Schools Reopening?

[ClimbDad]

A major, peer reviewed study into transmission in South Korea has established that tweens and teenagers spread the SARSCOV2 virus more than any other age group.

The study involved more than 65,000 people and used South Korea’s exceptionally effective contact tracing system to look at who brought the virus into households. Tweens and teenagers were the highest index case age group. Younger children transmitted at the same rate as 20-somethings.

This is a large scale, rigorous piece of research that proves children are effective at transmitting the virus. It was conducted in a country that implements strict social distancing and mask wearing among children. The authors say the rate of transmission would have been higher if children weren’t subjected to those measures.

Plans to reopen schools more or less as normal in September will place many lives at risk, and increase the likelihood schools will have to close again. The government needs to acknowledge schools will be highly efficient vectors of viral transmission and change its reopening plans.

Published Paper:
wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/10/20-1315_article

Article on the paper:

www.bloombergquint.com/business/covid-19-spread-fastest-by-teens-and-tweens-korea-study-finds

The one hour turn around test is good enough to decide if patients go to covid positive or Covid negative wards. So I'm sure would be acceptable for schools too...

@walksen

Not sure what you mean about refusing work. I'm talking about increased ssp for anyone with a positive test / maybe self isolating if told to do so by track and trace and proof provided to employer.

Got to be be honest about the self isolating in that I am not fully up to speed. I though you might not be allowed to stop isolating on a negative test -does it take a few days for viral levels to be detectable?

I mean if a parent has to refuse to go in to work every time their kid gets a fever. Many employers would sadly replace them with someone else if not on a secure contract

I also think we should reconsider the antibody passports. Have there actually been any documented cases of someone having covid twice? Millions have now been infected so we should be seeing at least some cases of it's possible.

If it's not then no reason to self isolate for 7-14 days every time someone in family has temperature if you e already had it.

@Piggywaspushed

If you have symptoms, you are supposed to remain in isolation, even with a negative test.

If that is the guidance it will likely be changed this coming winter. Kids have fevers all the time.

@Piggywaspushed

If you have symptoms, you are supposed to remain in isolation, even with a negative test.

If that is the guidance it will likely be changed this coming winter. Kids have fevers all the time.

One hour turn around tests would be brilliant. Shame schools aren't being offered them. Also we have to take parents words for a negative result, so if schools could run their own tests and see the results that would be great.
I can bet the government won't pay for that though.
And yes there has been at least one documented case of someone having it twice - in USA the patient had 3 months, wellness, and negative tests between the two positives. He was also more ill with the second infection, which is very worrying....

I thought outside of London only 5% have it and that antibodies don't last long (weeks rather than years)?

Well given that a lot of people who have actually had a positive test don't test positive for antibodies, I don't think anything can be concluded from that.

I don’t think this is correct. Here is the blurb that accompanies a negative test result: “you may return to work if you have not had a fever for 48hrs and feel well”

That's right @netflixismysidehustle antibodies seem to drop after a few months so you may show as negative having had the infection which wouldn't help.

@WhyNotMe40 that's interesting. So out of the nearly 4 million confirmed cases in US only 1 case who had it twice.

With those odds it may be that we could start to say as a society. If you've had it. You don't need to keep taking time off.

Realistically as we go into flu season the country would pretty much shutdown again unless we do something. And we can't afford that!

Schools guidance says different. On other threads you will see that teachers are very confused. This is a sign of how completely convoluted and opaque the guidance is. But you do need to understand that schools guidance differs in a lot of ways. Hence no masks in indoor crowded spaces and no SD.

We are in Austria. Shool classes are already limited to 25 and we returned to school in May on 50% so max 13 kids in a class. Desks were allocated with distance, masks were worn and school lunch was not provided leaving an early finish time.

It took 6 weeks for our infection rate to go from 1 to 2.7 and the schools were closed again in Upper Austria. It is expected that when they reopen in September they will remain at 50%.

The virus is not going anywhere and unless people want to either return to a full lockdown or have the virus sweep through the population there are going to need to be some difficult decisions to make.

There needs to be some radical thinking which people won't like but this is an unprecedented worldwide pandemic. It is unrealistic to think that we can make a few tweaks and return to life as normal.

My kids have been getting a part time education, I have been working from home with 2 primary school children doing online lessons and a 2 year old but it is that or the infection rate reaching a disasterous level.

So I’ve been out swimming in the sea with my DC today.

Every single business we’ve interacted with has Covid safe measures in place. Distancing, masks, screens, hand sanitiser. Polite notices about reduced numbers and bearing with the staff. Reminders that it’s not the staff’s fault that things are different.

Then I come back to a thread started with a solid piece of research about children spreading CV and find the same posters insisting that a) they know better than people who work in schools how schools work and b) teachers should resign if they want a more reasonable approach to September.

Antibodies may only be present for up to 49 days. Apparently we may still have immunity via memory T cells. Testing for these is a way more complicated and presumably expensive a procedure.

There’s some concern that children getting very ill are in fact reacting to their second infection with the virus. No one seems very confident about immunity hence immunity passports have fallen out of discussion.

I wish we did have better testing and info for immunity.

[quote openplankitchen]@WhyNotMe40 that's interesting. So out of the nearly 4 million confirmed cases in US only 1 case who had it twice.

With those odds it may be that we could start to say as a society. If you've had it. You don't need to keep taking time off.

Realistically as we go into flu season the country would pretty much shutdown again unless we do something. And we can't afford that![/quote]
That's one case where someone had it twice, was tested for it both times and the results were reported.

Bearing in mind how many asymptomatic infections there are, I wouldn't get too excited about this. The more solid research is showing the drop off in antibodies which demonstrate that reinfection would be likely

I am at a loss for the majority who stamp their feet saying "this must happen" etc. We are in the middle (or start) of the biggest global health crisis for 100 years and yet people think things will just spring back to normal. Since the Gov announced reopening plans it has been confirmed the virus has a degree of aerosolisation and that older children are in fact huge vectors. The World Health Organisation has said that the only way schools can open safely is in the context of low community transmission (unlikely in UK in Autumn given poor response here). The long term effects of Covid are unknown, it is becoming clear for some it is chronic. Schooling might need to evolve and adapt until a successful treatment/vaccine/ or at the very least more information is known about this virus.

I cannot fathom those who think even if schools are "open" education will be normal. There will be huge disruption, absences of staff/pupils and resignations etc. Education will not return to normal for some time!

It took 6 weeks for our infection rate to go from 1 to 2.7 and the schools were closed again in Upper Austria

I think it’s more than likely something like this will happen here as well. I suspect that opening Secondary schools at 30+ to a class, no social distancing or masks and teachers mixing across all year groups means it will surge unchecked through communities.

My DC’s secondary has only had groups of 6 year 10/12s in sitting well apart from each other for a couple of sessions so far-when they are back at full capacity, it’ll be carnage.

Sure @Crackerofdoom but the 4 million confirmed cases would all obviously have been tested!

Any case of a patient getting it twice I'm sure would be reported/published.

Plus there is evidence of T cell immunity not just antibodies.

We are still at the more unknowns stage. But we can't keep everything on hold until we know everything. Millions have now had it do we should look at what we do know and change if we need to

@Crackerofdoom

So even good SD in schools didn't prevent the R rate rising? What else is Austria proposing to do out of interest? What's happening to the children who's parents have to work outside the home? Who is doing the online classes?

Go ahead and cherry pick from my posts

De registered my child today after ongoing conversation with school.

We are lucky enough to be able to juggle work and do a decent job with home ed.

People talk about damage to kids being out of school. What about the damage done losing a parent or becoming a young carer? The research on these suggest that children are likely to suffer long term and serious effects of these 'adverse events'. I read that one school is welcoming back 40 students who have been bereaved.

I don't have a master plan. I can see schools are doing their best under DFE guidance. I can also see that its going to be pissing in the wind as far as Covid is concerned.

I cannot fathom those who think even if schools are "open" education will be normal. There will be huge disruption, absences of staff/pupils and resignations etc. Education will not return to normal for some time!

Unfortunately when school staff, teachers, or anyone who has been following these developments tries to point this out. They get told

Schools can't stay shut forever
Children have already sacrificed so much
Just leave, resign, get another job
Good thing that (insert job here) didn't have this attitude, they just kept on working
Have a can do attitude

and so on, and so on.

I suspect when the proverbial shit hits the fan in the Autumn, schools and their staff will be blamed.

I think in Austria they are pulling up their big boy/girl pants and dealing with change. As opposed to stamping their feet and demanding everything goes back to normal because... well just because

If there are any psychologists on here I would love to hear the reason why the majority cannot accept the situation we are in globally with this crisis. It's amazing how most just stick fingers in ears when realities are pointed out. It's not hard to work out. We had what 30 or so (known) cases February. We now have approx 2,000 new infections a day (Zoe App) and research has shown it spreads indoors, via aerosols to a degree. As soon as we all go inside, particularly classrooms with what are now becoming known as the biggest vectors, exponential growth takes hold. This growth in the UK won't be contained by an already failing track and trace system and a general public who have a distinct lack of societal responsibility.

It really isn't difficult to predict what comes next. For any teachers reading this, for the love of God please, if you aren't able to educate parents on basic maths/science and don't express huge concern about schools reopening under current guidelines which are a pantomime of public health principles, then quite frankly you shouldn't be teaching!