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

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..

The problem with this commonsense argument is that it ignores both preliminary evidence and science.

Schools are open all round the world with all sorts of variants of measures. There just haven't been many large outbreaks in schools or a large number of teachers getting infected.

Also, the preliminary science is that young children (i.e. primary) are less likely to infect adults.

That was just a wtf is the reason. What IS the reason? What is the reason we allow death certificates to at Covid death if someone dies of cancer or a car crash but has Covid at the time too?

Come on, it’s not conspiracy to question. Sure, the Fauci thing was badly placed, apologies. But the stuff about the tests and the death rate is indisputable. I’m just tearing my hair out that everyone focused on umbers and not looking at the fact nothing makes sense.

But yeah whatever. Your thread. I’ll leave

Schools are open all round the world with all sorts of variants of measures. There just haven't been many large outbreaks in schools or a large number of teachers getting infected.

Israel blame their second wave on a poorly managed reopening of schools causing large outbreaks.

Not many (any?) countries replicate English conditions. A lot of the rest of the world think we are mad.

@herecomesthsun

The teachers unions could just ask teachers to tell them if they test positive. I guess there is a small risk that this might be unreliable.

[quote HeartShapedBox4]@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.[/quote]
I think - though i may have failed to effectively break through the jargon - that the paper you link to specifically ISN'T about the PCR test. It is, instead, specifically about alternatives to the PCR test based on other methods.

In fact, the tests being assessed were specifically being assessed for accuracy against "a reference standard of viral culture or reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction" - ie the PCR test, far from being regarded as 'inaccurate' was being used as the standard against which other tests were being assessed.

Not many (any?) countries replicate English conditions

French primaries are open with no masks. I don't know if there some other significant difference.

If you can link to a study that is about the accuracy of the PCR test itself, that might be more convincing.

There isn't actually any cases of someone with covid dying in a car crash many weeks later and having Covid on death cert

@cantkeepawayforever

No I can’t. I’ve been listening to interviews with doctors and scientists for months. I can’t be arsed to research for you. You go ahead and believe what your want. I really cba.

You win 🙌
Have a great day

[quote HeartShapedBox4]@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.[/quote]
That article suggests that positive tests for covid are right 97 or 98 % of the time, (Could be better but mostly accurate)

Whereas supposedly negative tests get it wrong a bit more often. (There is a false negative between 2 and 34 % of the time)

So the tests could be better, and of course it's important that there is ongoing research into how to improve them.

But we do need to use the tests we have at the moment until they are improved upon, and the work is in progress to do that.

This doesn't support the ridiculous comment about the pandemic being over & etc.

There was one, piggy but it was in the US, since removed. Guess where the pp is getting their info from?

www.snopes.com/fact-check/florida-motorcyclist-covid-death/

[quote HeartShapedBox4]@cantkeepawayforever

No I can’t. I’ve been listening to interviews with doctors and scientists for months. I can’t be arsed to research for you. You go ahead and believe what your want. I really cba.

You win 🙌
Have a great day[/quote]
Ah, OK. One of those.

What you mean is 'No, there aren't any, as far as i know', from which I will draw my own conclusions.

French primaries are open with no masks.

But secondaries aren’t, and secondaries here are where the problem appears to be.

[quote notevenat20]@herecomesthsun

The teachers unions could just ask teachers to tell them if they test positive. I guess there is a small risk that this might be unreliable.[/quote]
The teachers should be placed at as little risk as is humanly possible. So we need measures put in place before there is widespread, predictable illness.

And the state as the employer has a duty of care and should be managing this properly. Health and safety is the duty of the employer and shouldn't be left to the Unions, after the infections have occurred.

If they wanted to have a clear picture on the situation then this is what I think should happen. Take a sample of schools where a teacher tested positive and then test the whole bubble that infected teachers had contact with, if more than one teacher in a setting then test everyone. That would show what is happening in the sample schools. Then also have a system that anyone in the nearby community who tests positive is then asked if they had contact with anyone from that school. We would then know what role schools truly play in community transmission.

Maybe the dogs are the answer they could wander round the parents too.
Any system it seems that relies on
Symptoms - when the majority are asymptomatic
People testing and isolating - they are not doing it
Symptoms when they are there are
1 indistinguishable from a cold
2 not the same in chilfren

The mp has proven it and various others incl boris as he had a temp when he went and clapped for nhs. You cant trust other people in this country. Selfish and others need the money.
You see the benefit to parents (not looking after dc) very much outweighs any thought of anyone else.
It's simple cost to benefit. The gov went on too much about how only xyz are affected (although anyone could end up on oxygen).
If immunity were guaranteed i would see less issue with infecting the young people but also then we would be allowing the vulnerable and older parents and teachers and kids to not be involved.
Many more will likely join the ranks of vulnerable after having had covid

[quote HeartShapedBox4]@cantkeepawayforever

No I can’t. I’ve been listening to interviews with doctors and scientists for months. I can’t be arsed to research for you. You go ahead and believe what your want. I really cba.

You win 🙌
Have a great day[/quote]
It does depend how critically you listen, though, and to what extent you analyse what you have been told. If you believe that a study that uses the PCR test as a reference standard for accuracy actually demonstrates that the PCR test detects all coronaviruses equally (as you have claimed), then I would suggest that perhaps although you have listened to scientists, you have not understood what they are saying.

@HeartShapedBox4

That was just a wtf is the reason. What IS the reason? What is the reason we allow death certificates to at Covid death if someone dies of cancer or a car crash but has Covid at the time too?

Come on, it’s not conspiracy to question. Sure, the Fauci thing was badly placed, apologies. But the stuff about the tests and the death rate is indisputable. I’m just tearing my hair out that everyone focused on umbers and not looking at the fact nothing makes sense.

But yeah whatever. Your thread. I’ll leave

I really agree with you that a lot of this doesn't make sense.

We shouldn't be sending teachers and children into a crowded situation in the current circumstances without better planning and infection control

That is what doesn't make sense.

That article suggests that positive tests for covid are right 97 or 98 % of the time, (Could be better but mostly accurate)

Whereas supposedly negative tests get it wrong a bit more often. (There is a false negative between 2 and 34 % of the time)

So the tests could be better, and of course it's important that there is ongoing research into how to improve them.

Completely agree.

False negatives ARE a problem - where up to 90% of infections are apparently asymptomatic at the point of testing AND up to 1/3 of the negatives are in fact positive, we are missing a LOT of infected people.

However, claiming that all the asymptomatic cases are in fact not cases because they are false positives due to other coronaviruses, as another poster has claimed, is blatantly false.

Good to see orange line falling. Part time, often less than half time, in primary brings its own problems.

In secondary what mitigation is preferable?

I’d go for ventilation, maybe masks, ft for exam years though.

Other years I’m not so invested and will leave up to parents of that year to say, but again pt has issues.

Schools are open all round the world with all sorts of variants of measures. There just haven't been many large outbreaks in schools or a large number of teachers getting infected

Most schools elsewhere in the world have small class sizes, social distancing and / or masks.

We have none of these things - this is against the scientific advice which says you MUST do the above for safe opening - from WHO, Unicef and Indie Sage.

The only comparable country is Israel when they took their masks off due to hot weather - and outbreaks happened. They also tested the students and found 60% of those testing positive were asymptomatic.

www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.html

This is the saddest bit
"A nursery school teacher, Shalva Zalfreund, 64, sent a note to parents saying she believed she had been infected in her school, where some parents had sent their children from homes with cases of the virus. She died in July"

Why are we copying Israel? Are our teachers and children worth so much less than virtually everywhere else in the world? That we have to go back with NO mitigation at all?

It's disgusting and the science denial when noble has clearly show that there are outbreaks happening in schools, is ridiculous.

I don't want schools to close, I want schools to be funded to be safer and stay open (like the rest of the world). They will close eventually at this rate.

@notevenat20 In France teachers have to wear face masks at all times. In England the schools guidance actively discourages mask wearing in the classroom. In France for students aged 11+ there is mandatory mask wearing so their return to school has more risk mitigations put in place than English schools.

www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Masks-mandatory-in-French-schools-for-la-rentree

www.gov.uk/government/publications/face-coverings-in-education/face-coverings-in-education @

testing is important, but if schools were doing SD and / or masks transmission would be lower and the testing problems would be less of an issue because there would be less chance of transmission in schools.

notevenat20 In France teachers have to wear face masks at all times. In England the schools guidance actively discourages mask wearing in the classroom. In France for students aged 11+ there is mandatory mask wearing so their return to school has more risk mitigations put in place than English schools.

Yes, thanks. Given that masks are to stop you infecting someone else this does imply that French teachers in primary are at the same risk as ones here.

You could argue they are at higher risk as only the poorly child gets sent home if there is a positive test.

@IloveJKRowling but there's not enough room to SD in school.