Time to close the schools

[PaddyF0dder]

I can’t believe I’m saying this. I’m a dad to 3 very young boys. Our eldest is nearly 6 and is on the spectrum. Our twins are nearly 3. They’re hard work when they’re stuck in the house. I also work as a doctor in the NHS. Closing the schools would be a nightmare for us.

I think we need to do it, and do it early.

Watching how this virus is spreading, seeing how harmful it’s been in other countries, reading the stats on transmission, burned on healthcare etc... closing schools and nurseries really seems to be the most logical step.

The UK is at a turning point. We’re entering the stage of sustained transmission. We may already be too late. But we might still have time to enact draconian measures early as opposed to late. Closing school and nurseries. Limiting travel around the country. It seems inevitable that these things will happen, but doing it early might save the lives of the sick and vulnerable.

I honestly don’t know how my family will cope with it. We have absolutely no family support re childcare. We both work hard jobs in the NHS. I wish there was a better option. But the more I look at the facts of this outbreak, the more obvious it gets.

We need to reduce viral transmission. There are many ways, and all must be done. One such way is to close schools and nurseries. We need to do it now.

Sorry, where did we get children not being able to spread the virus and not being superspreaders from? I'm doing my very best here to back up every little fact with evidence from research. They weren't superspreaders in China, because they were not at school and in Hubei province at least they were restricted to their own house. Pretty hard to be a superspreader in those circumstances. Also pretty hard to be the one bringing infection into the home, if you are never leaving it

The same is true of adults in Wuhan province, yet the virus still spread.

There were no recorded incidents of a child infecting someone else in China. Now, that is not concrete evidence, because it is often hard to know who has infected someone else when there is a lot of a disease around. So the likelihood is that children can transmit the disease and it just hasn't been documented yet. However, there is no evidence at all from China for children being super spreaders. Also, because they are not generally ill with CV-19, their viral load (amount of virus in the body) is likely low and they are not coughing and sneezing. Sharing drinks in the playground etc may spread the virus to the child you share with, but it will not spread it as widely as coughing and sneezing.

TBH 90% of what is in the media about super spreaders is massively overhyped anyway. You don't need any super spreaders to spread a virus, just normal transmission. Think of herpes - most sufferers only infect one or two other people in a lifetime, yet about 90% of us have been infected (though many never show symptoms).

My understanding of super-spreaders if that they aren't special unless you call milder illness 'special' . They just get detected rather late so get more chance to spread it.

LIke the Brighton guy who went on ski hols or the Korean lady who shared her germs with co-religionists or the guy who went to 4 (over-crowded) emergency rooms in SKorea over a multi-day period before his MERS got diagnosed. You can wait 20 hours in an SK A&E before being seen. Each time you go.

The NHS will be swamped yes, with idiots who are panicking.

You should all be ashamed of yourselves for fanning the flames.

MedSchoolRat yes, that's my understanding too of the environmental (in the broadest sense) meaning of super-spreaders, but epigenetics probably a factor too.

"You should all be ashamed of yourselves for fanning the flames"

Yes because pretending there is no virus, would help so much more to contain it, than being realistic.

The UAE measures sound sensible to me.

MrsNoah2020

Fact check on 3.4% death rate.

www.factcheck.org/2020/03/trump-and-the-coronavirus-death-rate/

A 'superspreader' is someone who infects far more people than the typical infected person.

It might be a whole group of people sharing a characteristic, or just an individual with unlucky traits that lead them tomshed easily, or perhaps a remarkably high viral load.

You only ever hear about them in serious diseases, because those are the only ones which get studied (and where the quality of data is often somewhat better if the disease is made notifiable)

I forgot to mention (UAE post) that all kids’ clubs and sporting activities have been cancelled too, including Rainbows and Beavers and football etc etc.

And in the week before the school closures were officially announced, there was also a ban on school trips, assemblies, after school clubs and sporting fixtures.

Feesh who is looking after the dc in most cases? Do you have more sahms do you think than UK

And yes we are still doing play dates and sharing childcare (although I am being cautious about who we mix with) but the point of school closures is to protect the population at large from exponential rises in cases, not to protect individuals. So it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things if small groups of kids continue to mingle.

@MarshaBradyo yes we definitely have more SAHMs than the UK - I would say that only about 50% of my friends work at a very rough guess. Furthermore, many people have house maids or nannies (the locals sometimes have a team of household help!) which is something the government often takes for granted in setting policy (they have form for random school closures including for an important football match last year....).

So the lack of childcare would be a huge issue for the U.K.

I can imagine that. A coordinated effort is so good, but falls down a bit here.

I work in an office with no openable windows. It is a risk if one person is confirmed. However until something is actually declared as a strategy then I will be sending my child to school and going to work

Also, please remember that teachers are not the only profession who are at risk. Anyone who works in a public environment are at risk but would you be happy with the tube shutting down because of the volume of people travelling who touch everything going through stations?

Fact check on 3.4% death rate

Yes, that link explains that the true rate is probably much lower. And see my earlier posts about South Korea. If the UK's trajectory follows South Korea's, we are probably looking at up to 200 deaths (with the caveat that we don't know what the final death toll in SK will be).

One thing I'm curious about is who is going to be providing the social care. ALL the health care assistants I know who work in care homes and in the community (trying to be vague about my relationship to them) have said they will give up their job immediately and look after their family in the event of widespread Covid-19. People 75+ will NOT be their priority and they will not provide care for those people only those they love. Regardless of potentially losing their jobs. This includes close friends and members of my own family. I don't think I just know sociopaths, just people who will have to make difficult decisions. Don't blame them.
What will happen?

It will be interesting to see what happens in Italy.The news of the shut down was leaked at night so quite a lot of people got out of Milan/Venice so will achieve the opposite of the containment hoped for.
I don't think trains/planes/tourists have been restricted either.

More about the UAE (where education and health care are not provided free to foreign residents by the state). Khalid Al Ameri does videos aimed at explaining the UAE to foreigners/visitors.

From my personal experience, I think there are probably a lot more mothers who stay at home with their younger/primary age children than in the UK, as they can afford it. As feesh mentioned, many families also have live-in so-called "nannies" (often housemaids who may have children back in their home country) who can do child care in a pinch.

So it is rather a different situation than that in the UK.

CHILDREN DO GET IT!!! theres been a few, and immuno suppressed children??? what about them?

CHILDREN DO GET IT

No one has said children don't get it.

Why has Italy been so hard hit?

There are a lot of old people in Italy and parents have been working and leaving kids in childcare (still) so kids spreading it, or with gp's as it's obviously better for them to work than save lives.
Now, they can arrest and imprison those breaking the rules and not locking down.

Why has Italy been so hard hit?

Good question. They stopped flights from China earlier than other countries too. They have also tested (I think) the highest number of people in Europe so it could (partly) be that they are identifying more cases.

Devlesko - I'm not sure what you mean about leaving children in childcare. I don't think that has contributed to spreading. Italy has a few hotspots which were not identified until after people had already spread the virus. Tbh I think there will probably be a similar scenario in other countries as it seems that this has already taken hold before anyone realised it was even around.

I think a lot of it is down to testing. In Italy they are testing a lot so are detecting a lot of cases. Then look at the USA. Virtually no tested and they, v little spread allegedly.

Feesh - that was interesting. I am in Italy and our schools have been closed for two weeks. Things are similar here except for the anti-bacterial gel in the supermarkets. I haven't seen any measures taken in the supermarkets, although there are a few people wearing masks.

We have been going to the park but people are trying to keep their distances a lot more (no kissing on the cheek or handshakes) and we are only having playdates with one child at a time.