We were doing ok until we opened all the schools....

[Bbq1]

After lockdown was lifted pre September and pubs, restaurants etc were opened we seemed to have a handle on Covid with cases, hospital admissions and deaths all declining fairly steadily. Since we released millions of school aged children and thousands of teachers etc back into the classroom- boom, cases and consequently deaths, are now growing very rapidly again. It didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that this would happen. I work in a school and I have a 15 year old starting his gcse's so I 100% don't want the schools to close but surely there must be a more workable solution? Couldn't schools be one week, one week off for different bubbles or alternate days? Nobody wants schools to shut but surely in the long term if we don't get something safer in place and just continue sending kids and adults in day after day, then eventually they will close again?

Sunshine that doesnt say there are x cases in Sw secondarie's its 2+ cases. So there are more single cases
In our la alone theres
2 cases secondary so 1 cluster nailsea
1 cases secondary backwell
1 case primary nailsea
4 case not sure (cluster) wsm
1 case secondary - churchill
1 case portishead
1 other cant remember

Now there is also a case in portishead pub crawl person
Wsm bus driver
Cribbs staff

The fact kids dont go to local school so community only exposed to one doesnt help.

It has literally doubled the cases. And yes that doesnt seem to have happened everywhere. But some places are rural with small schools and maybe no PT or only school transport etc.

The bus route goes bristol to WSM directly no change. With backwell on the way there. I

You can see how kid will spread it into the community.

Our ones except 1 school in bristol are all 1 or more confirmed cases. But yes those things will happen too

The virus doesn't spread itself, people spread the virus. Cases fising means that people are more in contact. People are contagious before they have symptoms. If you want schools to stay open and save jobs then everyone should take a good hard look at their lives and minimise every contact where possible. Shop online, don't meet up with people. Stop trying to do the maximum that is allowed, take responsibility to minimise the spread.

More infections WILL mean more restrictions, less education and more job loss.

@2X4B523P

In an earlier post you said that schools accounted for 23% of cases and hospitality 5%. Regardless of the accuracy of the percentages (I'm not questioning that) those data don't show that. They show hospitality was the location of 5% of clusters and educational settings the location of 23% of clusters.

I don't think that demonstrates that educational settings are the driver of current case levels.

Sunshine so what about Raab saying it was schools on US tv??
I notice nobody mentioned that...
Yes it's possible more actual cases still come from elsewhere. But we know
SD
Masks ventilation make a difference and yet this is not possible in schools
8m school kids
500k teachers.
They are people. They are linking everything. Families across cities
Using pt in mass.
Parents working elsewhere. Families with on average 4 people to spread among. Kids who get ill so even if they had symptoms they are constantly ill obscuring any other illness.
They get close to teachers and other kids. Even if non covid they will keep everyone off work waiting for tests

Why was my post removed?
Has freedom of speech gone now, wow.
I never insulted or attacked anyone, just spoke my mind about covid.

So anyway how di you explain the wave of illness across the country and demand for tests through the roof for tests? The kids in their covid secure schools caught colds. Everyone you talk to kids had a cold. In a few weeks (as shown by these reports of outbreaks) it will have spread covid enough that it's covid going into schools.

@Sunshinegirl82
5% / 23% was for week 37
3% / 44% was for week 38

Individual cases don't demonstrate spread within a school or bubble.

To me an individual case suggests an infection in the community which is brought into the school. Earlier posts stated that individual cases were brought into schools and then made into 2/3/4 etc. That situation would be recorded as a cluster.

Lots of individual cases may be disruptive but they are not indicative of schools as a driver of spread.

Individual cases don't demonstrate spread within a school or bubble.

But they also don’t demonstrate a lack of spread within a bubble when bubbles aren’t tested and cases in children can be often symptomatic.

It should therefore be assumed that those single positive tested cases are accompanied by untested positive cases.

It’s mad to assume that those single positive tested cases are the only cases where pupils have been herded together in one of the highest risk types of environment.

So many schools missing off the school closure list. It says there are 2 schools in my town that are affected, when it is actually at least 10 that I know of.

@noblegiraffe

That isn't data though, that is assumption.

Individual cases are very disruptive but they do not conclusively demonstrate spread. Lots of posters have suggested that it will be necessary to close (all?) schools due to schools being a key driver in infection levels.

At present there appears to be little or no data to support that position. The data that we do have, in my view, suggests that rather than being a driver of community infection schools are a casualty of it. Reduce infection levels in the community and you will have fewer cases in schools.

Children getting ill with colds does not automatically mean they must be huge drivers of Covid. Various studies suggest children, particularly young children, do not spread Covid as much as adults. Studies also suggest that children absolutely do drive outbreaks of flu (hence them being included on the vaccination programme).

If, as time goes by, the data does suggest that schools are behind significant spread then obviously that will change the position. I'm not saying that it isn't possible only that, at present, the data doesn't support it in my view.

That isn't data though, that is assumption

No, it’s logic. If children are often largely asymptomatic then we cannot assume that lack of positive tests means lack of positive cases.
We should also remember that children present differently with covid to adults and yet the conditions for getting a test for a child are the three main adult symptoms. This means that where children are symptomatic, and able to access a test (which is highly problematic at the moment), we are testing the wrong children.

It is all very well saying that the data doesn’t support transmission in schools yet, but that statement should only be issued alongside an admittance that the data is totally inadequate, and will remain totally inadequate and therefore also cannot be used to argue the negative. We have no idea whether schools are driving transmission because we aren’t testing the kids, and when we are testing the kids, we’re testing the wrong kids

There are 20 pupils from ds sixth form off with symptoms, now they can't be tested so the bubble remains open. Makes you wonder if Boris engineered it so the moment schools opened, testing for kids was stopped so schools remained open.

If research can’t prove whether children/teenagers drive the spread of CV yet then surely we should be erring on the side of caution....presuming they do and taking the necessary precautions until we know otherwise

Asymptomatic cases are obviously an issue but I think it's quite a leap to say that there are lots of asymptomatic cases around every symptomatic case (and also no other symptomatic cases). You only need one additional positive case for a cluster to be identified.

Whilst children may present with different symptoms that doesn't mean they don't generally also have one of the main 3 symptoms which would trigger a test.

If there was no harm caused by closing schools then perhaps closing them to be on the safe side might be a good plan. We know however that immense harm is caused and so in my view we need to be pretty sure it is an absolute necessity to do so before that choice is made and only when we've exhausted closing everything else.

Cases seem slightly more stable today. Doesn't demonstrate a trend in any way shape or form and they might leap up tomorrow but it's better than another rise.

‘Various studies suggest children, particularly young children, do not spread Covid as much as adults’

I think that has been proved to be a pile of shite now. It was a pile of shite 2 months ago too, even when they were lying about it then.

There seem to be a huge amount of numbers in the 10-18 year old age group who have it.

Most schools didn’t even go back until Week of 7th September

In south yorkshire and staff went back on 1 September, children back in on 2 September.

It was always going to happen. Why don't people realise that children are the most unhygienic, germ-ridden part of society? They don't cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough and yet the poor darlings cannot possibly wear a mask as 'it's not fair!!'

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince it's been fairly comprehensively proved that under 10s are half as likely to contract it as adults. Studies are still unclear as to the rate 10-14 year olds contract it.

Don't let peer reviewed data get in the way of your opinion though.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

No, it hasn't at all. There's lots of info on the data thread on the various studies. Children (particularly young children) don't have ACE2 receptors which are key for Covid transmission (it is believed) in anything like the same numbers as adults.

The position is less clear cut for teenagers/young adults. I would expect to see more clusters in secondary schools and colleges, as opposed to primaries and nurseries, based on the studies.

And it's no longer the case that there is no data because kids are not being tested because they are. That's clear from PHE data. Researchers are also actively looking for kids to assess the role they play in transmission so have been testing household contacts of known positive cases. This is feeding into the half as likely statistics.

I mentioned 10-18 year olds. I know smaller children are not considered to spread it as much.

But this then isn’t a pile of shite as stated in pp

‘Various studies suggest children, particularly young children, do not spread Covid as much as adults’