Why do people think closing schools is going to help?

[Bearbehind]

• Evidence suggests children are far less susceptible to Coronavirus than adults

• Unless you plan to quarantine them in the house 24/7 then they’ll be in contact with their friends anyway

• Very few working parents could cope with no childcare during school hours

• There’s been stories on here of parents who want schools to close but have no intention of cancelling other plans / holidays

What is it designed to achieve?

@Random18 "Let us watch Italy and China. It's not widespread her yet. It's not the time for action yet."
Surely the time for action is before it's totally out of control? Rather than wait til it's a disaster and then act

Or putting it a different way.. lets imagine the NHS is a restaurant, and Coronavirus is Valentines day. The restaurant knows it's coming and is taking advance enquiries, so it orders in more food and wine , and staff to cope with the increase in numbers... all good right it will be busy but it will cope. The reason it copes is that it spreads out say 200 bookings over the entire evening rather than all 200 people turning up at 7pm

Evidence suggests children are far less susceptible to Coronavirus than adults

Children are still getting it.
Their symptoms are often less severe.
There have been no fatalities amongst under 10s, and only 0.2% in the next two age groups up.

However, their is now suggestion that children may will have little or no symptoms but be able to carry it, and therefore passing it on to other adults. Children are known as super spreaders for lots of viruses partially as their hygiene isn't as high - just watch in a primary school how many children have their hands all over themselves, in their mouths up their noses, etc. and how briefly they wash their hands, if at all.

Their is already evidence from other viruses how the closing down of schools helps to plateau the spread and the peak, which also helps the health services to manage.

How are the kids who’s parents aren’t making any money because they can’t work going to eat while they’re sat at home for weeks while schools are closed?
The government need a plan, surely it would be more successful to begin with, to say that those who can afford to keep their kids home from school to do so. Lowering the amount of kids in the classroom to lower chance of widespread without financially crippling families who can’t take it.

@Bearbehind: There's lots of epidemiological evidence from seasonal flu that school children are super-spreaders of the flu virus (without themselves becoming ill with symptoms of flu). This is the reason why the UK government has been offering free flu vaccines to all primary school kids since last year. If you extrapolate this evidence to the Covid-19 virus (which is not unreasonable given their similarities), closing schools should limit spread of the virus to vulnerable populations. We are already seeing the benefit of this strategy, in addition to other social distancing strategies, in China etc. Why the UK government and PHE are holding back in putting social distancing policies in place is difficult to understand. They seem to be prioritising maintaining economic/business activity over public health or the lives of older vulnerable people. I fear this approach will ultimately lead to a larger epidemic of Covid-19 in the UK than otherwise (but we will never really know). I don't believe PHE have acted in the best interest of the public so far.

I think for a lot of people it seems like an easy fix. If you suggest closing down other workplaces/shutting down the entire country suddenly it seems too impractical. A lot of people go by the mentality ‘somebody do something ‘.

All they want us to feel reassured and the kudos of having made a show of being genuinely concerned about vulnerable members of the community without making any major compromises themselves.

Lowca I may be naive and I may be wrong but I have confidence in the CMO and others

They obviously do not think it's the time yet.

Evidence suggests children are far less susceptible to Coronavirus than adults

The evidence I’ve seen is that children get it in as great numbers as adults, but with typically less severe symptoms.

No children aged 0-9 have died of it yet but 0.2 % of upper primary school/senior school/university students (both age cohorts 10-19 and 20-29) have died.

Closing schools in isolation would be stupid. There seems to be emerging evidence of good results from doing so as a containment measure alongside moving all adults who can do so to work from home and ending large gatherings.

Italy’s figures are terrifying and show why we need to act more drastically earlier.

Swine flu decreased because of the summer holidays fact not fiction.

Sorry to have bodged this, there's a much neater version floating round, but this is why people want to close schools.

But the nurses and doctors will have children to look after 🤦🏻‍♀️.

Presumably also nurseries etc would close it isn't that easy as people cannot be in two places at once.

It would be more sensible to reduce the amount older people are in circulation.

But just closing schools seems utterly pointless to me

Its not just schools.
It is often combined with other large gatherings of people, where those people are in close contact with one another and for lengthy periods of time.

Also, remember that schools are not just places for children. They are a workplace just like offices and other businesses are. There are many adults working in those schools, in close physical contact with many children - those super spreaders - every day.

Italy’s figures are terrifying and show why we need to act more drastically earlier.

No they aren't terrifying far fewer people have died than of seasonal flu.

I think we should ONLY do this if it gets Italian levels
Which it’s not frankly

The economic issues will be worse than the health ones

It would be more sensible to reduce the amount older people are in circulation.

I think it has already been suggested that over 65s should stay at home as much as possible. I have told my parents to stay at home!

Have you been on a commuter train into London?

OP, sorry to hijack your thread but this one has been puzzling me too. I'm not in the UK so I keep wondering how on earth commuters on the Tube are affected. Surely it is impossible not to touch surfaces that have been touched by thousands of others on a daily commute ?

If public transport was shut down, how would Londoners get to work?

I think we should ONLY do this if it gets Italian levels
It makes more sense to do it earlier. Once you get high numbers of victims it is too late.

Surely it is impossible not to touch surfaces that have been touched by thousands of others on a daily commute ?

If I were still using public transport, I would be wearing gloves tbh.

Its not just schools. It is often combined with other large gatherings of people, where those people are in close contact with one another and for lengthy periods of time.

Plus huge numbers of school children use public transport, thus spreading any virus far more widely that just the school itself.

X post “ Surely it is impossible not to touch surfaces that have been touched by thousands of others on a daily commute ?”

A lot of us play “Tube surfing” whereby we attempt to do our whole journey without touching anything. I’m quite good at it. 😂

But I always hand wash like Lady Macbeth anyway.

I think there are probably a lot more people who could be working from home and companies should insist on this as much as possible.

Schools are not childcare facilities though. I totally understand difficulties faced by working parents though. I brought up 3 children on my own and worked fulltime. However, as an example, I had a child profusely vomit on Friday. When Dad arrived to collect, he mentioned child had been sick in the early hours but 'it wasn't much' so they sent him in. I had an upset stomach yesterday. Coincidence? I don't think so. Parents will send their kids in with flu like symptoms, not everyone who has symptoms is being tested if they haven't been abroad, a friend visited a building where there are now known cases, he called NHS today as he is in a public serving job and was told only to call again if he develops symptoms, not to isolate. He is in contact with possibly 500-600 adults a day.
I think this will spread and we should be seriously looking at schools closing.

I think we should ONLY do this if it gets Italian levels

How about we do it to avoid it getting to Italian levels?

*Have you been on a commuter train into London?

You have much more chance of being infected there due to people literally breathing in your face, than in a school.*

As a primary teacher, children literally breathe, sneeze and cough on me/ each other all day. They have very poor personal hygiene and awareness of personal space. Teachers usually have quite robust immune systems because of this- you are exposed to every kind of germ on a daily basis. Coronavirus would spread like wildfire in a school.

I think it has already been suggested that over 65s should stay at home as much as possible. I have told my parents to stay at home!

But they won't necessarily take any notice. Nothing has actually been cancelled. I haven't heard older people being told to stay at home by the government as yet. Even more worryingly if schools close many will actually end up looking after children.

The actual spread is less important than making sure that older people don't get it.