Coronavirus outbreaks in England spreading mostly in schools

[herecomesthsun]

Link here

I know it is what many of us have been predicting for some months, so an all too familiar topic.

However, I thought some of you, maybe especially teachers or those from vulnerable families, might be interested in having the article flaaged up.

London (densely populated) has had zero deaths from covid in the last 7 days.

@QueenBlueberries

According to the Weekly Covid Surveillance Report assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/923668/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_40.pdf, p.16 , the institution with the highest rate of outbreaks are Educational Settings. And out of the educational settings, on p. 18 , you will find that the outbreaks for primary and second is much, much higher than the cases at Universities. Universities are getting lots of media attention at the moment, but they are not the place where there's the most outbreaks.

It's difficult to make direct comparisons though - schools have been back almost a month longer than universities and there are far more schools than universities.

@QueenBlueberries This shows that there are confirmed cases in school age children, it does not show any evidence of transmission within schools which is what people are fearful of. Of the schools I know of which had cases none of their classmates/ bubble that had to isolate subsequently went in to test positive. That's not to say it's not happening at all but talking about cases in schools needs to be distinguished from schools being the likely source of the transmission.

@MRex great post 👍 wish there was a like button. Also, virtually every village has a primary school, there must be at least 5 primary schools per secondary and of course even fewer FE and higher education institutions.

The average primary school has 281 students and the average university has 14,500 students. An outbreak can be just 2 students/ teachers. Some universities currently have outbreaks the size of every single student from 5 primary schools. Just 1% of primary schools have had more than 2 cases in the last month. At least 32% of universities have outbreaks and they are big. The figures keep being put up again and again and again - it is ages 14-29 that have the majority of infections and growing rapidly. That problem cannot be fixed with whataboutery of a few primary age kids infected by their parents and admin staff infecting each other.

Absolutely this. Over 700 student tested positive at Northumbria university. There are less than 200 kids at my son's primary school ( who haven't had an outbreak yet)

Those posters insisting that it's all universities and nothing to do with schools need to explain this graph.

Great post MRex.

@NotAKaren, it also doesn't show how many people in the family or community will be infected by the school kids in question. And I think many people are worried about that, more than they worry about the transmission from pupil to pupil. It's the rate of transmission from pupil to adults in the community and possibly vulnerable adults.

@noblegiraffe

Why don't you have some empathy with kids? Keep the window open but at least try to understand why life's a bit shit for them. Stop making them feel they are responsible for the possible deaths of vulnerable adults.

Fuck off with suggesting that that's what I'm doing.

How about stopping suggesting that adults should take every possible risk for your child so that they don't have to suffer even the slightest discomfort. BUY THEM A VEST. It really isn't hard.

I can see you feel very strongly about this issue. Do you have school aged children? I’m so anxious about the impact long term of poor education. My child is redemption, my job will not allow me to work and home school her and she’s at a critical point in her learning to read and write. She won’t engage with any kind of online learning as she’s just too young. If the schools close then we are screwed.

It’s not about putting a vest on them. I am happy to wrap them up as much as possible, happy to wear a mask at drop off/pick up, happy to support the schools and with any safety measures and explain to our children. But when they are 4 you do want them to have some sort of carefree childhood. I don’t want her to be terrified of a scary virus (it’s hard to explain the importance without scaring them). And the risk to them and most parents is low. They haven’t seen family in weeks missed birthdays, no Halloween, bonfire night, small Christmas. I know you don’t give a shit about these things for them but as parents you want to make things as nice and normal as possible. So it’s not about treating them like glass but also not about treating them like adults who can process and rationalise these things. Instead keeping things as normal as possible and explaining the small changes (staggered drop offs, mummy wears a mask in the shops etc) in a way they can understand. Have some compassion the younger generations are being thrown under a bus (as usual).

Reception not redemption.

@MRex, 14 year olds are not at Uni. It's a bit misleading to put an age bracket of 14-29 year.

Have some compassion the younger generations are being thrown under a bus (as usual)

Yes I agree. I'll go further and say that I find healthy, grown adults pushing their (unfounded) worries to the front of the queue really a bit pathetic.

@QueenBlueberries - correct, 14 year olds are at secondary school. Not everyone in their 20s is in further education either. It isn't misleading to point out facts that 14-29 is the age range with the greatest number of infections where more actions need to take place. Those actions are needed in secondary schools and universities. Back and forth about sticking 6 year olds in masks makes the mitigation look impossible (because they're 6, not 14) and would be pointless because that is not the age group with infections driving spread.

MRex I agree that secondaries (where age 14-16 at least will be crammed in like sardines) should be the priority for mitigation.

However, I will say that if we tested asymptomatic cases in schools like Universities are doing we may see a very similar picture.

Universities are testing asymptomatic contacts - schools are not. So you cannot compare the two. If we take the Northumbria Uni data - 770 tested positive of which only 78 symptomatic (so approx 90% asymptomatic) - if we applied these numbers to secondary school it would mean that for every 2 cases we'd expect to see 18 asymptomatic cases - which may be able to spread the virus to family members and other close contacts. And for every 1 case you'd expect 9 asymptomatic - and let's not forget at the moment schools are not sending classes home for one positive case. Data on asymptomatic cases is important to assess whether the strategies around isolation and bubble closure is working.

We would probably not be worried if Universities had only reported positive cases with one of the 3 PHE symptoms. We'd be thinking the outbreaks were relatively small and well contained.

I think it is highly suspicious that there is no testing such as being done in Universities in schools (primary and secondary) because if there were we'd be able to put this argument to rest - so why aren't they doing it? Everyone knows that in every single study many children who test positive for covid-19 are asymptomatic so why on earth doesn't the government want to collect this data? They should be collecting it at the very least to be able to properly assess workplace risks for school staff.

I find Everyone4Me's agenda-pushing pretty pathetic, and transparent.

@IloveJKRowling- copy from the other thread where I just answered your same question.
Again, there are actually facts that can be used. Schoolchild age WERE massively over-represented in the testing stats in August in Scotland, and in September in England. In England, only 1% of 200,000 children tested over 2 weeks WITH SYMPTOMS had a positive result. What they actually had was rhinovirus, in huge numbers, as happens every year at the start of the school year.

Everyone knows that in every single study many children who test positive for covid-19 are asymptomatic

We also know that the majority of children who are positive don't display any of the main three symptoms, so the constant government bashing of the message that children shouldn't get tested without one is also suspicious. So they're not proactively testing for asymptomatic children and deliberately not testing children displaying common symptoms for children.

Out of sight, out of mind.

I note your absence of explanation for my graph, MRex

@noblegiraffe - I have work to do! You can find the 14+ figures for yourself in other charts if you weren't obstinate trying to refuse that they exist, go and take a look at them. Open this, slide 5: www.gov.uk/government/publications/slides-to-accompany-coronavirus-press-conference-30-september-2020.

But when they are 4 you do want them to have some sort of carefree childhood

I think many parents are struggling with this, because many of us have been able to offer this for our children, to some extent.

But history suggests we have been incredibly fortunate, as many lifetimes have disruption, and when that happens some are of course young.

I have coped with this by focussing on how I can help my children deal with it, rather than how to protect my children from it.

I think seeing how things affect my children is one of the hardest aspects of this for me.

@noblegiraffe why are you so invested in this issue?

I think it is highly suspicious that there is no testing such as being done in Universities in schools (primary and secondary)

Not all universities are carrying out routine testing though. A handful are but most aren't.

@noblegiraffe

Those posters insisting that it's all universities and nothing to do with schools need to explain this graph.

Why is it suddenly schools vs universities?

@SueEllenMishke

I think it is highly suspicious that there is no testing such as being done in Universities in schools (primary and secondary)

Not all universities are carrying out routine testing though. A handful are but most aren't.

Very little in the press either.

I think the number of schools/colleges/unis with cases should be reported daily with the other figures.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss - I disagree. I think the mumber of CASES in primary, secondary (by age group) and in further education need to be reported. The other method leads to two kids in a primary, who got infected by their parents and infected nobody, being counted as though they are as risky as 770 Northumbria Uni students.