Risk to under 20’s

[Alex50]

So five people have died from Covid who are under 20 so far in the UK, 3 of those had under lying health issues, so only 2 with unknown health issue have died. There are over 4 million school age children in the UK. Do you think children are at risk if they return to school? Children are the least at risk category, surely a strategy should be put in place so they can return to school?

What about the staff?

How many teachers have died from coronvirus? Do children spread it? The risk is higher to over 60’s maybe offer early retirement to this group. I would really like to see the numbers of teachers who have been working in schools who have died from coronvirus? I can’t find them anywhere?

I'm watching with interest as
I want my two 14 year olds back at school. We are in badly impacted area, large inner city secondary schools.

Before lockdown there were a third of the one's class down with illness/withdrawn (then my one DC himself was unusually ill).

My other DC's secondary class (different school) two thirds were off.

Not to mention teachers...

Why would this time be any different with the virus still in circulation?

Some smaller costal schools in Devon may be in areas with few cases but what about massive inner city secondaries in London, Birmingham?

Also, and this is also anecdotal but a six year old in our family with no other health issues is currently in hospital with CV.

I agree OP.

@middleager I have no idea. At my daughters school hardly anyone was off sick. Without seeing the overall numbers it hard to gage. Most children I know who have had it, have had very mild symptoms.

It’s not just the teachers though if the children become contagious and then take it home to the parents and parent A gives it to someone at the shop or the child passes it on to the bus driver who passes it to his wife who is a carer...

Agree OP. There was a study by Imperial College London recently published in the Guardian which suggested that school closures, especially if done later in a pandemic, have little effect. It was hushed up by the government very quickly and the BBC told not to publish it. A further study using contact tracing showed that the British kid who caught it on the ski holiday in the French alps early on (he showed very mild symptoms and is now fine) saw 170 different people in the time he would have been symptomatic and managed not to contaminate any of them. I think it’s become rather an easy thing to call kids “superspreaders” of this when actually we don’t know if that is the case at all.

It's not really a case of whether the children are at risk, it's whether the community becomes at risk as a whole because of the mixing of households

Which we don’t know, they actually don’t think children spread it as much as they thought. You would think with 2000 children on average, in each secondary school it would spread a lot quicker? Look at care homes, how quick that spreads.

Children may be silent carriers,asymptomatic but contagious. The more contacts anyone has the higher the risk of catching it. Teachers, support staff, other parents and carers would be put at risk.

And is it fair to have over 4 million children locked away when they are the least at risk? They are paying the higher price for lockdown

I think it’s become rather an easy thing to call kids “superspreaders” of this when actually we don’t know if that is the case at all.

They do not need to be 'suerspreaders' (ie passing it on to more people than the R0 of the disease at that stage) Even with

The study referred to I understand said that closing schools in the absence of other measures did not have a big impact, which is not the same as saying opening schools in the presence of other measures does not have a big ( negative);impact

I am quite sure that if school reopening is believed to be safe then schools will reopen

It will depend upon the likelihood of children being carriers which is not the same as the likelyhood of children showing symptoms or dying

"Fair" to whom? For vast majority a short gap in education will not have long term consequences.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8237633/amp/Children-dont-pass-coronavirus-French-boy-did-not-spread-virus-172-people.html

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2020/apr/06/school-closures-have-little-impact-on-spread-of-coronavirus-study

A great many people used "well, schools are open anyway" as a reason to do no social distancing at all. Check back on old threads to see for yourself. So it actually has a much bigger impact than statistical modelling of the potential risk of individual children. Then there are teachers, who can't distance effectively from children.

Spain had children locked away where they couldn't leave the house. In this country you can take them out for a long walk. It's hard, but it has only been a few weeks and likely to have more restrictions eased as weeks and months go on. I think opening up outdoor playgrounds might help, maybe even other organised outdoor activities for older children.

Does anyone have any overall numbers of teachers who have being teaching in schools who have died of coronvirus? Maybe then we can judge the risk?

To make schools function would require more adults on site, creating social mixing beyond the children.

To make schools function would require more adults on site, creating social mixing beyond the children and among parents dropping.

Just because very few under 20s have died, it doesn’t mean they can’t become ill or pass it on. A school with people in close contact and poor hygiene availability is an ideal situation to pass germs around.

Moreover, dropping children off and collecting them means people mixing and potentially spreading germs.

Your comment about teachers over 60 taking early retirement makes no sense. Many teachers under 60 have underlying health conditions. And what about teachers with vulnerable family members?

It really stuns me the amount of parents who can’t cope with looking after their own children.

Kids are superspreaders of everything. This isn’t new. Norovirus through my child’s school last year meant half empty classrooms. Parents, grandparents, friends picking it up. Think of horrible viruses, Chicken pox going round etc. At pre school age it feels like there’s always something going round the nursery and I always caught it back from my child, had to go back to work as there’s only so many sick days you can be paid for...then spreading it around the workplace...it’s always been this way.
Employers will have to be more tolerant to ‘sick leave’ in future and grandparents, friends and wider family may have to review how they have contact during a school week. That’s going to be a massive issue for after school childcare, primarily for the younger kids and days through the week for pre school age for those who have so much grandparent support.

I just think you should look at how many times the words 'we don't know' have been used in this thread and think maybe the fact that we have so many gaps in information about how this virus is spread and other risk factors means maybe we shouldn't leap into making potentially dangerous decisions like reopening schools and putting 4 million children, school staff, families and the wider public at more risk.

Time - that is true for the flu but is simply wrong for this virus. Children catch it rarely and rarely spread it. The child fatality rate under 10 is close to zero worldwide and less than 1 in 100,000 for those below 20.

There is a German study which questioned whether anyone catches it from children at all. Let us all be glad about that.

It is irresponsible and ill informed scaremongering to describe children as ‘superspreaders’ of this virus.

There were 48 child fatalities in traffic accidents in 2018. Unless your child is at particularly high risk, and you otherwise are happy with your child being on the public highway as a pedestrian or a passenger, then it’s irrational not to send your child to school due to Coronavirus if your concern is focussed on them.

The issue is with how transmissible it is amongst children and then out into the wider population.

Worldwide there have been outbreaks associated with weddings, conferences and festivals but not a single outbreak anywhere associated with a school.