Given Iceland's data surely schools should go back.

[Floatyboat]

www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100?query=featured_coronavirus

It appears that kids either don't get it much or their immune system stamps it out so quick the chance of transmission is very low. Iceland has been able to keep schools open and still gets these figures for under 10's.

Clearly some caution/graded opening may be sensible but to continue with the current status quo and all the associated harm is not justified.

Any other conclusions to be drawn from this data?

It seems a large part of the issue is private vs comprehensive education - private schools may well have classes of 20. Also, a parent paying through the nose for their child's education feels they are entitled to be at school. Entitlement the key word here.

We're lucky- we have a field- but many inner city schools have barely any outdoor space at all.

Every time we do anything in our field in the summer, we have parents ringing/taking photos from the flats nearby and posting them on Facebook and complaining that x didn’t have his hat on (left at home), didn’t drink from his water bottle, it was 25 degrees and we were out for 17 minutes and it was too hot, there’s not enough shade, he didn’t put his jumper on, he didn’t take his jumper off, they moved too much, they didn’t move at all, etc etc

That report last week from the children’s commissioner saying schools should go back for the summer holidays and the kids just be outside doing ‘gardening’ really didn’t have a clue!

Young children do not spend the day sat at desks. Reception children are constantly moving, following a play based curriculum and other classes have carpet time, group learning, paired activities, carousels of learning. Social distancing would not be possible in classrooms.

That is modelling based on influenza. I'm looking for evidence of high transmission in schools.

*It's all still unknown which is the point. We do however have evidence that social distancing and lock down reduce the speed of spread and as I have said its a cumulative approach.

It may well turn out that children aren't super spreaders, normal spreaders, under spreaders( or whatever its called)we don't know yet. But when the ONS are reporting higher death rates since recording began. I think we need to be careful.

The idea of opening to extra key worker so we have 20 percent in school could be one idea.
*

@wintertravel1980 we don't know this for certain. We can't prove that children don't transmit the virus as easily because they aren't being tested. Scientists believe that many children are asymptotic which still poses a threat to adults. Just for the record, I have a child relative aged 6 who has had Coronavirus and experienced high temps and awful coughing for two weeks.

In reality, you can't social distance school staff with pupils or each other. I have a class of 35 pupils and telling them to stay 2m away from me would be near on impossible because a) they would forget and b) there isn't the space in my classroom to be 2m away from any child in a class of that size. How could staff socially distance in the staff room? There wouldn't be the space. On the playground at break and lunch? Impossible to be 2m away from pupils. Until social distancing is over, schools cannot and will not open.

Comparing Iceland and the UK is, sadly, like comparing apples and pears.

I don’t think the OP’s point is that we’re like Iceland, it’s that research done in Iceland found that children don’t spread coronavirus much compared to adults.

Of course I don’t want my children back in school until things are safer all round. I hope we have a proper exit strategy from lockdown that will keep the virus contained to achieve that. But it is still good news if transmission in schools is less likely than we believed it might be.

Social distancing isn’t all-or-nothing. The countries looking at reopening schools at the moment aren’t just reopening everything.

Good post Oak Maiden that is a worry and shows people just read the headlines.

There are three main strains of the virus - the majority of the cases in Iceland are a different strain to the majority of cases in the UK.

Scroll down a bit on this page

‘Pressure mounts to open schools on 11th May’ says newspaper that is agitating to open schools on 11th May.

If it’s not epidemiologists agitating for schools to open, nor school leaders explaining how schools can keep everyone safe, then the writers of these articles should shut the fuck up.

We can't prove that children don't transmit the virus as easily because they aren't being tested.

But they were in Iceland, that’s the point of OP’s link?

Can parents not just queue to drop their kids off like they queue to go to Tesco.

I got this far, and then I had a really good laugh at the idea of the collection of children taking until 12, ready to start dismissing them again at 12.05.

Agree Noble just like that TES article said.

Its every day on here.

Important quote from the study : Whether the lower incidence of positive results in these two groups resulted from less exposure to the virus or from biologic resistance is not known.

So your assertion that children's young immune systems hit the virus hard so there is little left and it cant be found in their throats. Making them therefore less risky. has been neither suggested nor really supported by the data in this study. It is a possibility, but it is also possible that that is not the case.

@Chanel05

Other countries have tested children that is the point im making and winter travel made more thoroughly. Why do you not want to look at their results.

There is no need to record individual anecdotes on the thread.

Well my 5 year old had it, which must have been from school, she got fever cough etc that fluctuated severity for 2 weeks (she was quite ill but like a regular flu) - she then gave it to me. I’m healthy no preexisting conditions and I’ve been ill for 4 weeks (2 very ill in bed constantly) but still weak and getting fever a further two weeks later. Fortunately we didn’t see my Dad at the time she became unwell as he’s in the extremely vulnerable category - just think of this though in the context of all families with at risk parents, grandparents, teachers not to mention those with no obvious risk who get it severely.

It must also be considered that in Iceland children don't start school until they are 6 - while in the UK they attend from 4, and sometimes younger. If schools are significant places where the virus is passed on, then fewer Icelandic children (under 10) are exposed to that environment than UK children.

This is incorrect. Children do not start primary school until age 6 but almost all start preschool around the age of 2 and preschools are considered an important part of the education system, not just 'childcare' (although they are not compulsory). There will certainly be a higher proportion of young children in a school setting in Iceland than the UK.

@Oakmaiden

Fair point but why would school children have less exposure given how dangerous people seem to assert school to be?

@floatyboat I didn't realise that free speech was also on lockdown, my apologies.

Iceland's population is a hell of a lot smaller than ours too - whilst they are testing children, it can't be like for like comparable unless we test a huge number of children also.

The SAGE model is for 16 weeks based on children being as likely as adults to spread the virus not as super spreaders which Spanish articles suggest.

@Needsomegoodnews

I really don't think personal anecdotes are useful for deciding what is the best thing to do.

Fair point but why would school children have less exposure given how dangerous people seem to assert school to be?

I didn't say they did. I was saying that some of the 0-10 age group would not attend school, thus overall the age group would have less exposure to the school environment than 11-20 year olds.

But Puffin seems to think I have based that on erroneous data (I made the assumption that because compulsory school attendance doesn't start until 6 in Iceland then fewer under 10 year olds would be attending those settings than in the UK. She thinks I am wrong - I don't have any data to argue either way.)

I am a teacher and I would love to be back at work. However, I think we need to think about social distancing in a school setting.
Schools mean very close contact. Packed corridors and classes of 30 mean there is very little space between children and between adults and adults and children. Many visitors come into schools. Parents meet outside the gates or come into the school office. Canteen staff work close by each other etc etc. Unless other restrictions are lifted, then it is very difficult to see how schools can reopen in isolation. Once schools are open then social distancing ends. You cannot expect families and households to not mix. They will be mixing. If the numbers and strategy is that we are ready to lift restrictions on travel, mixing households and socialising then yes schools should reopen as part of this. If we aren't then schools shouldn't be singled out. The issue of staffing if large numbers of staff have to self isolate for 14 days will also remain an issue. It is understandable that we have all had enough of trying to educate our kids at home but we need to look at what has changed since the decision to lockdown was made to know whether what we are asking for makes sense.

Feel free to give anecdotes but it is just noise/distraction.

I really don't understand that point. Are you saying testing was an intervention that affected the outcomes in the data. More so for children than adults? Please explain. I'm reading this as an epidemiological survey.

Iceland? A country with 1720 cases and 8 deaths?

I think this is really unfair. Of course in a country with about 360,000 inhabitants the absolute numbers will always be low. Think about those numbers per capita and it is not so trivial. Yes, Iceland is doing very well at containing the disease but I still don't like to see people scoffing at our situation like it's no big deal because there aren't many of us to start off with.

British schools are over crowded no way can they be social distanced. , Buildings are often old with inadequate hand washing facilities, staff and pupils then go home to their often vulnerable family's, roads become congested again causing accidents creating additional pressure on the NHS. Parents will chat at the school gates. I think the solution now is the correct one. Open only for key workers