"Sometimes you've got to make a call between health and education, and New Zealand's Government needs to bring more balance back in that regard."
Why would you want sickness to spread at schools? This will get kids sick, it will get their teachers sick, kids will take it home to parents and get them sick. What’s the impact to education but also to the wider workforce and productivity?
Most sickness isn't that bad. You can go to school with a runny nose or a cough. The teachers will build up immunity so they won't be getting sick every week. Stop bubblewrapping children and trying to hide them from everything.
Its ok to keep you kid home from school if they're vomiting or have measles but common cold just send them to school. It's a reasonable take from Seymour.
No one said do nothing. At no point did anyone say ok fuck it all sickness is allowed at school. All that is happening here is we are looking at the amount of kids staying home from school pre and post covid and looking at factors which affect that. One of those factors is government health messaging during covid which was some of the strictest in the world. Now the government is easing up and thinking of issuing some guidelines for parents who are unsure of when to let their kid stay home from school. It's not the end of the world like people here are making it out to be. This is how it has always been only during covid was it different.
I never said they weren't susceptible to getting a cold I said they wouldn't catch it every time they encountered a child with a cold and they're even less likely to catch it after getting the flu vaccine.
You are acting like this is a normal thing but this has only become the normal after covid. After covid everyone is paranoid about the slightest sickness and its coming at a cost of education. Before covid parents would make a decision on if their kids were sick enough to justify staying home.
After covid the sick days have doubled in the span of a year and more compared to pre covid. I'm stating that the benefit of teachers not encountering as many sick children is not worth the amount of time of school children are having. My reasoning is firstly that advising kids to stay home does not stop teachers from encountering sick children it only reduces the likelihood. Secondly a teacher does not get sick every time they encounter a sick child so if they have sick children in their class they will be fine for most of the year. They might get sick once or twice over winter despite encountering sick children every day.
How about you provide some reasoning as to why you think that it's a good thing kids sickness rates have doubled in the past year.
You know in other, arguably more civilized countries, it is the norm to stay home, or at the very least wear a mask, when sick even with a "little cold" right? The "fuck it they can go to school" attitude is not universal, and these other countries don't suffer from it.
Going to work sick or sending sick kids to school has always been stupid. It spreads disease, which kids take home and then infect parents, who go to work and spread it further. Having a cold greatly reduced learning and workplace efficiency.
No he's absolutely right. Children do not exist in a vacuum. Kids bring illnesses home with them from school, then parents get sick. This is how it works.
and tired overworked parents who are not sleeping properly or eating properly are way more susceptible to getting a "little cold" and it turning into something more severe. A kid will beat a virus in a few days, the parent may take weeks
Not everyone does have a functioning immune system and just saying essentially “fuck it let them choose between participating in society or death, I can’t be bothered to take care of my own child for 2 days” makes you a bit of a monster
We are talking about kids going to school with a little cold. Teachers generally get the flu shot each season and aren't getting the cold every single time they come in contact with it.
Thinking you need to hold kids home for two to three days each time they are a little sick is the reason why absence have doubled and kids are missing more school than ever and falling behind.
Do you think teachers are being excluded from society because someone came in with a runny nose?
Flu shots only protect against the flu and only the strains it was prepared for. It doesn't do anything against colds.
Besides that it's not just the teachers that has to deal with it. The sick kid spreads it to other kids who then take it home with them and spread it to their families and so on. If the initial sick kid was just kept home a whole lot less people have to deal with that crap. That's a whole lot of absences that could be prevented by the first kids parents just not being assholes.
There are parents with autoimmune diseases you dense motherfucker.
Sending kids to school sick gets other kids sick which puts other members of the community at risk of getting sick. Some of those community members have cancer and are undergoing chemo, or are on steroids to treat other conditions and have lowered immune systems.
Your lack of critical thinking and empathy are showing.
Firstly auto immune disease is not relevant at all.
Secondly sickness is not a black and white issue. I can infect people with a sickness before I know I'm sick this happened during covid. Asking every kid who feels even the slightest bit sick does not stop sickness spreading through the community. These people with glass immune systems that you describe are at risk regardless of this government suggestion. Maybe you should think critically about this because you taking the most extreme cases and trying to apply it to an entire country.
No one is saying send kids with mesels or chicken pox to school. Only that kids taking time of school for sickness has doubled in the past year and has been rising since covid. It's time to consider that covid is over and we should return to normal health guidelines not paranoid covid guidelines. A child shouldn't miss and entire day of school because they had a sniffly nose and felt 95% that day.
Way to miss the point! Your pseudoscience nonsense is exactly the sort of bullshit antivaxxers and antimaskers used about covid. And think hard about the other oart of my comment as well. What does it even mean to have a strong or weak immune system? That's not how the immune system even works!
Fuck off schizo. You're arguing for the sake of arguing not thinking about what is being discussed here. Your comments are pointless, inflammatory and irrelevant.
Digging? I stand by my original point and I've seen very few good criticisms that would move me to the otherside. More people should stand by what they say and think about why they believe what they believe.
My kid's best friend came to school a fortnight ago with a 'bit of a runny nose or cough'. Thanks to that decision I'm now the sickest I've been in ~20 years with COVID.
Is weaken or compromised immune systems such an issue that the common cold threatens their life and how common is it genuinely asking because I don't know. I don't think it's a good idea for the government to make policy based on extreme outliers instead of the majority.
I also don't think it's possible to avoid the common cold unless you lock yourself at home forever. If you are a teacher who is immune compromised then primary school probably isn't the place for you. I expect them to move careers instead of the entire country bending to accommodate their needs. And I want to stress even when the entire country bends to accommodate their needs it still does not stop then from encountering sickness. For immunocomprimised kids it's harder because they should be able to go to a normal school but if it's to dangerous for them I would suggest homeschool or special Ed.