're not closing school because they have plans to ensure that schools are safe to remain open, whereas Australia is not doing anything different in schools right now. Singapore is also not ruling out closing school measure, if it comes to that, they will do it.

          • @Edeena:

            whereas Australia is not doing anything different in schools right now

            Says who?
            My kids primary school has
            -cancelled all assemblies
            -cancelled all lunch or recess extra curricular groups
            -cancelled all upcoming excursions, activities etc
            -segregated the school into multiple times slots for lunch and recess
            -requested that parents don't enter the school for pickup and drop off
            -upped the education on cleaning hands etc etc

            Essentially the kids go straight to their class in the morning, and during recess and lunch the group's are only a smaller group of kids outside class.

            They aren't doing 'nothing'

            • @SBOB: It was implemented on Monday i believe.

            • +2

              @SBOB: Yes on paper they are doing this. But who knows if it's really done properly? Teachers told the kids about washing hands, but soap and hand sanitiser are not readily available at school? My nephew in primary year 3 told me his teacher is not checking if he washes his hand and keeps a "social distance". My older nephew in high school still plays sports during lunch and recess, he still doesn't wash his hands properly even at home when we are watching him, let alone at school. No temperature checking anywhere, kids still cough without covering their mouth, kids not knowing what happen when someone at school has coronavirus, what to do if it's someone they have contact with etc. It's hard to just suddenly say this is cancelled, that is cancelled and expect the kids to understand why and adjust to it, they need time. Why not just bring the holidays forward now for kids who can stay at home and prepare properly the things necessary for schools to be open. It's also all over the place with how each school is managing this now, some takes it seriously others not so much.
              https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-18/the-scots-college-hos…

  • -2

    Omg

    LIVE UPDATES
    Updated 19 minutes ago
    Coronavirus Live Updates: 100 Deaths in U.S.; Border Crackdown Planned; $850 Billion Stimulus Sought

    That's nearly a trillion well at least we have 17billion. (not getting any cents) better than nothing to help the needy.

    I don't understand we have a world model that is ahead of us in terms of the virus spread. Why is our government waiting for? The numbers to climb? More deaths?

    It's like we are all on board a train and at the end there is no tracks. The train driver is saying "Not Yet!, We still have time to stop!,we are going to make it.". Passengers go, sure our lives are at your hands driver.

    • +4

      Given that's their exact attitude towards climate change generally and the recent bushfires why would you expect any difference with a pandemic? The government, and their advisors, are not the most competent people.

  • Have u heard it’s actually a type of zombie type disease …make you brain dead and want to eat brains

    • +6

      make you brain dead

      This virus must have started decades ago.

  • +9
    • No evidence that schools create virus hot spots
    • Limited cases of children infecting adults
    • More cases of adults infecting children
    • Children out of school and in public is worse
    • Children staying with grandparents is worse
    • Uni students not in school and going out during the day and night is worse
    • Parents including health care worker staying home is worse
    • A lockdown could see re infections increase when it's over, causing a strain on the system is worse
    • Other countries close down schools because they don't have the same health care system as we do, even mild flu cases there can kill people, unlike here.

    All this from pandemic educated medical experts.

    But someone posts an outrage rant on Facebook about how the government is doing nothing and everyone choses to listen to that.

    • +2

      Thankyou for the common sense. So many disappointing armchair experts egotistically solving the problem with nothing but ignorance, not trusting the real experts - same old really isn't it.

  • +3

    Its really important to understand that those experts have been planning what to do in a pandemic for a couple of decades now. Decisions are not being taken on the fly, but following detailed and carefully designed contingency plans. These plans are based on a great deal of simulation modelling of how various types of pandemics spread through a population and of its effects on the health system and the economy.

    How do I know that? Well I was a bit player on one of the planning subcommittees a decade or so ago.

    I'm not normally one to trust politicians but if they say closing schools would hurt more than it helps at this stage then I believe them.

    • +4

      How come the experts didn't get the borders closed before it was too late? Seemed pretty obvious to us non-experts…

      • Because hindsight is 20/20 vision.

        • +4

          You can't dismiss this abject failure as 'hindsight is 20/20', it was obvious for weeks that infected people were pouring in.

          Australia was still letting people freely travel from Italy while they had the entire country locked down over there.

  • +5

    You need a 4th option.

    "I would follow the advice of apppropriately trained and qualified public health physicians and check www.health.gov.au for appropriate advice."

  • +2

    At UQ it started with 1 case, then 4 cases, then suddenly they're quarantining 300+ psychology students before they finally pulled the plug and postponed all classes. They should have called school holidays early and then used that time to fast track development of online learning materials. Australia's response has been too slow and reactive

  • The problem now is that at my kids school (and same at others I am sure) less than half the kids are showing up, so they are not really doing any work anyway.

    Parents with kids staying home are complaining that kids staying away should be given remote work, but how can teachers be expected to do this if school is officially open?

    Now my kids don't want to got to school because they say they are bored as they are not doing anything

    It's a lose/lose

    • If the teachers aren't teaching who's there and also not making take home programs. You need to be asking what it is they're doing.

      Most of the schools around here are teaching as normal and creating taken home packs for those who want to stay home and preparing for a future shut down. At least the public ones are, as advised by the government body.

      • As a teacher some of us are doing both, some going on business as usual preparing work for students at school. The workload on teachers right now to prepare work for up to 1 additional term (particularly in low SES schools like my own) is very demanding. Not all students will have access to a laptop or the internet, so we are continuously printing off booklets in preparation. As part of the frustration is not knowing if and if when we would need to have kids learning from home.

        AFAIK those who are at home by choice out of fear will be counted as an unexplained absence. They will receive a zero on all assessment tasks and should undertake appropriate misadventure procedures. They will not be receiving any work to take home if they are staying at home as a precaution. This is fair on teachers as students and parents are doing this by choice.

        Unless the student is sick, suspended or quarantined due to coming into contact with someone infected or are infected themselves; then we will not be sending work home.

        • It won’t make much difference in a few weeks when all schools are closed anyway

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