Track and trace told not to bother reporting cases amongst staff or pupils in schools

[NebularNerd]

This is a scandal. School staff are being thrown to the wolves. Remarkably short sighted given that students and staff will spread the virus in the community. The virus does not stop at the school gates.

twitter.com/parents_utd/status/1314972457888030721?s=21

And schools / educational settings which have a positive case no longer need to ring the national 'helpline' if it is not their first case (confirmed in a call to them today)

A first case simply gets standard advice and a form letter.

For subsequent cases, schools MAY have to report it to their local authority public health team (if they are on the ball), but in general they can just keep doing what they have done for earlier cases - send home close contacts, carry on as before - and NOBODY aggregates or even collects the data at a regional or national level.

Surely now the time has come to give parents the choice of whether to temporarily remove their children, without threat if deregistration. This is utterly shambolic and getting very worrying.

*of

We're only just over a month in to the school year, and this is where we are already.

Huge national spike in cases with educational settings accounting for a significant percentage.

Over 3,000 schools with cases. Cases in schools not being tracked and teachers being told to turn off the NHS app. If a child tests positive, only 'close contacts' are now required to isolate.

Complete media blackout as schools are never mentioned by anyone with regards to driving the number of cases up.

Schools are the elephant in the room that no one dare mention.

As a teacher in a secondary school I am so scared of where this is heading. We are expendable.

Utterly shocking. Someone needs to do something.
I think some kind of campaign is needed.
Do people not realise that it will be passed on to adults?
Utter disgrace.

This is already normal practise, why would contact tracers escalate every case of Covid in a school to a HPT team? What would they do about it .... HPT’s are there to focus on where there are large outbreaks, and they are focusing on where those outbreaks could cause a large loss of life, care homes, clinical settings, etc. HPT’s teams are tiny, do people really think they can and should act on every case on Covid in a school?

@NebularNerd

This is a scandal. School staff are being thrown to the wolves. Remarkably short sighted given that students and staff will spread the virus in the community. The virus does not stop at the school gates.

twitter.com/parents_utd/status/1314972457888030721?s=21

Can you link to the actual page?

This is appalling. Thank goodness I live in Wales where contact tracing is done by local health teams.

Im from Scotland too so its different here. I think they are largely on top of track and trace.

I wonder how long and high the community cases need to get before the elephant in the room is addressed? If restaurants and pubs close along with gyms, hairdressers etc and cases continue rising fast will the government concede that it is schools that need to change? Will a rota system with reduced numbers in at any one time be the next step or will it be masks first? I know not all areas in the UK are affected but in many places where mixing with other households is restricted it seems daft that thousands of school kids continue to meet up in school.

It's in our school and even the kids know that the system of isolating only close contacts isn't working.....

I am in Scotland and the contact tracers are definitely in schools here, as they were in DD’s school last week. The letter said the local public health team were involved. That sounds like what you are saying for Wales northernsoullover

DD’s school is one case so far, so definitely not a large outbreak (and hopefully won’t become one).

So what are people advocating here? A shutdown of schools again? Kids spending all their days in front of a screen, a soulless existence in their bedrooms not really learning anything. My concern is if schools shut again it will be months before they return. There have been a small number of unrelated cases at my DCs very large secondary school and no reports of transmission from those cases to other children or teachers they cane inti contact with. Chris Whitty said there would have to be trade offs to keep schools open, if the trade off means pubs shutting and other non essential things then so be it but schools should be the very last thing to go.

@OpheliasCrayon

It's in our school and even the kids know that the system of isolating only close contacts isn't working.....

Same. The kids say it as it is. They are also anxious about catching it and passing it on.

I think if there was mass testing in schools, as there have been at universities, we'd see it was endemic there now. Those children who present with classic symptoms and who also have parents inclined to test them are a small tip of a big iceberg, I think. We will see as regards the numbers of school staff affected or in ICU as no one seems to collect any data on case incidence by occupation any more.

@Barbie222

I think if there was mass testing in schools, as there have been at universities, we'd see it was endemic there now. Those children who present with classic symptoms and who also have parents inclined to test them are a small tip of a big iceberg, I think. We will see as regards the numbers of school staff affected or in ICU as no one seems to collect any data on case incidence by occupation any more.

I agree. I think it's rife in schools and it's behind the huge surge that we are seeing.

And for those asking, yes, I think secondary schools should be closed at least temporarily (as younger children don't seem to get it as easily) and a blended learning model put in place.

I don't think this will happen though.

Instead we will see the numbers continue to spike and an increase in seriously ill/dead school staff.

If that is true then we need our unions to step on this.

@NotAKaren

So what are people advocating here? A shutdown of schools again? Kids spending all their days in front of a screen, a soulless existence in their bedrooms not really learning anything. My concern is if schools shut again it will be months before they return. There have been a small number of unrelated cases at my DCs very large secondary school and no reports of transmission from those cases to other children or teachers they cane inti contact with. Chris Whitty said there would have to be trade offs to keep schools open, if the trade off means pubs shutting and other non essential things then so be it but schools should be the very last thing to go.

Had school reopened properly and steadily with maybe 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off to allow for smaller class sizes and more distancing then we might not be in this mess. You’ve got the ‘Us4Ourselves’ people to thank for that. And now Boris has made a statement about keeping schools open he can’t back down until things are pretty desperate and no doubt many teachers and parents have lost their lives.

I can’t imagine many parents waving their children off to school when 1000 people a day are dying, cases are in the hundreds of thousands and hospitals are collapsing.

Yes, there are vulnerable children who need to be in school but there are better ways to go about it than this fuck up. Hardly any money has been spent to make schools, teachers, parents and children safe. And they aren’t safe. Parents have to look after their own now.

@mightyducks

This is already normal practise, why would contact tracers escalate every case of Covid in a school to a HPT team? What would they do about it .... HPT’s are there to focus on where there are large outbreaks, and they are focusing on where those outbreaks could cause a large loss of life, care homes, clinical settings, etc. HPT’s teams are tiny, do people really think they can and should act on every case on Covid in a school?

Errrr yes.

I’m really confused, why would a case in a school warrant less of a response than any other case???

@neveradullmoment99

Utterly shocking. Someone needs to do something. I think some kind of campaign is needed. Do people not realise that it will be passed on to adults? Utter disgrace.

Agreed.

Plus we shouldn’t be so cavalier about children go a thing it either.

@Barbie222

I think if there was mass testing in schools, as there have been at universities, we'd see it was endemic there now. Those children who present with classic symptoms and who also have parents inclined to test them are a small tip of a big iceberg, I think. We will see as regards the numbers of school staff affected or in ICU as no one seems to collect any data on case incidence by occupation any more.

Sadly I think you’re right.

Look at the rise for 10-19 (secondary school aged) young people.

DD had a positive test so school obviously closed her year group. Track and Trace called us 60 hours later to ask about it. Utterly pointless.

DS (secondary) had to self isolate, along with the rest of year group, after just 3 days at school - no one else in the year group was diagnosed within the 14 days but the positive case was only in school for 1 day. His year has just had another positive case and they are only telling a select few to self isolate, I wonder if a few will test positive this time round.