Predicted 2nd wave

[Pixxie7]

So they are predicting a 2nd wave twice as big as the first at the beginning of December if the track and trace system isn’t improved. Do you think the government has learnt anything?

But you are pretty much saying kids in masks - few cases.
The number of outbreaks in schools in uk may be listed but as below not the number infected. Now why wouldnt that be useful top level info to have included on the reports. Rather than incident so just minimum of x2.
Ive mainly only seen small outbreaks reported ie 2 teachers of teacher and pupil. But we dont know without antibody testing how many kids are actually getting it. As they are often then identified from the first case as needing to si for 2w just in case.
There were several Leicester schools with outbreaks.

I still think the undpoken policy is they aren't concerned about kids (or parents ) getting it as they will have to SI or shut the school. It's the random contacts that are untraceable.
Plus i think someone said the vax may not initally be licensed for kids.
(It is effectively vaccinating all the kids).

Anyway they wouldnt need to talk about closing other stuff if schools werent going to spread it. If parents werent going to get it (and supposedly kids didnt spread) then it would make 0 difference to r.
Whereas the talk is of balancing it out against the other largest risk.

Kids were in schools for weeks over lockdown and no cases! I think it will all be fine and everyone will think it was a total over reaction

@Remmy123

Kids were in schools for weeks over lockdown and no cases! I think it will all be fine and everyone will think it was a total over reaction

A maximum of 50% (primary - 3/7 priority years plus keyworkers) and 1/14th (secondary - 2/7 priority years in 1/4 at a time) were in at once.

Children were in small groups, with SD and very significant mitigation measures. Many primary children spent a large proportion of every day outside. Windows were open, because it was summer.

The rest of society was still very locked down e.g. children were not mixing inside in clubs, sports coaching etc.

Even so, there were outbreaks - look at the weekly PHE reports, where for some of the the weeks schools were open, outbreaks in schools / childcare outnumbered outbreaks in care homes.

The situation in September will be hugely different - all children in, no SD, no fixed groups, school transport packed as ever and mixing year groups, a choice between windows being open and a decent temperature. Significant mixing outside school.

'I think it will all be fine' is delusional.

@Remmy123

Kids were in schools for weeks over lockdown and no cases! I think it will all be fine and everyone will think it was a total over reaction

We had approx 12 Key Worker children throughout lockdown and then 40 more from the youngest priority year group. This was a tiny fraction of the whole school, we spent large amounts of time outside and were in tiny bubbles with a consistent adult. Also, none of the vulnerable staff and children were back.

I sadly rather suspect that September and October-with hundreds of pupils and staff-including all of the vulnerable ones, inside with no masks, poor ventilation packed into classes of 30+ will be a different story.

All kids were in school pre lockdown and the weather was cold and shite let's not forget that. Yes some kids then spread the virus to Ethel and Fred but are we not better prepared now that we might have to lay of hugging a granny.

All kids were in school pre lockdown and the weather was cold and shite let's not forget that.

Yes, and the families of a fifth of my class ended up with Covid within the next 2 weeks, leading to significant disability in at least 1 case. It's just that doesn't appear on the data as 'a school outbreak' because it was pre testing except in hospitals.

Na not buying your anecdote. Didn't happen to the thousands of people I know and their children or school.

Past giving a fuck to be honest

I am assuming you are joking? I should have said 'presumed Covid', to be truly accurate, as obviously only those hospitalised were tested. As it was at the point when nobody went to hospital unless their lips were blue, it was a very small number who were actually tested. It does correspond with a (well documented) large spike in the local area.

Past giving a fuck to be honest

I think that's what the Government is relying on - people's tiredness and boredom stopping them from reacting to what would once have been scandalous - the opening up of workplaces for thousands of people, with potential for serious community spread, without any of the safeguards known to work in other settings.

I don't want to be clapped. i don't want to be called a hero. I don't want there to be souvenir commemorative newspaper articles about me and my colleagues, or rainbows thanking me in house windows. I would like the government to organise, and then fund, the safety measures allowed, nay required , in all other workplaces.

@SengaStrawberry that made me lol

The Government moved people to care homes without testing in plain sight - it wasn't a secret, it was well known and planned.

This is even more public - I just hope it isn't the subject of newspaper articles and documentaries in years to come.....

For an overwhelming majority nothing happened at all. Some people may have had flu like symptoms that a lot of people get in Jan/Feb, but teachers and students weren't dropping down dead.

We’ve had a trial run of what happens when all kids are in school and there is no lockdown and the virus is active - the few weeks between Feb half term and lockdown. The virus was freely circulating in most urban areas. Teachers were not a high risk group for Covid over Easter (peak) and kids did not for a significant category of being seriously ill and under 11-13 even getting Covid.

What they setting up for September is a tested method in countries such as Taiwan - who after lockdowns in the peak periods, then reopen schools in this way.

People have lockdown fatigue and if kids are off longer, especially with no proper provision of work at home for state school students, they will mix. Parents will also use grandparents as childcare again, they will have no choice.

@Jussayingisall

For an overwhelming majority nothing happened at all. Some people may have had flu like symptoms that a lot of people get in Jan/Feb, but teachers and students weren't dropping down dead.

65 education staff had died from Covid by 20th April.

However, that obviously included a month when schools were shut to all except keyworker / vulnerable children , so it is not at all clear how many would have died had schools been open during that period.

What they setting up for September is a tested method in countries such as Taiwan - who after lockdowns in the peak periods, then reopen schools in this way.

By 'in this way', do you mean full classes of 30+, no SD, no PPE, full mixing on school transport and in many schools in corridors, no additional funding for cleaning, after school care and clubs open as normal for groups to mix?

And with hundreds of new cases in the community every day?

Source for that please including ages and where they caught the virus.

I saw photos of S Korean high school kids all in masks, sitting at their individual school desks with a perspex surround!

Taiwan is described here:
www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2020/04/20/coronavirus-lockdowns-ease-countries-gradually-reopening-schools/
as
"Students and staff are wearing masks and go through a series of strict precautionary measures when they arrive at school. Side-by-side desks and group desks in classrooms have been split up in order to encourage social distancing among children, while all windows and air vents in classrooms have been opened up. Sports activities, including physical education classes, have been suspended in order to . Schools which have two or more confirmed positive cases of coronavirus must cancel all classes as a precautionary measure."

that definitely DOESN'T sound like what is planned in the UK:

• No precautionary measures
• No masks
• No requirement for ventilation
• Sports activities, including after school with groups mixing, as normal
• 2 cases don't even necessarily close the class, let alone the school

@Hollyhead

I think the thing is with schools, is that people shouldn't underestimate the sheer size and scale of the March outbreak - we basically allowed CV19 to filter in unchecked throughout January, February and by March it had grown to an enormous number of people.

If school/child transmission was a big driver, I think we would have seen scenarios where whole class groups and their parents got struck down at the same time - and there doesn't seem to be much ?any evidence of that. Understanding why, and how concerned we should be about schools is something we really need to understand.

As for the government, they can't do right from wrong. They were too slow to get going, but now they get critised for being silent, critised for 'secretly modelling London shutdown' (a scenario which I think is eminently sensible for a government to discuss). People want to be treated like adults but when given a rule they moan, when given flexibility they moan. With the novel nature of the virus, decisions have to be last minute, the picture is changing all the time, we just have to get used to less planning time, more pragmatism and more flexibility.

I agree. Obviously it’s just our experience but I remember sitting in my son’s school In mid March, when we had already stopped socialising and I was wfh, and it was parents’ night with hundreds of kids and parents in confined spaces all over the place. Certainly wasn’t aware of cases of kids and teachers dropping all over the place - and yet the virus was at a rate of say 1 in 40 or so in the population. They shut a few days later, there’s now 1 in 18000 people with it, and it’s too dangerous for them to go back? I mean really?

Obviously the whole of society can’t go back to pre lockdown but surely the measures we have in place now must help with the situation now being better than March?

There is an article in the NY Times today about what happened when Israel reopened its schools: "it did not go well".

schoolsweek.co.uk/ons-figures-reveal-65-covid-related-deaths-in-education/

It is, as you know, entirely impossible to say where an individual caught the virus, especially early in the pandemic when testing was so poor. As schools had been closed for a month at this date, it is likely that many caught the virus out in the community, not in school - but there is no proof either way.

The statistics solely look at the deceased’s occupation, it provides no further analysis – such as where the disease was caught.

This is from the ONS. So no mention of when or where they caught covid and any pre-existing conditions.

@Jussayingisall

The statistics solely look at the deceased’s occupation, it provides no further analysis – such as where the disease was caught.

This is from the ONS. So no mention of when or where they caught covid and any pre-existing conditions.

That is exactly what I said.

However, your claim was that no education staff were dropping dead. 65 had died by 20th April - so your claim is not true.

there’s now 1 in 18000 people with it

I think the last wide scale population testing was 1 in 1,500?