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?

the school holidays on February 14, and the confinement of Crépy-en-Valois, on March 1, led to a sharp drop in the circulation of the virus;

There is a medical study in Australia (was on guardian) stating that the low load virus in children poses a low risk of transmission to adults. I'd be interested to hear a uk medical opinion on it. Some schools go back this week in Australia with no social distancing so will be interesting to see what happens. We can never ever guarantee someone 100% safety and locking all the children away seems madness to me.

Sorry didn't see the Australian report had already been talked about.

I believe they only closed schools to ensure lockdown was adhered to

You can’t ask people so stay at home and not work when kids go to school

I don’t believe it was about them spreading it at all - it was all at same time to support people taking lockdown seriously

Therefore when majority people return to work in the next few weeks schools will too - after whit in what most are discussing

Teachers, like healthcare will be shown to be no more at risk

The government said the other day, millions work in nhs and the cases amongst nhs staff are no higher

I believe they only closed schools to ensure lockdown was adhered to

If you’d been in a school the week before closure you’d understand that the system was already falling apart and some schools were already fully closed (my kids’ school) or partially closed (the school I teach at) due to unmanageable levels of staff absence.

noble this is why they need to sort the testing. Loads of people who were off before schools closed were off because of the instruction to self isolate if they/others in their family had any symptoms. I would imagine very few actually had it. If testing is sorted properly then those who exhibit symptoms can be tested and return to work or not depending on results. Unsurprisingly, that week before schools closed, there was a fair amount of hysteria and paranoia.

That’s a big if, Evil. I’m sure it will be as seamless as the DfE’s handling of FSM vouchers.

But of course teachers weren’t simply off because they had a cough. Some won’t be able to come back to school regardless of testing.

They will also have to sort out cleaning staff in advance of opening schools. Schools were, prior to closure, absolutely filthy. That won’t be acceptable any more (it shouldn’t have been acceptable prior to that but you know teachers just suck it up...).

This is a great post from the Stats thread which shows that deaths in under 24s are lower than average in the last few weeks, while those above 50 are above average and those from 25-49 are flat.

That is, so far, the death rate for young people has dropped as they were been more likely to die in road accidents etc than they have been on the virus. It is only above age 50 that deaths have been rising.

Of course, there are some older teachers, but it is reassuring that the risk to the children and those under 50 is not large.

There are many older teachers, the days of packages for retirement in mid 50s are long gone! While I am pleased my younger colleagues are safer, it doesn't reassure me much about the chances of leaving my young dc behind if we return too fast (we need to return, but at the right time and in the right way)

I'd say about half the teaching profession are over 50 where I work.

Certainly if you think of school staff as a whole, over 50s are well represented. We would be exceptionally short of cleaners (down to 1), lunchtime staff (down to 2), no office or reception staff, no head, less that half of TAs at a very rough guess, though over half the teachers are under 50. Not well distributed across the school - some areas are completely staffed with over 50s, some would have no TAs, others no teachers.

If shops are open and shop workers are not being adversely hit by the virus I think schools can open. I have yet to hear of any evidence anywhere in the world of significant spread within a school environment. There is greater risk to many DC by spending a further prolonged period at home.

shop workers are not being adversely hit by the virus

So you think that someone working at a checkout behind a perspex screen, with queues spaced 2 m apart and with a short interaction per person is likely to be a good model for virus transmission for a primary teacher in extremely close personal contact with 30+ young children with dubious personal hygiene and no social distancing in a single room for 6 hours a day?

Perhaps the reason for lack of significant spread in a school environment is because such a large percentage of schools worldwide are closed?

Heard from a friend today that their former colleague, who was a TA at a local school (aged 56) has died of CV.
Brings it closer to home.

I have yet to hear of any evidence anywhere in the world of significant spread within a school environment.

Over 90% of the global student population have been affected by school closures - 189 countries have closed all schools. So ‘I haven’t heard of any spread’ isn’t exactly great evidence.

It was certainly spread at that lycee in France .

This is interesting:

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

This is interesting:

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

Again limited but interesting it had children under 10 less risk than teenagers and adults.

Doesn’t Lycee mean college in France? So older children which fits with the study saying average age of person infected was 18 and average age of person hospitalised was 37 I think. So not children at all but young adults. Very different to under 10s.

Mind you I find what came out about smokers in this study absolutely fascinating. That they are far less likely to be affected. This virus is so strange. This also shows (with the smoking) it wasn’t a primary school.

Lycee is the equivalent of an overlap between upper secondary school and college in terms of age. So 14 or 15 up to 18 years old before their A level equivalent which is Baccalaureate. So yes 15 is quite different than a 10 year old but also very different than an 18 year old in terms of anatomical, physiological development.

The smokers rate or severity of infection is quite interesting, you are right. However, once infected, smokers are affected much more.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the nose. If the main ‘entry’ point for the virus is the nasal passage where there is an abundance of receptor cells, maybe these are damaged or mutated due to long term smoke inhalation. Perhaps a similar situation for those exposed to high levels of air pollution? Different scenario and I’m not comparing drug use with smoking but maybe physical damage caused by ling term cocaine use creates a similar situation. However, co-existing health issues associated with ling term drug use might counteract this where a smaller virus count could be successful in a body with a very weakened immune system.

SPoke to a consultant a&e doctor last night who said every patient they’ve had was a smoker which goes against what papers have said

Here's a school that reopened in Germany.

And another one...

And here's one in Denmark...