Cases rising in secondary school-aged children - more mitigation measures needed?

[noblegiraffe]

The graph that was notable by its absence in this week's briefing has been released and it shows a steep increase in infections in 10-19 year olds. This is backed up by the ONS survey showing an increase in infections in years 7-11.

The Guardian appears to be the only newspaper to have noticed this, with government mouthpiece Prof Viner blathering 'it is likely that much of the transmission among groups of young people may be outside school settings, as we really have limited evidence of transmission within schools', completely ignoring the graph in front of his face that shows the rise looking remarkably coincident with the date schools re-opened.

With people on here insisting that the number of outbreaks in schools ( 13,000 kids in Birmingham currently self-isolating ) is nothing to worry about and that 'educational settings' just means that university data is being misinterpreted as applying to school children, surely this data must give pause for thought?

Maybe cramming kids into small classrooms with poor ventilation and no mitigation measures isn't the brightest idea and a rethink is needed before winter really sets in?

www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/02/covid-cases-among-secondary-school-aged-children-rise-in-england

@notevenat20

"Do you think they CAN'T catch it in school? If so, why?

Of course not. This is a game of probabilities."

So if

• there is a huge rise in infections in y 7-11 and
• they are crammed together like sardines in schools and
• there are generally restrictions in every other part of life and
• the rates shoot up just after school go back

well, it is by far the most likely explanation that this is due to school return

stands to reason / Occam's razor

How can we be sure their not catching it in pubs? Seriously though, agree with university observations and asymptomatic infection. There will be many children that are passing it on to others but source of infection will never be know. Mass testing would give a clear picture on the situation. Won’t fit with the schools are safe narrative though. (Yes safe for children on the whole but massively contributing to community infection and ultimately unnecessary deaths)

the rates shoot up just after school go back

If positivity rates for 7-11 year olds started to go up sharply from around September 5 I would certainly be suspicious it might be schools. Particularly if it was before a rise in positivity rates for adults.

If the rise started before September 5 or was simultaneous with a rise for adults I would look for another explanation or if the number of positive results went up but positivity rates didn't, likewise.

[quote UniversallyUnchallenged]@noblegiraffe 👍[/quote]
and also this

HeartShapedBox4 but most tests come back negative so if everybody has any coronavirus strain surely a bigger chunk would get them back positive?

@notevenat20

the rates shoot up just after school go back

If positivity rates for 7-11 year olds started to go up sharply from around September 5 I would certainly be suspicious it might be schools. Particularly if it was before a rise in positivity rates for adults.

If the rise started before September 5 or was simultaneous with a rise for adults I would look for another explanation or if the number of positive results went up but positivity rates didn't, likewise.

So there might be more than one factor involved?

For example, the big return from holiday was in August. Most people, especially year 7-11, are not returning from holiday now. Holiday return is unlikely to be the cause of an increase in rates in children right now.

However, rates in this age of children certainly have gone up sharply following return to school, see the graphs. Return to school is the most likely cause right now.

@noblegiraffe really hope that wasn’t aimed at me, I shared one misleading source (should’ve known, daily fail) but the rest of my content was absolute fact. Hard cold facts.

Don’t lump anyone who doesn’t live and breathe BBC ‘news’ as a conspiracist. Really dangerous mindset.

(But if not aimed at me, apologies)

If positivity rates for 7-11 year olds started to go up sharply from around September 5 I would certainly be suspicious it might be schools. Particularly if it was before a rise in positivity rates for adults.

Maybe you could look at the graph in the OP, from around week 37 when the infection rates for 10-19 year olds shot up and overtook the numbers of cases in 30-39 year olds and 40-49 year olds?

@notevenat20

If there are currently thousands of asymptomatic DC at school will CV surely this could lead to CV not being an issue in education in few months, as most DC will have had it.

That’s a great point!

Its only a great point if you ignore pupils passing the virus on to teachers.

However, rates in this age of children certainly have gone up sharply following return to school, see the graphs. Return to school is the most likely cause right now.

The complication is that it seems to be after a big rise in cases in adults. So it's plausible the adults are infecting the children.

It really needs a careful study and not just idle chat on MN :) I look forward to reading the paper on it when it comes out.

really hope that wasn’t aimed at me

Yes it was. This whole 'debacle' is down to Fauci? FFS, we're not in the US. Bog off back to the conspiracy websites with you.

Its only a great point if you ignore pupils passing the virus on to teachers.

Are there many reports of that happening?

Guess how much testing is being done to establish if that is the case, noteven

[quote HeartShapedBox4]@herecomesthsun eh?

More 7-11 year olds are being tested and coming back positive, because the tests find a positive result for any coronavirus strain. Literally exactly what I’m saying. We don’t know they have Covid at all. And if they aren’t sick they’re not a ‘case’. They are someone who has been tested for an coronavirus strain, which most people have.

Not my observations btw. Literally leading scientists. I’m just repeating.[/quote]
Ok well sausages to the leading scientists.

The tests are in fact designed to be sufficiently specific for what they are testing that this isn't a significant factor, otherwise there would be no effing point in doing the tests at all.

See here

and

"The possibility that a test might pick up related viruses that have genetic similarities to the virus you’re looking for (technically known as “cross-reactivity”) is something that is looked at when designing PCR tests. (For example one of the earliest PCR testing protocols, which was published on 13 January, specifically checked that the test did not pick up the four human coronaviruses that cause the common cold.) Results for a range of available PCR tests show that they do not cross-react with any viruses analysed, including other coronaviruses.

Speaking to TheJournal.ie, lecturer in immunology and host-microbe interactions at the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Limerick, Dr Elizabeth J. Ryan, said that viral tests for current cases of Covid-19 are “very specific” for material that is “only expressed by the Covid-19 virus”.

“Having a cold or flu won’t change that,” Dr Ryan said."

@noblegiraffe ah shiiiit. I thought this was a genuine thread but you just want validation. Duh.

FYI it’s Dr Gupta at OXFORD university saying the pandemic is over. And many others. But yeah go off. 🤦🏻‍♀️

A conspiracy theory is that bill gates is a megomaniac wanting to vaccinate everyone.

Actual science that PCR tests are unreliable and many in the science community say so, is just scientific theory that doesn’t align with what you want to believe.

Go ahead and live in this weird world you want to believe. It’s a coronavirus. There are many.

Oh and I found the stats on gov.uk. 22k did die of flu in 2018.

35k died in 2014/15.

That’s just data mate. Actual data.

Goooooood luck with your life!!! 👍

Guess how much testing is being done to establish if that is the case, noteven

Sorry to go back to this, but all that has to happen is for teachers to record that they test positive. Then we can just divide the number of teachers who test positive by the number of teachers and we will know if there are at greater risk.

Actual science that PCR tests are unreliable and many in the science community say so, is just scientific theory that doesn’t align with what you want to believe.

Can you link to the peer-reviewed scientific paper that states this specifically for the PCR test for Covid-19?

Actual science that PCR tests are unreliable

The problem with PCR is that it is too reliable. What you want to know is if you are currently infectious not if there is any covid DNA left in your body. There are many better tests for this but it is very slow to get them rolled out.

@notevenat20

Guess how much testing is being done to establish if that is the case, noteven

Sorry to go back to this, but all that has to happen is for teachers to record that they test positive. Then we can just divide the number of teachers who test positive by the number of teachers and we will know if there are at greater risk.

We can however work out from first principles that it is hazardous sticking teachers in front of a load of kids with no distancing and poor ventilation.

We could of course wait until a large number of teachers get infected and then work out how many succumbed but this would have the disadvantage that some of them would, well, die.

This is called Infection Control and state employees are supposed to have these considerations built into a safe plan for their work.

ah shiiiit. I thought this was a genuine thread

It is. No bullshit allowed. Every country in the world taking this seriously to just cover up for a Fauci mistake is clearly bullshit.

@notevenat20

Guess how much testing is being done to establish if that is the case, noteven

Sorry to go back to this, but all that has to happen is for teachers to record that they test positive. Then we can just divide the number of teachers who test positive by the number of teachers and we will know if there are at greater risk.

This would be quite useful data, I recall they released these figures early on in the first wave. Have seen no such data recently, they will have these figures but not releasing them comes across as suspicious to me.

We've had 6 positive (student) cases, but no bubbles are shut, just isolating close contacts even though some cases are in the same bubble. Apparently PHE says they are all community acquired, not from school (even though some are in the same class), no idea how they know this to be true.

@cantkeepawayforever

British Medical Journal assessed multiple other studies into efficiency and concluded that
“Higher quality clinical studies assessing the diagnostic accuracy of serological tests for covid-19 are urgently needed. Currently, available evidence does not support the continued use of existing point-of-care serological tests.”

It goes into a lot more detail in the article.
www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2516

Am unable to share anything American apparently (or god forbid, further afield where everybody is just stupid and can’t do a science) so can’t share anything else right now.

Am pretty sure that won’t satisfy you.

Cognitive dissonance is a big one.

It would be great actually to have some more monitoring of the numbers of schools that have infections, and to have some more backwards tracing of where the infections are coming from.

Rather than the feeling that it is all too much bother to do anything constructive of this nature at all. And that we are all to muddle through, with however much illness and death in the teachers and parents especially, until it all grinds to a halt in the middle of winter.

Well no that would matter less if we had controlled infection levels. Or tested more during wave 1.
As it is the majority dont know if they already had it.

Anyway gov strategy to infect all the kids and teens is wrong.
If there is no lasting immunity they are damaging the kids for no reason.
It's ecen more likely that kids wouldnt have long term immunity.
Ideally testing a whole class would determine how many should stay off.
You would likely find more cases. Say they could all SI then test on day 5 maybe. That would work better than picking random contacts.