How long before schools are closed again?

[2X4B523P]

How long do we think it’ll be before schools are back to being closed to most children for the foreseeable future?

I, along with many other posters on here were advocating part time schooling to hopefully keep them going throughout the winter. As it is I couldn’t see them lasting much more than another three weeks.

On the 19th August I estimated there would be close to 7000 schools affected by the end of week four and the path to that figure is playing out at the moment.

I took the outbreaks reported in Scotland after one week of opening and scaled up for the difference in Scottish daily positive tests at that time and those in England. That gave a figure of 490 by the end of the first week. I didn’t differentiate between any nation, I just applied it into a UK total. I then calculated the figure if the cases were to double each week.

In excess of 490 schools were affected by Thursday 10th. That point was pretty much one week as for England no children started before Tuesday last week but I know of many schools which started back on the Thursday after two teacher training days. There was some children I know personally that didn’t start back until the Monday of this week. Also take into account that there will be a day or so lag in receiving a positive test.

I had no scientific fact to cases doubling each week in schools, just an opinion that this could happen due to the lack of any social distancing. This is playing out nationally with cases said to be doubling every seven to eight days at the moment. What makes it worse is there has been a recent increase in middle aged people becoming infected and could also start to affect the older generations with the associated high hospitalisations and deaths.

IF we get to 6900 schools affected by the end of week four I can’t see that schools won’t be on some form of national closure. Particularly if, heaven forbid, teachers and school staff start dying.

Using my formula the total figure at the end of each week would be:

Week 1: 490
Week 2: 1380
Week 3: 3220
Week 4: 6900
Week 5: 14260
Week 6: 28980

@MarshaBradyo they currently have the second lockdown. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/18/israelis-brace-for-unpopular-second-lockdown-coronavirus

[quote notmyselfanylonger]@MarshaBradyo they currently have the second lockdown. www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/18/israelis-brace-for-unpopular-second-lockdown-coronavirus[/quote]
Yes I know.

I am talking about a scientific study from opening earlier. It’s useful if you want to consider spread in schools. Conditions there to here are comparable.

Don’t read it if you are not interested. But it is useful to many.

Marsha, I’m basing it on the huge number of children in my classes who are coughing over each other and me from short distances for hours at a time. I only get an hour of being coughed over, but since children are sat in fixed seating plans, they get coughed over for six hours a day. If that cough is COVID, hotter is it possible it will not spread? And that’s before you get on to asymptomatic spread.
I know you are a fan of data and want to wait to see the data from this before accepting it, and I am sure that data will arrive, but being in that position every day, I don’t feel I have to wait for it.

How not hotter

@Nellodee

Marsha, I’m basing it on the huge number of children in my classes who are coughing over each other and me from short distances for hours at a time. I only get an hour of being coughed over, but since children are sat in fixed seating plans, they get coughed over for six hours a day. If that cough is COVID, hotter is it possible it will not spread? And that’s before you get on to asymptomatic spread. I know you are a fan of data and want to wait to see the data from this before accepting it, and I am sure that data will arrive, but being in that position every day, I don’t feel I have to wait for it.

Out of interest are they not removed if they are coughing like that?

Many children have been sent home due to cough and cold like symptoms haven’t they?

I do think you’re right, that if community cases are low, testing is effective and classes are not overcrowded, spread in school does not form a large part of overall spread, but I think this is true in places where r is already well below 1.

@MarshaBradyo the transition was also registered in Israel. www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.25.29.2001352

Many have, but not all. This week I had one child removed, given a temperature check, and then sent back after it was normal. I had another who was removed and sent back because he stopped coughing for the ten minutes he was at the nurse and I had a third who did not get picked up all day. A common theme from some of the children I sent was “I was way worse yesterday, and no one sent me then.” I find teachers in their twenties the least likely to refer students to medical. I also show up at a lot of rooms in the afternoon to find the teachers have had the windows shut all day because it was a bit chilly.
I think just as mumsnet is divided into people who think we should all “just get on with normal life”, so too are schools. Those teachers don’t realise their actions are going to be what leads to schools shutting. It’s one of the things I am finding most stressful at the moment, to be honest.

Beingmums

This was the paragraph from the Israel school report that some of us discussed on the graphs thread at the time. It’s not much to go on, but it is reported.

‘In summary, in children where COVID-19 was detected and contacts followed-up, only one child contact in the school setting was detected as SARS-CoV-2 positive during the follow-up period. The conclusion from these investigations is that child-to-child transmission in schools is uncommon and not the primary cause of SARS-CoV-2 infection of children whose infection onset coincides with the period during which they are attending school.’

Nellodee I can see that’s hard if others are responding differently.

This is an interesting article www.theguardian.com/education/2020/sep/20/a-35000-in-school-covid-testing-machine-only-in-the-private-sector

@MarshaBradyo

How old is that data? And how big is the data set?

You are hanging in to that tidbit of info like grim death. It’s no use if it is recorded I. Totally different conditions.

[quote BelleSausage]@MarshaBradyo

How old is that data? And how big is the data set?

You are hanging in to that tidbit of info like grim death. It’s no use if it is recorded I. Totally different conditions.[/quote]
Belle stop being so rude and have a conversation.

I found it because I wanted to make sure I had remembered it correctly. If you don’t want to read the post then don’t.

I said it’s not much to go on but it’s not conclusive. Is that correct?

Also KW provision question?

Come on stop getting in a strop and talk about the issues properly. Thank god for the graph threads where people aren’t so bloody sensitive and can actually discuss what us going on.

It wasn’t different conditions that’s the point. How old us irrelevant it’s conditions that are relevant. But I’m not going extrapolate as obviously you are not interested at all in that data.

Honestly thank god for Whitty’s sense overriding all this emotion.

@MarshaBradyo

Good try. I’m not being rude. I am challenging your assertions. KW provision worked during lockdown. There is no reason it shouldn’t again.

And the Israel evidence you have been using triumphantly all over different schools threads is not as conclusive or as convincing as you think it is. I find it hard to discuss any of this with you in good faith (we have had the same conversation on multiple threads) because you are so obviously cherry picking data to suit your narrative.

[quote BelleSausage]@MarshaBradyo

Good try. I’m not being rude. I am challenging your assertions. KW provision worked during lockdown. There is no reason it shouldn’t again.

And the Israel evidence you have been using triumphantly all over different schools threads is not as conclusive or as convincing as you think it is. I find it hard to discuss any of this with you in good faith (we have had the same conversation on multiple threads) because you are so obviously cherry picking data to suit your narrative.[/quote]
Ok link something else then with comparative conditions?

I do not think it is conclusive and have said so every time. The point is we have very little data. But feel free to link other studies I am interested. As always.

KW provision like last time will not give you two days for every other student per week. The numbers are too high and means that their provision lowers other students.

@MarshaBradyo @belle there's no need to be rude or defensive. It is just having a conversation about the issue that is difficult for us all. I do not think that Israel source is reliable since they agreed that the second lockdown is the way forward to lower the transition. The data that would be available from British schools would be a way forward but not with the lack of tests. It all comes to the government and their decision of the way it all progress. The argument on this forum is not changing the bad situation of the schools.

@beeingmums

Very good point. We need to be doing something now for the students already out of school. It is hard not to get frustrated when I am seeing every day first hand how this current system is failing.

Belle comparative studies? Am interested in more data as I’m sure you are, since you are sick of just the one

Being I’m glad you are able to just discuss reasonably

@MarshaBradyo

Then find some other studies and have a read. I am rather busy looking after my child. I won’t be posting again here because it is like banging my head against a brick wall.

If you want more data then go get it. There are hundreds of papers about school transmission now.

[quote BelleSausage]@MarshaBradyo

Then find some other studies and have a read. I am rather busy looking after my child. I won’t be posting again here because it is like banging my head against a brick wall.

If you want more data then go get it. There are hundreds of papers about school transmission now.[/quote]
Oh good one. Nothing then.

I thought you wanted to wave some around.

Oh hang on there aren’t that many are there

Both points by you aren’t standing up but yes let’s end there. Delighted to

More up to date data from Scottish schools

here in table form to show change over time

I’m worried for years 11 and 13. How can they sit exams next May when their 2 year has basically consisted of patchy chaotic part time teaching?

Yep. Last year I had plenty of data with which to make a fair, backed up with evidence grade prediction. I am concerned that I have only have a school year of real data for my now year 11s and not a real sense of where some of them are at. We are doing exams at the end of the month so fingers crossed we manage to do it. I have told them to make it count. I can’t imagine how they are feeling.