Are schools the reason for the surge?

[NebularNerd]

Thousands of people mixing daily with no social distancing.

Children pass the virus on, as BJ has said recently (despite previously saying otherwise).

Surely even if other measures are put in place, the numbers will continue to rise?

Are schools behind the surge?

Older children, the ones that are more likely to get and spread the virus, started socialising more after the A level and GCSE results. I posted a while back to look for a surge approximately two weeks after that.
Now they are all back in school, college or university.

I think there's also an element of people self isolating with mild symptoms in July/August because their kids weren't in school and they were working from home rather than ordering tests.

I think it's too soon for schools to be the deciding factor in the current surge. This is surely the knock on effect from the pubs reopening and everyone went to eat out for Rishi. At the beginning of Sept the most affected age group was 20 to 29, so two weeks on we're now seeing the results of them spreading it.

I've not heard of any school cases locally and ds says he doesn't know of anyone in his lessons who's been sent home with symptoms.

Our area, and the area where his college is, had fewer than 4 cases reported last week according to phe.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=47574f7a6e454dc6a42c5f6912ed7076

@Nquartz

No doubt schools are playing a part but with & eating out more so:

Stephen Reicher @ReicherStephen

Todays National Statistics make for very interesting reading.
They confirm the argument that infections are spiking not so much because the public are behaving badly but because they are following bad policy set by the government...

93% of people report wearing facemasks,
81% say they are avoiding physical contact with others,
only 13% of people say they have socialised with more than 10 people
and only 14% of people say they have socialised with more than 2 households.

Most people are following the rules.

By contrast, the proprtion of people working at work has risen to some 60%
while the numbers working from home has halved to some 20%

• even though figures suggest that half of all workplaces are not socially distanced.

Similarly the number of people going out, drinking out and eating out ('to help out') has risen sharply -
eating out from some 10% to nearly 40%.
It has dropped in the last week, but remains much higher than before.

In sum, the numbers getting exposed to infection because they are doing what the Government is telling them to do
vastly outweighs the number being exposed by breaking COVID restrictions.
And yet the Government blames the public for the situation we are now in.

This. ^

Soft play has been identified near here 3 times by track and trace, all 3 times the families were on holiday here from hot spots.

I’m in the north east too in a village that currently has a large outbreak.
Our school has had no positive cases (primary nor the two senior schools) yet but they only opened 2 weeks ago and this is the first full week back.

The upward trend started well before the schools went back here. In fact we know that our surge in cases is due to the pubs reopening; someone went on a pub crawl bank holiday weekend and has infected around 20 people in the village who have then gone on to infect others. We had had zero cases in the village before then, but are currently in the top for our region now.
Eventually I think the schools will become a hotspot due to parents congregating but I think the current numbers are due to pubs/ clubs/ restaurants.

Schools went back and offices were told to bring people back too. Say a kid gets it at school, it’s mum brings it into the office and passes it on to someone else, he then passes it on to his kid and it’s now in his kids school too and their parents bring it into their office.
But also we are 6 months in; people are a lot more lax with social distancing. Pubs and restaurants are packed, in the evenings with drunk people Who will not SD. This was bound to happen on the other hand, it did have to happen some time.
I think we also have to accept that younger people and children are not at a big risk and after this amount of time you do start weighing up risks.

I don’t see what the solution is though. I can’t stand Boris but I would not want his job right now

Schools might have caused it to rise slightly but the main culprits are definitely pubs and holiday makers.

I think people brought the virus back from holidays in August and it seeded in the community like it did when people went skiing in Feb.

Schools just reflect the community. Round here the restaurants and pubs have been packed for weeks, there are huge parties at weekends, the tubes are very busy again, most activities are back on. Although people are wearing masks when out they don’t in houses with their family and friends. So it’s going to start up again.

I think the way forward of least pain is to ask people just to socialise in their bubbles over winter and to keep everything otherwise open but have table service at pubs. Unfortunately as unpalatable as it is politically the most vulnerable will probably need to strictly socially distance until a vaccine is available.

I don’t think a prolonged national lockdown or schools closure is politically, economically or morally acceptable. I also think the government don’t realise how close we are to non compliance, which can lead to protests and social unrest. Shutting the country down for all those months was a dreadful mistake. People might have tolerated several short lockdowns but not an endless one followed by another just a month later. I won’t tolerate it and I’m someone who has complied albeit while grumbling and work in the nhs.

No, the numbers were growing before schools in the North West hot spots. They've continued to grow. In other areas, schools have opened but not created hot spots. If it were wholly the schools, we'd be seeing similar growth in all areas, which isn't happening.

the pubs and clubs in manchester i understand were terrible regarding social distancing

I have a theory that the ‘second wave’ is actually the first wave sweeping North. Numbers in the South and London are still low and no local lockdowns required. If there had been the testing capability and a local Lockdown only policy back in March then I’m willing to bet that generally only London and the south will have been affected as back then numbers in the North were not anywhere near as prevalent as they were in the South. Then we had a national lockdown and numbers were even more suppressed in the North. When everything started opening up again (and mass testing became available) cases started to rise more rapidly in the North as the first wave was yet to have really taken hold from March. Numbers are still relatively low in the South as infections have already been able to circulate and there is perhaps a degree of herd immunity?

Obviously I’m no scientist but to me that theory makes a lot of sense. Remember that some estimate there were around 100,000 community cases per week in April but we didn’t have the testing capacity to know for certain. Most of those cases would probably have been in London and the south east at that time based on the Covid death rates in all areas during the peak.

Another issue is the increase in testing itself. If the estimate was that there were around 100,000 community cases per week in the UK back in April then actually figures of around 30,000 cases per week is not that comparable.

As a teacher watching this, locally (NE) no it was local cases spiralling first.

It's affecting schools and then yes there's starting to be some spread but not the level that's being done by pubs and in homes etc. Hence the new restrictions up here.

When you look at the demographics of who is catching it, it's the 20-29 ages groups. Some will be parents but more wont be and more likely to be socialising. Also, patents will want their kids back at school!

Community levels affect schools rather than the other way round.

No cases were already rising rapidly when they went back. Cases are still mainly being brought into schools rather than being caught in school.

Look at the number of people coming back from holidays in late August, people had given up on social distancing all summer, eat out to help out, going back to work.

Community levels affect schools rather than the other way round.

I agree with this

In my London borough (densely populated with very full state schools) new case numbers have actually been falling since 4 September. Most students went back to school (following INSET days) in a phased return from 7 September and the falling trend has continued.

We were very hard-hit in March and April though - perhaps there is an element of herd immunity and/or a lack of the complacency which may affect areas where people don’t know anyone who has been infected.

I am laughing my little socks off at the poster who said contact tracing was easy in a school. I take it you are imagining a small primary school there with defined and discrete bubbles.

It is literally on T and T's list as a 'complex setting'.

People who keep saying 'there are no cases in my area' really are missing the point. None in mine either (apart, ironically from my DS's school!) but I am capable of knowing that it will get here.

Unless you are in mid Wales, parts of Cumbria, the Isle of Man, or the Highlands and Islands, there have absolutely been cases in schools in your area. Not necessarily outbreaks. For some reason , the local media isn't always reporting this. I wonder, why, she ponders cynically...

I don't think schools are cheifly responsible at this point in time for spread. But I do know the government is trying its best to disapprove of children getting tested, that it is extremely hard in many many areas to get a test, that parents are encouraged to send sick children in after one day off. Things will get worse in schools. The absence rate s already higher than average for the time of year. I also know that some people try very very hard to disprove that any cases in children or school staff arise form the school setting. Someone mentioned workplaces being 'stuffed' full, which clearly reveals an attitude against returns to workplaces there (and I tend to agree) but nowhere is more 'stuffed' than a school at peak fullness. SD is a myth. As, sadly, is handwashing,e except for in the youngest age settings, where it can be supervised and part of learning.

They always said reopening schools fully would increase the R so I am not sure why people are either surprised , or in denial.

Some schools in England went back towards the end of August. I'm not sure how many or if that would be enough to explain the rise at the beginning of September.

Also disagreeing with the weather comment, but I'm in the Midlands. August was glorious. The North vs South spread of cases (with Leicester and Birmingham looking like the North, and further east looking like the south) could well be related to the weather. Didn't need to go into anyone's house or inside a cafe/pub round here here because it was so warm and also dry.

No. It’s pubs, restaurants, adults getting drunk and forgetting about social distancing. Nothing to do with schools.

So a few questions

If it’s people not distancing and socialising indoors- isn’t that exactly what happens and is happening in schools?

Also people saying that there aren’t school year groups shutting locally- how would you know? We only had the first tutor group out reported locally. Our school has told us about other closures but they’re not being reported in the press.

If testing isn’t available, it’s quite hard to tell what’s going on.

How are you so confident in that analysis, Mintychoc? Do you think, like Boris used to before even he realised how ridiculous it sounded, that children can't spread it (including adult bodied children)?

If it’s people not distancing and socialising indoors- isn’t that exactly what happens and is happening in schools?

The numbers were low enough to cope with one variable/back breaking thing. Schools going back.

The numbers were not low enough to cope with several variables/back breaking things, at once, with people not listening to any rules at all.

The rise started in August. Slowly but surely. Schools start in September and further take that rise to exponential growth.

Oh @Piggywaspushed has already said this more directly I see. But yes that’s what I was driving at.