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.

unfortunately none of the graphs are any good as an indicator if we are not testing the same number of people or are testing different types of people

I agree with that, which was one of my original points about the UCL model. But, as several posters seem to be very concerned about the UCL model, and to be taking it as gospel, I wanteded to demonstrate that, even if the UCL projections are correct , the UK's trajectory is totally different from Italy's, so we should not assume that things will be as bad here as there.

I’m kind of with you MrsNoah

Thank you but I am not coming up with any of these figures myself, All I am doing is taking the figures that UCL have used and showing how, even if they are right, the UK still looks very different from Italy,

I’ve told my friend who is a carer that he needn’t worry, his 3 year old can stay home alone. He’s delighted the issue has been sorted for him.

More useful than a raw number graph comparison is a logarithmic scale comparison of UK and Italy. This one has the UK starting it's cases after Italy, but as you can see, if you moved the graph left, they would be very similar.

Thanks @Facingtheunkown

I wonder if the govt is planning to do something like this (from the article):

“St. Louis closed the schools about a day in advance of the epidemic spiking, for 143 days. Pittsburgh closed 7 days after the peak and only for 53 days. And the death rate for the epidemic in St. Louis was roughly one-third as high as in Pittsburgh. These things work.

Q: How should jurisdictions decide when to pursue a proactive closing?

A: How many cases are there in the region? And what is the epidemiologically relevant region? If you’re in a mid-sized town you might say, as soon as there’s a community-acquired case in my town, whether it’s in my school or not, I’m closing my school.”

And here are the same two graphs with the UK moved forwards in time slightly. As you can see, the trajectory is almost identical, with the UK data actually fitting the early part of the trajectory better than the Italian data.

I was thinking about this last night. In my school, about a third of the staff are over 55. In addition, about a third have underlying disorders ( heart, asthma, or autoimmune). Not necessarily the same people! In addition to that, almost all of us over 50 have elderly relatives who help with childcare or live with us, many of them with underlying conditions.

So i'm exposed to the virus from my classes and my own kids at home.

Today I stopped a bunch of boys from lobbing dirty tissues at each other while shouting "Corona!" at break duty, gave out a box full of tissues, watched one child sneeze a handful of snot into his hand, handed out about a million pens and pencils which are all shared out, chewed on, sucked etc and futilely wiped the desks and urged the whole year group to wash their hands which they mostly did not do.

Then I released the kids into a full playground of parents, younger siblings and grandparents and watched the older ones pootle off to the chippie.

Schools may well need to shut.

But - i've worked hard, my students have worked hard and they want their exams to happen. I worry about some of them over holidays let alone over extra shut down time. The school provides a breakfast club, food bank and washing facilities all of which they'd have to do without. The daily contact at school for some of them us the best, and safest part of their day where theyare safeguarded. Although most of my students have one or two parents at home, many of those that work do so on short term or zero hour contracts. It's unsure what would happen to benefits and that will impact hugely on their wellbeing.

I have no real answer - it's a lose / lose really.

More useful than a raw number graph comparison is a logarithmic scale comparison of UK and Italy. This one has the UK starting it's cases after Italy, but as you can see, if you moved the graph left, they would be very similar

Agree, but you have still flattened the curve from Day1 because of the longer "latency" period in the UK (not true latency but a longer period of there being an insignificant proportion the population infected). And the overall figures for each country remain starkly different for the immediate future, even if we end up at the same total.

I have never argued that we are not heading to the same eventual infection rate as Italy. I just want to reassure people that that doesn't mean we will necessarily experience the same level of crisis.

I'm with you Mrs Noah - the gradient (for those who dislike trajectory) is different. We will almost certainly end up in the same place but if we are getting there more gradually then the health service will be more able to cope and it may mean the most drastic shut down measures aren't required or at least not for as long. Especially because (as was mentioned at the press conference the other day) they need to be careful not to push the peak so far out that we end up running in to next winter's flu season.

Fingers crossed for the flatter curve because what I find hard to deal with is the idea of people needing care but not getting it.

Our school sent an email today saying there are a lot of trips coming up and that because of the current sotuation, if children are unwell they shouldn't go on the trips and risk affecting other children - surely they shouldn't go to school at all?

Situation

And that will be part of the trade off for school closures - finding the point which achieves the optimal result in terms of number of care staff available vs number of seriously ill people.

If you go too early then you might reduce the number of number of seriously ill people by reducing infection - but the overall reduction in the caring workforce might be so significant due to children being off that the actual outcome in terms of deaths increases. It's no good reducing the number of cases by 1/4 if you reduce the healthcare staff available by 1/3...

Plus people will get fatigued with the measures and stop complying (or not start complying in the first place if they thing it's excessive.) It might be better to get 2 weeks where most people actually stay home instead of 6 weeks where large numbers continue as normal.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/300403
For those who think schools should close when the NHS cannot cope and movement should be reduced.

If schools close, the NHS will cope even less well as staff will be off to look after their DC’s. Perhaps those who want the schools to close, should volunteer as cleaners etc in the hospitals?

DD's school has been setting up remote learning this week and training teachers in how to use it.

Mrs Noah, for some reason, Excel refused to put on the lower cases from the UK. I wanted them on, because I would have liked to have seen the line go further back and see if ours was the missing part where the Italian graph didn't track properly. It kept popping up with a message about not being able to give logs of negative numbers (fine, but they weren't). Sometimes you just give up fighting microsoft products.

If schools close the NHS will.cope even less well

How will it cope when lots of its staff are catching coronavirus from their children?

The date for that petition keeps going back.
I suggest anyone with concerns about handling of this whole thing this emails/ calls in to Jeremy Vine....

It's all incredibly suspicious creating incorrect figures.
Not stopping flights from italy.
No checks at airports.
Why are we accepting this he is doing an incredibly bad job.
Telling us it's flu.
Now obviously there could be some reason. Maybe we need to go through quickly for some reason
Security.
Economy.

Also interesting 're all the stockpiling maybe it's gov ministers getting ready to hunker down.

That will also be part of the balancing act. But the parents won't all catch it at the same time whereas closure is simultaneous.

How will it cope when lots of its staff are catching coronavirus from their children?

Better than when all of the parents are off at the same time rather than some of the parents being off at different times.

Guest on BBC by video link just said he has self isolated after returning from holiday, he had flu like symptoms. He believes he has the virus, he has now been told he should isolate and wait for a test.after being told not to isolate. His wife is a primary school teacher and she is going to work because he hasn’t been tested so can’t prove he has the virus. You couldn’t make this up. Health minister gets it, isolated immediately and gets tested. General population are just having to make their own minds up at this point if you ask me. I think I will keep my kids home the week before half term now. Maybe before if this gets worse faster. I think the authorities are not really in control even if their hearts are in the right place. It’s down to the individual to help how they can.

Whilst I don't think we should do forced closure yet I would like to see the government saying "we won't be enforcing attendance fines" so that people who have the flexibility to do so can keep their children home (assuming they're not in exam critical years.)

That would help to reduce the density of the school population, kids could sit further apart, less strain on washing facilities, easier to enforce good hygiene. My workplace is taking a similar approach, they've not enforced WFH yet but are saying that if you take busy public transport, have any health worries or just want to then you are fully supported to WFH immediately to "de-densify" the offices.

Molecular biologist on Victoria Derbyshire has removed his 8 yr old from school. Believes if you can you should.

Poland are closing their schools from Monday. They have 26 cases and no deaths.