"It is, alas, a fact of the disease that it is readily transmissible between children and adults"

[noblegiraffe]

Says our PM.

So can all those people who spent the entire summer telling teachers that their worries about returning to school without any mitigation measures that it was FINE because children didn't spread it please now start campaigning for mitigation measures in schools because it appears that people's lives are being put at risk.

twitter.com/mikercameron/status/1306246353379569665?s=21

[Lumene]

Does he mean adult children passing it to their elderly parents or actual kids? And if kids what age?

[noblegiraffe]

I think it was in response to a request to relax the Rule of 6 so that it doesn't include children. So actual kids.

[BelleSausage]

FFS!

So it’s okay when they want it to be but not when they don’t.

I give it a week until loads of schools have closed through a combination of lack of testing (staff shortages) and rising infections linked to schools.

[ineedaholidaynow]

If the phrase was 'children and adults' surely you mean children ie people under 18, not adult children

[Southernsoftie76]

Well who would have thunk it. Did anybody really believe that a highly infectious viral illness wouldn’t be spread by children? Did anybody actually believe the government when they said kids can’t transmit?

[Lumene]

I think it was in response to a request to relax the Rule of 6 so that it doesn't include children. So actual kids.

Oh

[megletthesecond]

I do worry there are actual adults who didn't think it was easily transmitted between adults and children.

[LizzieMacQueen]

And our newly 17 and 18 year olds are off to university but it's all going to be fine ......

[FatGirlShrinking]

It was always one of those theories that made me want to smash my head against the wall.

'Oh well we know kids don't transmit because between April and June there were hardly any kids with CV' yeah....but....between April and May schools were closed to the majority and no kids could get a test unless they rocked up at hospital with blue lips and needed urgent treatment. They were not on the 'eligible for testing' list.

[Namechanger45627]

Did people actually believe that children don’t transmit it?!

In the same way that they clearly don’t transmit other viruses just as easily as any other person Norovirus last year must have been a figment of our imaginations...

[StarCat2020]

Unless COVID19 has a special feature that can tell when a person has had their 18th birthday then the only logic I can see is that it can pass from anyone to anyone.

[CallmeAngelina]

Too damn right, they believed it! Did you not see all the threads on here over the summer, with people quoting that blasted report in the Times?

[Namechanger45627]

I did see those threads, yes. They were parents who needed schools open to work, so clutched onto any evidence that children/schools are safe...

[MarshaBradyo]

There’s not much data on child to adult in a school setting. Israel reported low transmission for close contacts but there’s not much else to go on.

I think we need more data for school settings specifically.

[noblegiraffe]

I think we need more data for school settings specifically.

Why? Is there something magically different about the air in schools?

[FatGirlShrinking]

@MarshaBradyo given the virus doesn't come with a 'distributed in a school' tag, how will it be possible to ever prove conclusively that a child or a staff member caught CV while at school?

What we can see very easily is that schools have been back in England for 2weeks (in most counties, 3 in Leicester) and over a thousand schools have had to close bubbles due to an infected child or staff member.

[flumposie]

Teachers spent the summer warning parents of our concerns and a lot of them told us to either quit our jobs if we were worried or stop being pathetic. I'm sat back watching all the threads appear about the cases in schools, lack of testing and chaos of pupils being sent home.

[Shitfuckoh]

The limited measures schools have been able to put in place here are either already being ignored by parents (gathering outside gates, blocking pavements in groups etc) or have quietly been dropped.

One way system has disappeared here due to locked gates so all years (and parents) going in & out via 1 main (but small) gate.

[MarshaBradyo]

@noblegiraffe

I think we need more data for school settings specifically.

Why? Is there something magically different about the air in schools?

Why not??

Who would be against data. Crazy.

Israel school followed up every positive case to see if close contacts had been infected.

It was low.

Do you not want this information?

[MarshaBradyo]

I can’t believe people are now arguing against data.

Bizarre. All those posters going on about summer camp in America.

Sweden could have kept data from open schools but didn’t keep much. Weird people don’t want it.

[toomanypillows]

I know this is just my experience but in my school we have 2 confirmed cases. Different year groups. Their forms are being isolated but not their year group bubbles. This was Monday - today - 11 staff off with symptoms.

In my form (6th form) 7 of them are isolating with symptoms. I expect we'll be closed within 2 weeks.
They certainly transmit it

[noblegiraffe]

Of course data is good, Marsha, I'm a mathematician. But I don't think that if they know that the virus transmits readily between children and adults that they should hang around to see if that is really the case in schools (because why wouldn't it be when there are no mitigation measures?) before doing anything about it.

[londongirl12]

What's the answer though? Close all schools until Covid has gone?

[noblegiraffe]

What's the answer though?

Literally says in my OP. Mitigation measures.

[itsgettingweird]

It's one of those announcements where you just look at government and say mutter "no shit Sherlock"

Stella job you've done campaigning despite some of the nastiness you've received. Pleased you can now ask for help from all those who denied it and wanted schools open - to keep them open like you wanted from the start.