Could someone translate Whitty for me please

[notevenat20]

The BBC reports him as saying

"He said cases were increasing "quite rapidly" among older teenagers and under-21s, but the rate of transmission among school-age children was not changing very much."

But I am not sure what that means. Is he saying that the number of new infections per week is going up rapidly in the first category and not the second? I don't know what rate means here.

Because if he is saying the number of new infections is static weekly for school age children, it's hard to see how that could be the case unless all the infections of children are coming from adults.

It is compulsory to be in education until 18 now, it changed a few years ago

Yes, they raised the participation age. They did not however raise the compulsory school age. They are not the same thing.

Oh,come on, it's disingenuous of Whitty and co to suggest that people all stop school miraculously then we worry about covid spread.

Pretty sure it is more than 50%. And in some areas, way more.

It’s education or training and that can include volunteering at your local cancer research shop for 20 pounds a week.

Not unless there is training, so I doubt it!

I don’t understand how 15-16 year olds (at school) are a flat line whilst 17-18 year olds (college) are going up fairly steeply.

The flat line does not show that the number of cases is staying the same though. It shows that the percentage of tests that are positive is staying the same. Unless we know how many tests are being performed for each age group the percentage is pretty unhelpful.

Even when the figures are clear, good old mumsnet have to insist that children must be full of c19

In 2017 72% of 17 and 18 year olds were in full time education (so school or college). I imagine that has gone up a little since.

Even when the figures are clear

They’re not though. Today’s headline graphs do not tell us about the number of cases in children.

Last week they showed a slide of cases by age, which showed the virus was rising on all ages.

This week they didn’t show a slide of cases, they showed a slide of positivity rates which showed a different picture.

I don’t know the reason for slide switch. There may be a good one.

But it lacks sense and transparency to me.

Especially when you consider the fact schools were the setting with most outbreaks last week.

Perhaps the testing figures are messed up, the cases by age is unreliable right now. I’ll be interested to see the figures in coming weeks.

Figures of numbers tested per age and area would be very helpful.

He didn't say they were flatlining in school age DC. He said it was increasing 'quite rapidly' in older teens/young adults, but not in school age DC. Absence of the rapid increase is not the same as no increase.

Did no one else watch BBC new?? Or did I imagine the graph about the ages and the amount of cases??

I work in a school and we have one positive case in 11-16 and four positive cases (with quite a few waiting test results) in sixth form.

It is concerning . . Sixth formers are at an age where they arent fully independent but make more decisions . . We know two of our positives were at a house party last week. Also quite a lot of sixth form have part time jobs so staying home less than 11-16 year olds.

Someone wanted data.
Demographics of testing is here: www.gov.uk/government/publications/demographic-data-for-coronavirus-testing-england-28-may-to-26-august/demographic-data-for-coronavirus-covid-19-testing-england-28-may-to-26-august.
Surveillance report data file has cases by age group too.

Widely reported that 3* as many tests for age 0-9 in the first 2 weeks of September; 200,000 tests and

@Littleposh

Did no one else watch BBC new?? Or did I imagine the graph about the ages and the amount of cases??

The “flatlining” graph wasn’t a graph of the numbers of cases though. It was a graph about the test positivity rate. Not the same thing at all.

@mrex thank you!

Page 7 of this document shows there has indeed been an increase in positive cases in the age group 10-19.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/921561/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_39_FINAL.pdf

I’m watching it back atm. I think that there are a lot of under 16s doing tests without having real symptoms of Covid. They are coughing, got colds and schools are sending them back home insisting on tests. And what could they or their parents do? They couldn’t argue with a school.
Whereas over 16s could make a more realistic judgement if they really have Covid symptoms and so they end up with a higher rate of positive tests.
Why the rates are growing? Could be down to the difficulty to get a test and so over 16s who don’t have clear symptoms are less bothered to do one.
Just a thought.

I see that bamboozling people with a graph is working quite well for the government in some cases.

They've got the data, they didn't show it. That raises suspicions. Why didn't they given that they are keen to show just how fine schools are?

They are coughing, got colds and schools are sending them back home insisting on tests.

So we have Hancock insisting that tests are only for those with the main symptoms, and now people are complaining that that is being followed?

Bloody hell. If we knew who had covid and didn't by looking at them when displaying symptoms, we wouldn't need tests.

Wish this was true but I find the data highly dubious by only giving half the data. This raises more questions than have been answered.

How many children were being tested before going back to school and then once schools restarted?

Why does separate data show education as the biggest source of clusters?

With primary and secondary fairly equally affected?

To 25th colleges and universities a small percentage of the education total when older teens said to be rapidly rising?

How much do younger children who are often asymptomatic play in transmission?

I suspect by making a point of showing positive rates remaining unchanged without giving how many tests made up those positives that they are deliberately trying to downplay the situation.

I actually didn’t mean that it’s a bad thing. Young children are prone to coughs and colds and parents want to be sure and schools want to be sure. But you can’t do this with over 16s, it’s more difficult to insist with them. And they can assess their symptoms better.
My point is that it might be ( just might be) the way how to interpret these graphics not that the schools are safe and under 16s are not getting any Covid.

Summary shows how many in last 2w
www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-covid-19-surveillance-reports

Therss3another thread saying how great it is that schools are safe.

Look at the actual figures, I've posted them above and you can check the surveillance report every week. 2000 cases over 2 weeks is less than 2% of cases, yet the 0-9 group makes up 12% of the population.

The DofE publishes attendance stats that show over double the number of covid-related absences in secondary than in primary school. explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak. Figures remain thankfully low, but the stats on educational institutions look higher because universities and other older teenager educational institutions are included. It has been widely reported that there are big outbreaks at many universities, they are educational institutions. As has been said time and again, infections in that late teen / early 20s have risen dramatically.

If you think information doesn't add up, then either do some research for yourself to find the actual data, or ask a question. Many of us in the data thread regularly find data to help answer questions. But having fears about numbers and refusing to look at the actual numbers, even describing them as "dubious" is frankly bonkers.

I agree the age group 17-18 is confusing, but it is relevant to remember that it is only October, so the vast majority in year 12 are aged 16 and the vast majority in year 13 are aged 17.
So year 12 come into the low category with low rates. Year 13 may also be quite low, but the 18 year olds at university may well be driving the increase in this age group.
To balance a pp's school above, my DC school has 2 year-groups sent home (years 10 and 110) with the sixth form currently (touches wood) unaffected (long may it continue).

No evidence either way, but 17-18 year olds may be more likely to test as they are a bit more independent. Potentially, the under 12s would be more difficult to test accurately due to the procedure of swabbing etc. and also need to depend on an adult to arrange the test.