Nick Mills: How sick do you have to be before you stay home?
EDITORIAL: I'd love to have this conversation this morning because I genuinely don't know where the line is anymore. The Government's advice is that kids don't necessarily need to stay home just because they've got a cough, a headache, a runny nose or a blocked nose. Holy hell, I think one of the four you stay home. Not go to school with cough, a headache, a runny nose or a blocked nose. Come on, that’s pretty tough. If they haven't had a fever for 24 hours, they're eating and drinking normally, they're alert and capable of learning, then mild symptoms alone don't necessarily mean a day off school. Now, I get that. We've got a terrible school attendance problem. But haven't we learnt something from COVID? I'm certainly more conscious now about sneezing, coughing, washing my hands and potentially giving something to somebody else an ailment. And here's my confession: I don't feel 100 percent today. I had a terrible night's sleep. I went to bed feeling a bit average. Woke up in the middle of the night, been awake since about 1 or 2am feeling blocked up, headachy, generally a bit crap. But here I am. And you know what, after my coffee this morning I feel great. Maybe that's generational. I'm probably old school about it. Unless I'm really sick, I come to work. You push through it. But is that actually the right thing to do? Because I work with people who, at the slightest sniffle, they say Sorry, can't come in. The slightest headache, oh no they can’t come in. And sometimes I think: Really? That's enough for a sick day? Well, you’ve got 10 you may as well use them. Then you've got the complete opposite. Someone arrives looking absolutely dreadful. Coughing, spluttering, clearly sick, and you think: Mate, I admire your commitment, but please go home because I don't want to get whatever you've got! And that's the other side of this. Going to work sick isn't necessarily heroic, you can infect five other people. We've just come through an extraordinary flu season. It’s been pretty horrible. Hospitals have been under enormous pressure and schools have had huge numbers of kids away. Now I was at my dentist the other day and I said to her, I've got a pretty open, friendly relationship with her, I said, how's it been? And she said “it's been terrible”, I looked at her and I said, it takes me a month to get in to see you, how can it be terrible? Everyone's always sick, cancellations, bang, bang, bang. Now that affects a lot of people. So I want to get into the middle ground here. I don't want to sit on the fence, but I want you to determine, I want you to determine how sick you have to be to have a sick day. Is it a temperature? Vomiting? A terrible cough? Not being able to get out of bed? Tick, tick, tick, tick should be days off work or school. Or is simply feeling lousy enough? And parents — where's the line with your kids? Now I was a pretty lenient parent, must admit. “I don't feel like going to school today, dad, I'm not feeling great.” Stay home, I’m okay with that. Because surely we don't want a generation believing every sniffle means a day on the couch, day in front of Netflix, a day on the machines. But equally, we don't want genuinely sick kids being sent into classrooms because we're obsessed with attendance figures. LISTEN ABOVESee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
