Chris Witty "We're at the limits of the contact we can allow"

[confusedandold]

I've been watching the Press conference and I always find Chris Witty the voice of reason. He is saying that we are at the limit of what we can open without the virus spreading further and we may even have to take a step back. So where does this leave the opening of schools in a few weeks time?

Account,

So what collateral damage are you willing to accept for what you want, in terms of excess deaths / illness amongst school staff, and excess illness / death in the community?

1 in 1500 people in the community are infected at the moment, and that is likely to rise over the next few weeks. That is at least 1 person per normal-sized secondary school. A teacher teaching 5 classes of 30 - normal - has a 1 in 10 chance of teaching someone who has Covid on any one day. If the person with Covid infects 3 people (quite normal for transmission of this virus outside lockdown), then the teacher has a 1 in 190 chance of being the person infected.

So a 1 in 100 chance, each day, of catching Covid as a secondary teacher if community infection remains the same....

@AccountAntsy

The tests will have to speed up a bit to make a difference.

Most results now coming back in 24-48 hours, so it’s hardly the 2 weeks isolation to deal with that it was back in March when no one could get tested.

They are faster for sure but if several teachers are waiting for results schools will have to send some children home, that's my point. No spare teachers.

The real problem for us, as women (most of us) is that it makes no difference at all to Johnson/Cummings et al if we have to jack our jobs in because schools are shut.

There will be so many people unemployed that we will all (OK, 99% of us) be easily replaceable with someone who has no childcare issues. To the economy surely it is irrelevant whether Anne is working in the bank (had to quit as schools shut) or Sarah (Grandparent lives with her and the DC) Irrelevant which one of them is claiming UC or other benefits once you spread this out over the whole economy.

Or am I missing something?

@AccountAntsy

The tests will have to speed up a bit to make a difference.

Most results now coming back in 24-48 hours, so it’s hardly the 2 weeks isolation to deal with that it was back in March when no one could get tested.

If you're still symptomatic, even with a negative test, you still have to isolate for the full amount of time because of the high false negative rate so I'm not sure how much use it will be. I suppose the only use will be if the symptoms have gone and you've tested negative. Otherwise you still have to isolate and that's gone up to ten days now hasn't it?

Sorry, 1 in 10 in the second paragraph.

I have ignored complications of timetabling, because obviously some teachers will teach a vast number of different students over a week, whereas others will be timetabled to see the same ones again and again - but I am sure you get the point I am making. The fact that every teacher spends an hour in a closed room at a time with each group of students (a supermarket worker, by contrast, may have more contacts but of tiny duration) seems significant in terms of transmission.

@Rainbow12e

Even with a quick test, that's 1 or 2 days out the classroom. Is it just that one child who has to isolate or all the bubble?

Mines in primary so whole class bubble. Any symptoms and they're all home for 2 weeks or until the test comes back negative. Every time a 5 has a cough or a temp...

The testing capacity target is for 500,000 tests per day, with next day results. Clearly the Government is planning for schools to have the best chance here. Masks should also be mandated. Schools will re open, it is an absolute necessity. Local closures will happen, yes, but there will be no national lockdown of anything, schools particularly so.

user,

The point is, it doesn't matter if the lockdown is local or national - each child's experience of school is going to be massively disrupted (a couple of days ere, a couple of weeks there, a month or so next) over the coming term UNLESS genuine virus control measures that keep teachers from being infected, and children from infecting their families and contacts, are implemented now.

Yes, there may be a few classes in a few schools - probably in rural but not scenic areas - that will be lucky enough to escape closures, but that still doesn't mean that an individual child may not be off several times for showing symptoms, or if a contact tests positive.

That's a good point - I guess teachers and students will end up off for ten days anyway if they still have symptoms.

And every time a cold or other virus sweeps through a class it could result in closures, that's before there is a single case of actual Coronavirus.

cantkeepawayforever

I’d accept the same level of cases/illness/deaths as what’s occurring in the wider community. (But I’d like to see stats excluding hospital and care home transmissions.) If there’s evidence schools are driving transmission then of course they should close. But if there are 1 in 1500 cases in a school in an area where there are 1 in 1500 cases in the community then where’s the evidence that this 1 person wouldn’t have caught it anyway regardless of whether the school was open? My DH is a secondary school teacher, I do have some skin in this game. He agrees with me.

Schools should be the LAST thing to close

www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6931e1.htm?s_cid=mm6931e1_e&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM34023

Now the data is coming in re kids it’s obvious how fast this spreads through all ages groups when congregated together. See report above from States. There hasn’t been much data so far except from countries with low transmission or Israel which was interesting 😳

Lots of hypothetical numbers being bandied about around schools and teachers
but when you go back to the ONS map
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19interactivemap/2020-06-12
the actual risk in any school catchment
even my testbed of Peter Symonds
is incredibly low

Make sure
that windows are open
that hands are washed
that masks are worn in crowded corridors
that 100% attendance certificates are binned
that stupid behaviour is met with detentions

and schools will be fine
FFS they have been open all term without a news story

I think one of the biggest issues is that there is no give in the school system. This will lead to closures.

I’m SLT in a three form entry primary school. We normally have cover supervisors but they have been assigned to bubbles to cover lunch as lunch is a logistical nightmare now. There are two of us without a class responsibility and we will cover. But if more than two teachers are absent, we will more than likely have to close the school to some pupils. Our other last resort option of splitting a class across the school is a complete no in the current situation.

We could hire supply IF there was money provided to do this. Our budget is currently being eaten alive by extra cleaning costs.

@ListeningQuietly

Lots of hypothetical numbers being bandied about around schools and teachers but when you go back to the ONS map www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/deathsinvolvingcovid19interactivemap/2020-06-12 the actual risk in any school catchment even my testbed of Peter Symonds is incredibly low

Make sure
that windows are open
that hands are washed
that masks are worn in crowded corridors
that 100% attendance certificates are binned
that stupid behaviour is met with detentions

and schools will be fine
FFS they have been open all term without a news story

Did you read the report I linked? Have you looked at PHE weekly reports which outline the number of outbreaks last Term in schools even with limited pupils?

Are people just oblivious to data?

Oaktree
Watch Meatballs
US Summer camp and UK school are not comparable

Mines in primary so whole class bubble. Any symptoms and they're all home for 2 weeks or until the test comes back negative. Every time a 5 has a cough or a temp...

Really?? That is madness. My DD is in nursery and they don't have that policy. Is that standard primary schools rules?

FFS they have been open all term without a news story

Two here had to close. Local papers covered it. Nationals seem to have been warned off.

Every child, teacher and member of staff will be touching the same doors, stair rails and other surfaces that the rest of the school has been in contact with. They will also be breathing in the aerosols that the 'bubble' who used the corridor five minutes ago exhaled. The idea that our kids are in a 'bubble' is nonsense. There is only one bubble at the school. It contains every child and member of staff who is attending the school.

When I was at school all my lessons except science took place in one room and the teachers moved. Is this not feasible now? Children do seem to spend a lot of time moving around the school and this won’t easily facilitate social distancing.

How can people not worry about their children’s health and lives?

Please don’t try and feed us that bullshit. More children have died due to family abuse during lockdown than have died from COVID-19.

I think it’s very comparable groups in unventilated accommodation. Even if you are right look at Israel and what happened with schools there.