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?

Also; what's the purple line and the lime green line on this?

10 lines; key gives 8 age ranges..

None of this is being reported in the local press.

I said upthread; it's being played down by the LAs and school leaders.

Who will have had directives from the dfe and PHE.

Partly safeguarding personal info, I'm certain also to try to keep anxiety down.

But it's not honest.

@NeurotrashWarrior

I spotted that Nobel. Wonder what the heat map would look like with better age ranges?

Yes, how can Y7-11 have the second highest infection rate and yet not feature at all on the heat map? Are the 11-15 year old increasing rates being dragged down by the lower than average rates (and falling) in the primary age range, making the overall 0-15 age range look a calm yellow?

They keep talking about schools and then not presenting the data in a schools-based way.

So there are more cases in 0-4 age range than 5-9?
So primaries are doing OK then?

@NeurotrashWarrior

Also; what's the purple line and the lime green line on this?

10 lines; key gives 8 age ranges..

I'm to hazard a guess at 70-79 and 80+

@NeurotrashWarrior

None of this is being reported in the local press.

I said upthread; it's being played down by the LAs and school leaders.

Who will have had directives from the dfe and PHE.

Partly safeguarding personal info, I'm certain also to try to keep anxiety down.

But it's not honest.

If parents knew how dire the situation is, panic would set in and children would be taken out of school.

I get it, I certainly downplayed the situation to my class (back in March I remember telling them it’s not big deal, WHO haven’t declare a pandemic - so how they can trust me now...) but I’m annoyed because so many parents are like ‘it’s safe, my kids need an education, I need to work’ ad infinitum. But the way schools are ‘reporting’ the cases, how very little information is being shared (it’s almost a black mark on my school that we have Covid cases and I’ve shared this with MN but I’ve not told my friends or acquaintances because they might think ‘she’s next and my first instinct is to protect my school) is meant to obfuscate.

I expect this will carry on for months but if anyone believes education is being achieved please don’t fool yourself. This is one sick ass experiment by the government. They’ve gotten everything wrong but apparently they’re succeeding in education.

I want to see year 6 data. Because anecdotally that's where the cases are in primaries locally. If transmission is down to height, adolescence and behaviour then year 6 are no different to year 7 really.

So primaries are doing OK then?

Much better than secondaries, it looks like.

Lots of questions could be asked as to why, but no one seems interested in discussing it.

As far as I remember, less than half parents send their children to school in June when there was a choice. I guess if the choice is given now, the proportion will be even lower.
Our schools takeup rate for y1 and y6 only was about 50%. However, it seems the main reason for this was siblings in other years which made school run a pain i the arse, rather than fear of the virus or anything. Mind, our school seems t have a HUGE number of kids with siblingd there too, seems really rare for them to be an only child, maybe 1 in 10 or something, is this usual?!

Thanks 3

10-19 is a silly group. It includes the freshers.

Kingsley, I too get it. But it's a false sense of security, gives the wrong idea and risks staff too.

My neighbour genuinely thought under 5s couldnt get it, till the nursery bubble closed.

Which is concerning as potentially, any slight cough or fever her toddler has had she would have dismissed as not Covid.

Key stage data would be very interesting.

@phlebasconsidered

I want to see year 6 data. Because anecdotally that's where the cases are in primaries locally. If transmission is down to height, adolescence and behaviour then year 6 are no different to year 7 really.

My son is 12 yo, stands five feet nine and wears size twelve shoes.

He’s taller than me but is classed as a child.

He’s not a spreader.

Really?

@Foobydoo

Totally agree with everything you have said. I am so angry. It didn't need to be like this. They had months to come up with a plan for school, yet did nothing. Honestly it feel like they came in late on day and scrawled a quick plan for the return of schools on the back of a fag packet, it is so poor.

There is a mixture of apathy from people and desperation from parents who desperately need school in order to work. The unions have also gone very quiet. It is bizarre.

I can't believe that all political parties are totally ignoring the issue along with the whole mainstream press. Even over on the data thread which has been so informative and often ahead of the experts, you get rudely shouted down if you mention concerns about schools.

I don't understand it. Yes children need to be in school, no one wants them closed for months again but this head down, business as usual, nothing to see hear policy is down right dangerous.

This

Our cases have been y6.

But I seem to know a lot of local reception bubbles have closed.

:58noblegiraffe

So primaries are doing OK then?

Much better than secondaries, it looks like.

Lots of questions could be asked as to why, but no one seems interested in discussing it.

I'm not sure how secondaries could replicate the small, secure bubbles of primaries. Pretty much impossible. It's pretty easy for small primaries to limit bubbles to 30 with no mixing. And primary age children can't really socialise without parents facilitating it I guess.

We know cases in 10-19 year olds are rocketing (2nd graph)

That graph seems to show 5-9s basically don't spread at all? I wonder if this actually IS the case.

Mind, I read a huge article the other day about how a lot of covid spread is superspreader events rather than individual people infecting a few others. And apparently kids are extremely unlikely to be these superspreaders. Seemed to be a lot of science behind this theory too. So I guess that would make sense.

Unfortunately, the article also claimed our way of contact tracing is doomed to fail. As we are doing it 'the wrong way around'. Contacting people after a possible contact with an infected person, is nowhere near as effective as backtracing infected persons steps to where they got infected, and looking for clusters (this is how Japan/Hong Kong/South Korea/Others brought their numbers down, aparently). Apparently. Something like that. LONG article here if anyone is interested.

inference-review.com/article/on-the-futility-of-contact-tracing

Apologies, wrong link (but same thing really)

Right link was

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/

For the long detailed version thats referenced all the way through

It's not funny at all but if I don't at least half laugh I'll scream.
The parents group for the nursery my DC attends has gone mad tonight. Parents stating they were told children were safe in schools, that schools were covid secure & that children don't get Covid...

God knows who they've been listening too
It's finally hitting home now the youngest in your school (nursery part of the school) are now housebound for the isolation period due to a child testing positive.
Strange, we've had cases in another local (private) nursery & primary school. Didn't matter then as it wasn't affecting their DC - despite 1 being half a mile from the door of the nursery their DC attends. The private nursery provides before & after school care for both the school nursery & school!

That graph seems to show 5-9s basically don't spread at all? I wonder if this actually IS the case.

Yes, the line for 5-9 is weird, it pootles along matching the rest of the data then goes and does its own thing.

@noblegiraffe

That graph seems to show 5-9s basically don't spread at all? I wonder if this actually IS the case.

Yes, the line for 5-9 is weird, it pootles along matching the rest of the data then goes and does its own thing.

I wonder whether that coincides with the point in time where parents were hit with a campaign designed to encourage them not to get their children tested.

@NRatched
Mind, I read a huge article the other day about how a lot of covid spread is superspreader events rather than individual people infecting a few others. And apparently kids are extremely unlikely to be these superspreaders. Seemed to be a lot of science behind this theory too. So I guess that would make sense.

Was that the research that came out of India? That found that superspreader cases or events were responsible for the majority of infections but also found that children were absolutely involved in superspreader events.

My DC attend 3 different settings. 1 Nursery & 2 different Primary schools.
The amount of lettings, texts & emails sent home regarding not testing unless displaying 3 symptoms has been crazy. Especially as evidence is stating younger children if they do have symptoms tend to have different ones to the 'adult' ones.
We were told not to test if DC have a temperature if with symptoms of 'a stomach bug'.

[quote Iamnotthe1]@NRatched
Mind, I read a huge article the other day about how a lot of covid spread is superspreader events rather than individual people infecting a few others. And apparently kids are extremely unlikely to be these superspreaders. Seemed to be a lot of science behind this theory too. So I guess that would make sense.

Was that the research that came out of India? That found that superspreader cases or events were responsible for the majority of infections but also found that children were absolutely involved in superspreader events.[/quote]
Not just India, loads of places seem to be showing the same thing. Unsure on the kids part, but that the huge majority of spread is by 10% or so of infected people.

I wonder whether that coincides with the point in time where parents were hit with a campaign designed to encourage them not to get their children tested

Was there really such campaign? 5-9 yr old are all in school, and certainly my dc school at least would not allow a child showing symptoms of a cough or fever back in school without a negative test result and often for their siblings within the school also. I cant imagine many schools allowed children back in who have shown symptoms without a negative test

There is also the possibility that in primary-aged children the symptoms are more likely to present differently, or are more likely to be asymptomatic, or parents don't want to take them out of school to wait for a test. We would know if a child was coughing really badly, but not if they'd had a temperature the night before. There is a lot of pressure to keep kids in schools if they have what looks like cold symptoms, which is understandable but there could be cases of Covid being missed.

Does the data show how many of each age group there are in the sample? It would be interesting to know how many children in this age range (and secondary) the data is based on.