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?

@Rainbow12e

To be fair though listeningquietly that is with a small group of children. That's why we haven't heard of many school closures. Once they are all back and the temperature drops, that's when the problem starts.

I think it’s also because children can be asymptomatic. In my borough we had several children picked up through being invited for random testing. No symptoms at all but a positive result, had been in school as usual.

From what I understand from SAge and lockdown is that they advised the point at which to lockdown. The point at which community transmission would require lockdown.

They a) don't advise on timescales and tell government when and b) community transmission was much higher than the scientists and government were aware of at the time.

I think it’s very comparable groups in unventilated accommodation. Even if you are right look at Israel and what happened with schools there.
UK schools do not to singing late at night in cabins

most UK schools have ventilation

closing schools is doing FAR MORE long term damage than COVID to those under 40

Whilst I worry about education (my kids have been in and out of education because of sen and schools illegally excluding them), I worry about the long term effects of Covid on health. Lung scaring etc sounds scary.

I work in teacher training and considering the situation at the moment, we’ve had more people sign up to train as teachers.

Seriously in Winter U.K. schools have open windows in classrooms. Your experience must be very different. I swear some people just don’t want to face reality 🤷🏽‍♀️. If nothing else the report shows attack rate across age groups.

Account,

I'm sorry, I don't seem to have explained myself very well.

The 1 in 1500 is the community cases - it's the large scale randomised testing outside hospitals and care homes.

The risk is to adults in school, vulnerable children in school, and adults in the community, and it is the magnitude of the risk to them that i am trying to quantify (a poster on another thread described it as 'tiny' so I was a little disconcerted to find it is c. 1 in 100 )

On Day 1, the school has 1 case in 1500. That child spends either 5-6 hours with a single group, or 5 -6 separate hours with different groups of 30, without social distancing and without a mask, in a poorly ventilated room.

The number of cases in the school and in the community by day 14 could be really quite high ... though case 1, if asymptomatic, may never know.

From everything we know about the virus, transmission in schools seems inevitable - it spreads in crowded, indoor places with lots of people and poor ventilation, and that pretty much describes your average secondary....

I imagine you can equate sleeping say 8h a night in a cabin together to being in school together. In fact it is probably lower risk as less sneezing etc singing and talking when actually asleep.
50% attack rate!
Singing does seem a very bad idea but schools dont seem to all realise it.

@ListeningQuietly

I think it’s very comparable groups in unventilated accommodation. Even if you are right look at Israel and what happened with schools there. UK schools do not to singing late at night in cabins

most UK schools have ventilation

closing schools is doing FAR MORE long term damage than COVID to those under 40

What about the staff and family members over 40? Or don’t they count?

@Frazzled13

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?

Primary school rules from September:

First person with symptoms goes home, has to test.

If positive, they isolate and their family isolates. Bubble continues until the second case. At that point the group closes and public health advises.

If negative, they return to school once the symptoms have gone, and everyone carries on, for a bit.

As all campers had been tested presumably those infections were started from very few asymptomatic cases.

Actually, guidance has been updated 9it happens a lot):

www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools

Close contacts of the infected child can be sent home after the first positive test.

A quick google will tell you how shockingly poorly ventilated UK classrooms and school are.

Many many classrooms have hot air heaters which blow air around form filthy heaters, many windows don't open or are fitted with limiters. Several classrooms in most schools have no windows at all.

Rainbow, yes. A chain of negative tests with no positives can continue indefinitely.

They don't go back if they continue to cough though rainbow!

One of my biggest worries for September is that literally no one understands the rules about SI and testing etc. Imagine keeping track of this in a school with 2000 students!

School opening in the U.K. over Autumn/Winter will effectively be asking school staff (teachers/bus drivers/canteen staff) to play a game of Russian Roulette and personally as a parent I’m not comfortable with that. It’s beyond crazy in fact what we are “demanding”. The ONLY way schools can open safely is in the context of low community transmission and I can’t see that being the case for major parts of the U.K. this Autumn.

Though I think the number of tests each school is being given is very small. Based on the number of children with a cough on any given day, I imagine they will only be given out to e.g. families where there is no sensible way of getting the child to a testing station.

Testing isn't 24-48 hours though.
If home test kit because your self isolating, it can take a couple of days to get to you.

And I'd love to know where these schools are with decent ventilation, never mind windows opening. Some schools might get away with lower numbers in the colder months because their heating systems are rubbish.

Ventilation is usually a fan shoved in a corner that is useless and just wafts the hot air around. And because of the extra cleaning costs, when these, hand driers etc break, there won't be funds to replace.

Wouldn't be surprised if schools started sending letters home asking for cleaning equipment.

Has the two work book idea been dropped? One for home, one for school, normally your lucky to get some plain paper to write on in schools. Same with all the extra pens and other bits of equipment.

@sleepyhead

Scottish schools go back a week on Tuesday so they'll be beginning to have some idea of how it's gone.

@sleepyhead when I looked last week Scotland had 10% the number of cases in England

Nice newer schools may have ventilation but not old Victorian ones. Open windows are the only option and in winter that will make it so cold that’ll add to the spread. Studies suggest it survives longer under 4c

Ps Fans aren’t efficient ventilation. They just recirculate air and germs.

Icecream
2m social distancing works
so teachers staying punching distance away from pupils will be as safe as any of us have been for the last 6 months

MN do not seem to realise
but lots and lots of people have been in offices and workplaces right through
medics have been in teams right through
paramedics have been in work right through

I do not get why a teacher at the front of a class is at any more risk than the many thousands of people who have been at work right through

Hahahaha re ventilation in schools. Doesn't exist.

And 186 outbreaks in four weeks with minimal numbers of kids back in is not nothing. It's just that the national papers didn't report it. At all.