"It is, alas, a fact of the disease that it is readily transmissible between children and adults"

[noblegiraffe]

Says our PM.

So can all those people who spent the entire summer telling teachers that their worries about returning to school without any mitigation measures that it was FINE because children didn't spread it please now start campaigning for mitigation measures in schools because it appears that people's lives are being put at risk.

twitter.com/mikercameron/status/1306246353379569665?s=21

@noblegiraffe

Of course data is good, Marsha, I'm a mathematician. But I don't think that if they know that the virus transmits readily between children and adults that they should hang around to see if that is really the case in schools (because why wouldn't it be when there are no mitigation measures?) before doing anything about it.

I’m glad we agree on that Noble felt bereft there for a minute that a maths teacher wouldn’t ;

But it’s a shame we haven’t used opened schools so far to gather much. I know Imperial is starting but I agree it’s a late since it’s a live experiment somewhat and six months is a long time away to find out.

My point is we don’t know much yet. Not that that is a good thing.

Scottish school data seems low on the ground even and they have been back longer.

It’s common knowledge that Boris has a lose relationship with the truth. Why do we believe him here, when we don’t believe anything else he says?

He’s only saying it to get out of a hole around the ‘rule of 6’. Yes it totally contradicts something he’s said previously. He does this all the time. Big shocker.

[quote FatGirlShrinking]@MarshaBradyo given the virus doesn't come with a 'distributed in a school' tag, how will it be possible to ever prove conclusively that a child or a staff member caught CV while at school?

What we can see very easily is that schools have been back in England for 2weeks (in most counties, 3 in Leicester) and over a thousand schools have had to close bubbles due to an infected child or staff member.[/quote]
Does it really matter the geographical location of transmission?

The fact it can pass child to adult shows that one of the highest risk places for transmission will be school and households.

But it’s a shame we haven’t used opened schools so far to gather much

Indeed. The fact that the DfE didn't even keep a record of schools with positive cases in June (and aren't clear if they are doing so now) is just shocking. That's pretty basic data.

The fact it can pass child to adult shows that one of the highest risk places for transmission will be school and households.

I think it does matter. Households have shown to have higher transmission rates than other places. We don’t know yet v schools.

Don't forget noble- if you're worried, you can just quit!

said no-one who knows anything about teaching or teachers ever...

Loads of schools are already closed. Many schools have more than 2 years out due to isolation and most of the rest of the years are awaiting results of tests. There is a cold going round inevitably at the start of term BUT there is also plenty of COVID as well. We will be lucky to get to half term quite honestly

Schools will close soon by default; no testing and children transmit the virus. The issue we have is 30 kids crammed into a tiny classroom x 5 or 6 with secondary. The staff have been told by the DfE you can’t wear PPE, it’s not necessary. If you can’t staff schools because is spreads like wildfire, they close. Lots of bubbles closed here with confirmed cases in a rural ‘low incidence’ area. Most schools will be shut by half term if this carried on, especially with testing. Oh and I want them to stay open.

What I don’t really get is why people ever though full time schooling would last more than a few weeks before loads of schools closed. It was always going to happen. It is happening exactly as teachers said it would.

Lots of other countries went for blended learning to make a more sustainable system.

We went for the easiest, quickest and cheapest option. As usual. And as usual it is a pile of shit.

I am not looking forward to having to coax my kids through online learning again without any of the tools to do it properly because the government doesn’t value schooling beyond it’s capacity to provide childcare.

Households have shown to have higher transmission rates than other places.

SAGE says that indoor, crowded, poorly ventilated spaces are the highest risk setting. Up till schools re-opened, households were the main place to fit that bill.

Go check this account on Twitter. Dr Hyde provides lots of useful info about covid with links to the sources she is using and scientific papers if appropriate.
There are lots and lots of examples of transmission in schools.

Funding for social distancing. Masks. Small class sizes - this is the scientific consensus on best practice.

My DD's school (said it before, will say it again) with extra money for extra staff did SD school in class sizes of no more than 15 for the whole school in June/July. DD's class had no illness for 4 weeks.

No extra cash - they're back as normal, triple the class size, no SD and 7 kids off within a week.

Add in that sick children cannot get a test - so teachers are in with their close contacts for 4, 5, 6 days before a positive is received.

Teaching staff are not in safe workplaces. I think they should strike. So many other sectors have had extra money to make it safe, but schools - no.

@MarshaBradyo

The fact it can pass child to adult shows that one of the highest risk places for transmission will be school and households.

I think it does matter. Households have shown to have higher transmission rates than other places. We don’t know yet v schools.

Well I think the fact that during the school day my DCs teacher spends the same amount of time in the same room with him as I do (if not more so) then if it can spread in the households, it'll spread in schools. I can open windows in my house, the class my child is in can not.

And don't get me started on the rule of 6! Who's going to bother when their kids are in with 30 others non socially distanced!

Rule of 6 everywhere but schools.

Social distancing everywhere but schools.

Masks everywhere but schools.

@noblegiraffe

Households have shown to have higher transmission rates than other places.

SAGE says that indoor, crowded, poorly ventilated spaces are the highest risk setting. Up till schools re-opened, households were the main place to fit that bill.

Yes they do. Except there was low transmission between close contacts in Israel with similar conditions and high level of community cases.

I do not know. But the sparse amount of information out there on both sides makes me consider it more.

On a personal level I pulled out dc early in March as I was very worried. Part of sending them back was to read anything linked here re schools.

As I explained to my ds the coronavirus is magic and it knows if he is indoors in school in a class full of children not socially distancing then it mustn't infect him but if he has a party with seven of the same children outside and socially distanced one evening or on the weekend then the virus will know and they will be smitten from on high.

I cannot understand the idea that COVID wouldn't pass between children and adults.

Perhaps whichever adult thought it would should have been made to spend a day locked in a room with a COVID positive child?

I wonder if they would change their tune then?

@noblegiraffe

I think we need more data for school settings specifically.

Why? Is there something magically different about the air in schools?

Apparently so.

At my DD’s school, where the sixth formers have been sitting on the grassy area out the front, residents have complained that they have been sitting in groups of more than 6. This is apparently upsetting them.

The head doesn’t want to upset the residents, so has told the sixth formers, they can either have their lunch sitting on the school field in large groups or inside their classrooms in their full classes, but not in groups of more than 6 out the front, where other people can see.

Either the school has a magic force field or the Covid only gets you when non-school staff are watching.

Has any research been done into this?

@londongirl12

What's the answer though? Close all schools until Covid has gone?

Why does someone always come on here and say this? As if it's a binary choice?

@CallmeAngelina

Are you looking for an answer beyond ‘those people are desperate and would believe anything’?

I get why people wanted it to be true. But a brief look around the world would show you that only countries with a significantly lower transmission rate fully reopened schools.

Are you looking for an answer beyond ‘those people are desperate and would believe anything’?

It’s not the case of believing anything. It’s reading what scarce data there is and trying to keep an open mind before reading it.

How do you interrupt the data on schools?

Wow, they kept that Demark case quiet!!

I work in a school and I am in favour of schools opening but there should have been more thought and funding put into reducing the possibility of transmission within the school. In my school I am in contact with hundreds of children, there's no social distancing within bubbles and plenty of contact between bubbles from staff like me who work with all the age groups.

@MarshaBradyo

I interpret the data to be more than one study done in another country with a different school system. Data should be taken as a whole. The more you have the better your conclusions.

One swallow does not a Summer make. The Aussies rowed back on their initial conclusions about schools.

And the PHE study was done while most schools were closed and the ones that were open were socially distanced.

Have you been inside a school since they reopened. The social distancing is zilch. Zero. How are my sixth formers and different to adults.

Answer: they are exactly the same except the CBA to mask wear and have the confidence that they are invincible. One had already tested positive for Covid.

Friends in the US have a 5 yr old kid. In school half time, socially distanced individual desks. Everyone above 5 wears masks except when eating.

They are provided laptops for the remaining days home learning.

THAT is a better option than this shit show.

Yes, it's state funded school.

Anyone want to take bets on whose kids will have the better learning experience?