There’s now a strong chance schools will NOT go back full time in September

[Redolent]

Schools have been set up to fail by the careless summer relaxation of lockdown.

• No mandatory face masks in shops and indoors. The UK is an international outlier here.
• Reduction of 2m rule to 1m which is basically the normal distance people talk to each other. Factor in alcohol and social distancing is now non-existent in pubs and restaurants. Oh, and nobody cares about the 1m ‘plus’ bit. They just hear 1m.
• Reopening of too many indoor venues at once, including things like places of worship which are high-risk for transmission anyway.
• Bypassing the idea of social bubbles straight to unlimited two household meet-ups indoors. You can visit different pubs/restaurants over the weekend and go inside multiple households throughout the week. Zero attempt to break chain of transmission.
• No functioning app and poor test/trace system (see SAGE’s Stephen Reicher on the latter)
• ‘Pausing’ of shielding in August

All of the above will led to a rise in cases.

Meanwhile:

• Shit is absolutely hitting the fan in the United States, India, Pakistan, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, other parts of the Middle East. Our quarantine policy is so terrible it may well be scrapped anyway. Will see more imported cases.
• The weather will turn cooler and allow perfect conditions for the virus to thrive

So by end of August/early September, our cases and hospitalizations will be rising significantly. Flu season will kick in. The NHS is already groaning under the weight of its huge 10million waiting list - another shut down cannot happen. A full time return to school under those circumstances will be untenable. Blended learning will see a turn as will part-time schooling.

YABU: we need to get the economy going in all its forms as quickly as possible, and schools will also go back with no issues.
YANBU: you cannot have things both ways. This summer relaxation is setting us up for an autumn/winter spike and more part-time schooling.

@Cookiecrisps, I appreciate what you are saying but other key workers have taken the risk. All the research indicates that school related infection spread is minimal.

If every child had had a superb on-line teaching experience with regular communication your argument would hold weight.

I know two Yr12 boys.

One has to report on zoom in school uniform at 8.30am. The day starts with a HoY/Housemaster/Heads address. Final session ends at 4.30. Exams to take place last week in August to assess for UCAS predicted grades.

The other is lucky to get a couple of sessions per week with negligible communication.

It doesn't take much to guess which one's at the local comp and which one is at a London day school.

@OhTheRoses

Unions for ‘other key workers’ have rightly demanded Covid secure working practises and haven’t been slated for it.

I don’t see anyone slagging off bus drivers because masks are now mandatory on public transport. Or even anyone calling supermarket workers names because there are limited numbers in shops.

I wonder why 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well, I work in a school and have been going there full time every day since the wider opening to reception, Year 1 and Year 6.

In the time I've been there, I have seen children putting fingers inside their mouths as soon as they have washed their hands, drool saliva on the floor or table just because, and a child spat on another child's face.

So no, I don't think you can compare schools to shops, supermarket, chemist, banks, etc, as I am fairly confident I wouldn't see that kind of behaviour from customers towards the staff or other customers in supermarkets, chemists, etc.

And I do want schools back in September full time, but I am not deluded that you can compare them to pubs, restaurants, shops, in terms of social distance and risk to other children and staff.

I guess whether it happens or not will depend on people going back to their lives cautiously during the summer so cases continue to decrease, because the opposite would mean more disruption to schools.

@OhTheRoses but teachers in my school are taking the risk as I’ve said sitting next to children to read, working in close proximity to children to check their work etc as that’s our job.

In terms of the online provision that would have been much better across the board if the DfE gave clear direction as to what schools should provide (they were told the curriculum had been suspended in the original guidance.) Moreover if there had been proper investment in IT in schools (we get a school laptop to work from but many schools don’t provide laptops for staff and more as no budget for it) and the government provides laptops for the vulnerable when they said they would it would have made a difference. Many students have been waiting since April for this. Is the day school you mentioned fee paying? That is an important factor.

@Ellle

I often accidentally put my hands in snot and spit that some gross child has wiped on the bannister in the stairwells at school.

By often I mean at least once a week.

When I was in for key worker kids last week I watched a 14 year old boy wipe his running nose along the entire length of his arm and then touch about twelve things, including his friend’s work.

🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

I don’t doubt schools have a lot of that going on. Even with SD.

Also bet SD is hard to maintain outside classroom for most children.

Which is another reason to let dc get together in schools but mitigate for teachers with PPE.

Wasn't this always the plan? We have a sliding scale for a reason. We're at 3 now, we will go down further and may well fluctuate all the way back up in winter in hotspots.

I've seen many people confidently state no lockdown fully will happen again but that's false confidence. They don't know, no one does and if say cambridge suddenly became a hotspot in winter with a very high R rate and struggling hospitals then yes it would lockdown. I expect they'll try to just keep to areas rather than the nation as a whole if possible but from the very initial briefings of the scale and 5 tests, this is how i expected it to be.

@Coyoacan

I'm sorry for you lot in Britain, but what a strange assortment of countries you put in your list, OP. Saudia Arabia is way down in deaths per million people and Mexico, where I live is No 22 on the list today. We have a problem with the virus and it is being dealt with, a lot better than in the UK, I might add. The UK is fourth, way ahead of the USA, who have also been astoundingly incompetent in managing the disease.

I do hope you are all able to get back to normal very soon, but don't feel sorry for Mexico, we have excellent authorities doing there utmost to keep us informed and keep us safe.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. As far as I’m aware, the places I listed are all showing exponential growth in cases, which is the risk now. The Financial Times ran a piece on Mexico last week saying that its death rate isn’t expected to peak until August... (reopening while cases are still very high). But I’m happy to be corrected as my knowledge is limited.

@MarshaBradyo

Genuine question that I don’t know the answer to because I tried yesterday: how do I teach in PPE?

Covid secure looks different for different work places. In schools teachers need to talk to the whole class so mask wearing for the teacher is not possible. But the kids could.

I suspect that secondary will be and should be a mix of socially distanced face to face on a part time basis- supported by much improved online learning tools.

I would agree that the online offer is not consistent enough overall. But it must be developed further to offer something to students who are medically vulnerable and to those students who find themselves in lockdown again (probably on a regional basis)

It can be done. Australia had a brilliant remote school service for kids in the outback. Any child in Australia can sign up to it.

But it will require our kids to develop more independent working practises.

They can already meet up outside of school. The socialisation thing should no longer be an issue.

Belle I’d go with a visor over mask if it could be influenced. Masks aren’t great for teachers although yes the children do wear them in other countries (eg Germany, might be optional though not sure).

As a minimum, clear visors for teachers seem a must. I have no idea why this hasn’t been agreed upon yet. Evidence suggests that they protect the wearer but not others, which is sufficient in this case.

It’s interesting watching Spain, France and Italy. No real resurgence there. I know somebody is going to say it’s because Spain/Italy have their schools closed. However, despite a few localised outbreaks, France has no second surge either.

What’s also interesting is that the death rate has dropped vastly in comparison to the infection rate (in the U.K.). It could be that the infection is weakening, or it could be that we are better at treating it. Maybe both.

Whatever the case, I can’t honestly see another lockdown on the scale we have had recently. It would honestly finish us off.

I still know people now playing the system, for example I know somebody who is furloughed but her manager is taking all staff on/off furlough on a three weekly cycle. So they get half the workforce in for three weeks, furlough the other half. While they’re in, the staff are working at twice the normal pace.

No doownturn in trade or income now for that business, but drawing on government money. I also know somebody who is claiming the self employed grant despite their work having continued uninterrupted.

So we can’t really go on like this.

We're at 3 now, we will go down further

If the Nando scale has any remaining validity, the government has said we shall be at 1 on 1 August - the date the shielded rejoin the wider community

@CountessFrog

Aren’t French schools still part time with heavy social distancing rules and mask wearing mandatory?

I’m happy to be corrected.

And am I right in thinking that 70 or so schools have been closed again by localised outbreaks in France?

My point was, Spain and Italy are completely closed, France arent. The figures suggest France has a higher number of infections per day.

This shows the infection rate in France. They are not experiencing a second wave right now, neither are Italy and Spain. There are some differences in rules and approaches, and some differences in the figures and presumably the outbreaks, but this is what’s happening.

It’s interesting to compare this with similar graphs, eg for individual American states, or for Iran, and see that there was/is a second wave.

@CountessFrog

The issue with these simple stat comparisons is that they don’t look at the whole picture. Are they still shielding the vulnerable in France? What are all the other restrictions like?

Many o the countries you mention have a more robust track and trace system.

It would be naive to think that the virus is weakening. What is more likely is that people more vulnerable to the virus aren’t catching it because they are still shielding and measures are still in place to protect the community.

By contrast, here’s Iran

As I said in my post, there are differences in rules and approaches.

The graph is quite clear though

And this is the US state of Texas, which looks to be heading for a first peak, if we were being picky, but they certainly seemed to throw away their chance of getting it under control.

Thing is with kids in school and let's not forget some have been in since lockdown they do not take social distancing seriously. they need constant reminders to follow procedures.iam talking secondary kids here. I cannot see kids wearing masks in lessons. Teachers routinely buy pens and stationary for their classes as it is so where is the money for masks coming from

It seems likely that bubbles of entire year groups will be allowed in secondaries which even in small secondaries will be 150 kids plus presumably the staff from multiple subjects who are teaching them.

Apart from that social distancing will go out the window in secondary once they are out of the school gate.

Understandably some teachers will be nervous about being the only? occupation indoor in close contact with over a 100 people during a day with no sd and no ppe either.

It will be paradoxical that you can bubble with dozens of households in school but if you are indoors visiting with your relatives you must still SD.

Having said that the prevalence of covid may be even lower in August sept. I guess it depends if mitigating measures in pubs etc is effective and prevents the outbreaks we are seeing in the US.

Excess deaths in the UK now stand at 65,000. The figures for percentage increases in excess deaths in the UK is the highest in Europe and second only to Peru internationally.

Or put another way, Britain has the second worst Covid record in the world.

One thing is for sure - don't trust this government to do what's right for your elderly/vulnerable loved ones.

@Cam77

Excess deaths in the UK now stand at 65,000. The figures for percentage increases in excess deaths in the UK is the highest in Europe and second only to Peru internationally.

Or put another way, Britain has the second worst Covid record in the world.

One thing is for sure - don't trust this government to do what's right for your elderly/vulnerable loved ones.

Cam77 you forgot to add the words which given this pandemic is very far from having run its course is crucial. If you looked at excess deaths in January you would have got a very different picture so it is a rather pointless thing to say.

Understandably some teachers will be nervous about being the only? occupation indoor in close contact with over a 100 people during a day with no sd and no ppe either.

Supermarket workers have no PPE, in close contact with hundreds of adults and many Ignoring social distancing. And have been through the peak of the outbreak when infection rates were high.

We are all talking about different things. The number of excess deaths this year isn’t really related to whether schools ought to open in September, unless you just want to use the information to suggest we can’t trust the government and ought to keep schools closed.

Fortunately, scientists and others look at actual facts rather than relying on political slant or implication. The actual important facts are going to be the numbers of current infections, the R rate, the trends, the spikes. Not the excess deaths this year. I think we all know that really, but there are plenty of people who don’t want schools to open, who will use random facts to prove its ‘not safe.’