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.

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

Universities aren't even telling their staff. The first I heard of a small outbreak on my campus was seeing it in the local press.

Round here the local paper reports all cases it seems that the schools have and it seems to be just a couple , no large outbreak as yet but then our numbers are quite low
Maybe areas with high numbers need a full lockdown again to get them back low with financial support etc

Why does it matter? If they are mainly asymptomatic and the death rate isn't rising hugely then let unis and students crack on and schools stay open.

IloveJKRowling:
"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 have been thinking about that as well. Perhaps the swabs are considered too invasive for children, so I would understand that nobody wants to do blanket testing in schools, even putting aside the cost. But it should be possible to get a representative sample of volunteers among the secondary school pupils.

@Janevaljane

Why does it matter? If they are mainly asymptomatic and the death rate isn't rising hugely then let unis and students crack on and schools stay open.

I suspect it doesn't really matter to those children or students that are mildly affected by the virus, however it does matter to anyone vulnerable who they may come into contact with. Once a vaccine is in place and the elderly,vulnerable and healthcare workers have been vaccinated then at that point we will be able to basically run through the rest of society who have little chance of long lasting effects.

I suppose they might come into contact with vulnerable people in the supermarket or on buses, but they are all wearing masks then at least.

I suspect it doesn't really matter to those children or students that are mildly affected by the virus we don't know whether it matters yet, mild cases in young athletes are leading to heart damage apparently. We know too little.

What, this totally non scientific study?

None of the athletes – who were football, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, and track competitors – had known heart disease when they underwent post-Covid testing. An additional eight athletes, or 31 per cent, showed signs of prior heart-muscle insult which, Mr Rajpal said, may also have been the result of athletic cardiac adaptation. Highly trained endurance athletes are 10 times more likely than non-athletes to have signs of heart stress, a cardiac MRI study last week found. The Ohio study was not designed to identify the prevalence or risk of myocardial injury in athletes with a recent history of coronavirus infection, Mr Rajpal said

I don't think we know much yet @Janevaljane

I can see you have strong views, and that's your right, but I don't yet have such strong views. I have concerns currently, and in time I will have more fixed views.

@NotQuiteHere

IloveJKRowling: "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 have been thinking about that as well. Perhaps the swabs are considered too invasive for children, so I would understand that nobody wants to do blanket testing in schools, even putting aside the cost. But it should be possible to get a representative sample of volunteers among the secondary school pupils.

Perhaps it comes down to cost and economics. Students are paying £9k fees to attend universities. If they aren’t able to offer proper tuition will this have an impact on their fee earning capability? have heard of local private schools who have tested whole bubbles (privately) too.
State schools do not have the resources to do so, nor do they need to justify their fees given that they don’t charge any.

I suspect it doesn't really matter to those children or students that are mildly affected by the virus, however it does matter to anyone vulnerable who they may come into contact with. Once a vaccine is in place and the elderly,vulnerable and healthcare workers have been vaccinated then at that point we will be able to basically run through the rest of society who have little chance of long lasting effects.

We can't keep young people's lives on hold until a vaccine is rolled out. That might take another year!

Janevaljane:
"I suppose they might come into contact with vulnerable people in the supermarket or on buses, but they are all wearing masks then at least"

Eh.. how about their parents or other family members living in the same household?
You don't think that "vulnerable" are some special type of people living in some special places and going shopping occasionally, do you? There are 2 million extremely vulnerable people and many more "simply" vulnerable (asthma, diabetes, lots of other medical conditions).

I read somewhere 10% of school age children live with someone who is ECV?

@peachescariad

I Work in a secondary school. All staff and students must wear masks moving between lessons and any public area like queuing in canteen and kids can wear during lessons if they like. All kids sanitize their hands on entry and exit of classrooms. Students are in year group bubbles and have their own zones outside and in canteen. We have staggered breaks x 2. Got just over 1000 pupils. No cases. My school is organised and on it.

Exactly. No need to close.

Average age of covid death over 80....

No need for the fear driven fit and healthy to shut everything

@VenusTiger

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

Exactly yet let's keep trashing businesses.

@RepeatSwan

I read somewhere 10% of school age children live with someone who is ECV?

this

Here or Repeat do you have a source?

I know 3% of overall population is ECV so interested to know how that translates to stat below.

@MarshaBradyo

Here or Repeat do you have a source?

So- this issue is I think very important.

However- I pressed send too soon - as the version of this I have seen before is that 10% of people who were shielding are parents or carers for school age children.

About 2 million people were shielding so that would be a fair number of people - about 200,000 - but would involve less than 10% school age children.

There are apparently 4.5 million state primary school pupils and 2.75 state secondary school pupils. Some families might have 1 or 2 ECV parents.

Re a source, I have tried to find one, beyond people's comments on this board, but not had success so far.

So I would be interested to see more about this as well.

There are also a lot of families who were not formally shielding but have clinical vulnerabilities and also where the child is ECV.

I do apologise, I had just listened to part of the Today Programme on Sounds and was annoyed, so was a bit distracted.

Ah I see makes sense

I found this

An estimated 328,000 CEV people (15%) live in a household with children aged under 16 years; 3% (68,000 CEV people) reported that living in this type of household has had an impact on their ability to shield.

ONS

About 11m children in U.K. so very small number of families, won’t try and work it out as no idea how many dc in each of those families

DH is ECV, being off school destroyed DD though. DH was concerned about her going back but she’s so happy and contented now it feels like it’s not really a choice, she needs to go.

It's universities. I work in a small HEI and we've got multiple student cases in pretty much every faculty. Haven't heard of any local school bubble closures however. I would say every uni is going to be the same. Our local cases have always been low but are now increasing - pretty much can guarantee that this is fuelled by the student cases.

[quote 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.[/quote]
I can see that slide 5 is a random slide of test positivity rates that appears to have been put in to make it look like figures for the younger ages groups are flat, but actually when you look at the number of infections in the secondary age groups (my graph that you haven't explained or acknowledged), they are increasing quite rapidly.

The graph that I posted was presumably deliberately left out of the briefing and substituted for a test positivity one to give the impression that cases are static in secondary school-aged children. Clearly some people fell for it.

@Janevaljane

I suppose they might come into contact with vulnerable people in the supermarket or on buses, but they are all wearing masks then at least.

Or in the classroom because vulnerable teachers are back teaching.

And they are not wearing masks then, are they?