The rate of infections in schools is being suppressed from public knowledge

[noblegiraffe]

...claims Karam Bales of the NEU.

I’m pretty sure I agree. When the newspapers are going mad about university cases and 13,000 kids and 700 teachers being off school in Birmingham doesn’t make national headlines, then something dodgy is going on.

This twitter thread collates all the evidence and is pretty damning twitter.com/karamballes/status/1315067136394625032?s=21

My own thoughts:
Why are the government ignoring the WHO recommendations on masks?
Why have they stopped PHE deciding who is sent home when there are cases in schools setting up their own helpline instead which sends home far fewer kids?
Why are the figures not being presented in a way that makes it clear which cases are in schools and not universities?
Why did Chris Whitty use a graph of test positivity rates instead of actual infection numbers in his briefing when it came to claiming that schools aren’t an issue?
Why are they insisting that children only get a test if they exhibit one of the three main adult symptoms, ignoring that the majority of children who test positive don’t have any of them?
Why are they insisting on vulnerable children being sent in with the threat of fines for non-attendance?
Why did they spend the summer pretending that unions were blocking the re-opening of schools and then paying social media influencers to say schools are safe, without taking any steps to ensure that they are?
Why did they announce a Plan B of rotas for schools in tiers of lockdown and then never actually use it?
Why did they say that an effective test and trace system was vital to opening schools and then also say they were surprised when demand increased when schools opened?
Why do they keep saying schools are a priority and that be the only thing they say about keeping them open?

And where the fuck is Gavin Williamson?

Yanbu. The answer to your questions is that the government are crooked, but then we knew that before the last election and people still voted them in. My sister is a tory voter and has pretty much said she knows Boris lies but doesn't mind. What can you do?

100%
Herd immunity for the kids
Shit for the parents and teachers
I certainly wouldnt choose to rely on this lot
Having space in hospital for me

And where the fuck is Gavin Williamson?

That's a good question. I suppose they're so busy pretending that schools are fine, there's no need to wheel him out is there? If they did, it would suggest that things in schools were not fine ...

I’m hoping Gav is working out whether our kids have to sit GCSEs next year so that he can tell us soon.

Scotland made their announcement ages ago, Countess, it can’t take that long to do a search and replace for National 5 with GCSE.

@Dustballs

And where the fuck is Gavin Williamson?

That's a good question. I suppose they're so busy pretending that schools are fine, there's no need to wheel him out is there? If they did, it would suggest that things in schools were not fine ...

You make a good point.

And I completely agree the situation in schools is being covered up.

Don’t understand why schools are complicit in this. I know local paper seems to struggle to get hold of stories. School down the road sent home a year group - nothing in press or on school website.

Some people would argue why do people need to know as well. People do seem happy at being lied to. I know people need schools so are looking the other way but this isn’t sustainable, long term the input from schools is going to be so much less - in terms of numbers of students and numbers of hours. Not to mention people losing their lives as a result.

Somehow they’ve successfully made rationally believing schools drive infection an extreme view. It’s beyond weird and very worrying.

Sorry bad grammar, very zzzzz!

Very worrying that this is being kept quiet. It now seems that the government don’t even want to know the situation with not tracking and tracing school related positive tests, instructing anyone in schools not to use tracking app and heard rumours that they are not even going to test children anymore.

It’s either not wanting to admit they was wrong about schools being safe or they’ve now decided to go down the herd immunity route.

I believe this except I don’t think they ever gave up on the herd immunity strategy but they didn’t have the public support for it in March.

The more I read on here the more I realise more people are now open to the idea of herd immunity...

Except as we don’t even know if there is any real lasting immunity from Covid it’s quite a big gamble isn’t it?

Unfortunately I think schools will go back to remote learning at some point in this academic year if things get overwhelmed.

I’m not looking forward to it. Mine are too young to be able to independently do remote learning.

There is a new mitigation to make schools safe though, hopefully cases should start to drop drastically very soon...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8826777/Schoolchildren-banned-singing-happy-birthday-classrooms-fears-spread-Covid-19.html

UsForThem co-chair Christine Brett, from Cambridge, said banning singing is one of the many detrimental measures being taken at schools

Fucksake. Replace ‘detrimental measures’ with ‘safety measures’ you bunch of self-obsessed whiners.

Round here all cases in schools are reported in local paper and im sure the local facebook groups will be quick to add on as well
Prob report unjs as 400 or large numbers are getting it in one setting
Not sure such huge numbers are getting in one school

And are all those children and teachers in bham off with covid or because in bubbles self isolating ?

@2X4B523P

Very worrying that this is being kept quiet. It now seems that the government don’t even want to know the situation with not tracking and tracing school related positive tests, instructing anyone in schools not to use tracking app and heard rumours that they are not even going to test children anymore.

It’s either not wanting to admit they was wrong about schools being safe or they’ve now decided to go down the herd immunity route.

Hmmm you could be right. Young children are vaccinated against flu precisely to protect vulnerable and elderly people.

Schools were given advice to prepare for a range of possible measures in the event of increasing cases, which appears to have been completely forgotten under the new guidance "full time schooling at all costs."

Ironically it's also set out in three tiers, which logically should be somehow connected to the wider tiers for the community but are never mentioned.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-schools-can-plan-for-tier-2-local-restrictions/how-schools-can-plan-for-tier-2-local-restrictions

That guidance says tier 3 = only vulnerable pupils to be in at secondary schools, right? Whereas that's not being mentioned on any news discussions of the restrictions about to come in in areas of high infection rates. The announcement this morning will give a new, watered down definition of tier 3 I guess, or fudge it entirely.

I am so frustrated and upset about this.

The rush from politicians and many parents to get schools open full time whatever the cost to public health was a big error.

I blame the government, but I'm also annoyed with all the parents who refused to think it through. The threads on here in summer were full of zealots.

The worst bit is fines for non-attendance. That's an actual disgrace. Again many fellow parents said they were necessary.

Yep. Our first case (staff) was reported in the local press but the student cases haven't. The school has announced it but promptly flooded the FB page with good news stories, presumably to bury the bad news.

Really looking forward to another week of wondering where the next case will pop up.

Round here all cases in schools are reported in local paper

How would you know, though? Our local paper has reported cases in a number of schools but not mine (a big well-known school which they would certainly cover if they knew about it).

Why not just worry about your own schools?

Why does every case need to end up in the local paper? Surely the effected families are notified. Why does the whole town need to know? Its not like its a surprise there's cases in the community. Are we going to continue losing our mind over every case?

There isn’t a mechanism for the government to suppress news in this way though. We don’t have a state owned media. I’m not arguing he schools numbers look worrying but I promise you we aren’t being somehow ordered not to report them.

@Remmy123

Why not just worry about your own schools?

Like Boris? Eton still testing every 2 wks.

You wonder whether more and more school staff are beginning to feel more comfortable and safe as the term goes on though. In many schools things appear more normal.

Teachers have almost instant power to close a school at the moment if they weren't happy. A large group of teachers could easily 'have symptoms' and then have to take 2-3 days off waiting for results (seems to be average for test time round here). A large enough group would close the school as in March when there were very few teachers.

Equally, if that self test happened to not be competed very well and was inconclusive...well the school would pretty much be done until half term as they could unfortunately not make a second test in time and then isolate for the 14 days.

I'm not advocating that but if teachers were really worried on an individual/group level it would be easy to do and could receive no blame.

I also think you may see more of it going into the latter stages of next half term as the typical termly pressure builds.

I agree - I am the (paused) shielded parent of a sixth former.

The school is definitely playing fast and loose with elements of the guidelines (not as far as a breach, but definitely not living up to their rhetoric)

Fortunately all the pupils swap info between themselves on SM, so I did know when a close contact was being tested (and could isolate from DD until results known)

But that was the pupils enjoying gossip, knowing DD has a mother living with leukaemia, and looking out for her and making sure she knows,

I asked the school for individual, confidential, early warning if they knew if pupils close to DD being off got a test. They say they can’t, even when explained that the information would allow us to take additional domestic precautions.

I am very glad that the pupils themselves are so community minded in looking out for those with vulnerabilities (themselves of at home)