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?

@neveradullmoment99

The point is we have no idea how many parents and families are isolating. There must be loads if there is no mixing between households.

Well you'd know if half the class was missing due to isolating as a result of a parent testing positive. Attendance figures would be helpful to ascertain how many pupils were off for 2 weeks because of a positive test in the family that would show a better idea of how much the children spread it asymptomatically

Well true but if children aren't spreading it then why do they have to wear a mask in a supermarket?

@neveradullmoment99

Well true but if children aren't spreading it then why do they have to wear a mask in a supermarket?

Primary age children don't and more recently in the thread the discussion was about the low levels in children 5-9

And why does the WHO recommend masks for 12 and over?

And why was mask-wearing in schools not reviewed when the govt increased compulsory use in other places?

Primary age children don't and more recently in the thread the discussion was about the low levels in children 5-9

They absolutely do here!

My son who is 8 has to wear one in all the shops, supermarkets, everywhere but school!

The other major flaw is the delegation of rules to teachers.
Each teacher has a different attitude, priority, view of covid. With different risk factors and knowledge.
I've seen teaches very hot on hand gel into the classroom, but then shuts all the windows and has dc in groups, doing group led activities with shared cards.
I've seen again teachers tell student to wear their mask in corridors but again, complains of a cold room and shuts doors and windows?.
The point of fresh air needs to be rammed home! And if Windows are shut during lessons s, fine but Windows and doors must be opened to air rooms at break!!
It should not be left to teachers discretion because they are responsible for the health of the dc and other adults in the room.

We can all be left to the whims and personal predictions of the teachers.

With such rubbish access to tests, how can they be sure what's going on in school?
I'm sure dp are lying.. Or glossing over symptoms and as pp said, it presents differently in dc.

I understand the primary dilemma, but why can't secondary go blended?

@Autumngoldleaf agree on this. There's more and more evidence to suggest the virus is aerosolised. And duration and concentration of viral load affects how many people are infected in a setting and how severely. There's very little evidence that severe cases are infected by touching a surface. If someone is, they're likely to have a mild case or be asymptomatic. The over emphasis now in hand washing and sanitising and neglect of ventilation, masks needs to be addresssed. Van Tam touched on it earlier when talking about the three 'C's' Japan are talking about. My dcs school have made a big issue about regularly cleaning and disinfecting the school, but never mentioned space and ventilation. I had to email them to check they were bothering to ventilate spaces.

I understand the primary dilemma, but why can't secondary go blended?

And if primaries are really less affected, then there’s definitely an argument for treating them differently.

But the data needs to be available and clear.

If I wanted to hide infection rates in schools, I reckon I’d have done exactly what Van-Tam did and lump primary and lower secondary together and chuck the rest into uni stats. Primary and secondary average each other out and the upper secondary can be blamed on freshers.

Alpha

I wish more parents like you emailed settings to ask about ventilation because we get complaints from students about them being cold.

I went out to a restaurant the other day, our first since July and alcohol gel was on the table, lots of info about rigorous cleaning, but every window was shut, it became really stuffy. When I asked for one to be opened, they did it a tiny way and another customer immediately drew a scarf around herself and started to stage shiver.

Messages are totally diluted and lost.

In Bolton and Manchester every case is reported in the local news and regularly updated, there is a list of every school affected and which year group.

No secrets here www.cardiffnewsroom.co.uk/releases/c25/24955.html. These updates are available weekly and school lets you know if a bubble has to isolate and whether it is due to a staff or pupil positive test.

The only way I know how many staff and students are positive in my school is by comparing notes with other teachers. We are only informed if a student in our class goes off. We have had 16 cases (that I know about) and 4 have been reported in our local paper.

To those saying they have up to date access to data on a local level, it's important to remember that you don't know what you don't know. Without confirmation from every school, it's impossible to know for certain that those figures are correct or accurate.

We will never get a valid set of data for children because we aren't testing enough of them. We know their symptoms are different, particularly younger children, but we don't recognise those symptoms as being test-worthy. We know they have a higher number of asymptomatic cases which, of course, we don't find out about because we aren't testing them.

@neveradullmoment99

Primary age children don't and more recently in the thread the discussion was about the low levels in children 5-9

They absolutely do here!

They don't in England.
Anyway I was referring to PP saying 90% of a class could be asymptomatic and we'd never know, I'm just saying we'd absolutely know if so many were infected at that rate by the amount of people they would inevitably spread it too.

Yes, indeed : and as cited yesterday it is spreading through age groups. Those 70+s are picking it up form community spread. it is ridiculously disingenuous to exclude children form having a role in that in households but not in schools.

Sorry, meant other way round!

The reason why a PP was saying that it could be up to 90% of positive covid cases that are asymptomatic is because that was found at the University of Nottingham, where they have tested all pupils on more than one occasion. The rate of infection was very high, and up to 90% of those who tested positive had no symptoms at all.

Two things: first, there is no reason not to trust the data. In some cases, you can have a false negative if the viral load isn't high enough but it's unusual to have false positive.

Secondly, many scientists are saying that covid positive people who have no symptoms are less likely to transmit the virus, as they don't cough. That's even lower if there are measures in place such as face masks, hand gels, social distancing.

We will not know how many children are asymptomatic in a class unless all the pupils get tested on a regular basis. I'd like to see a study where they do that: test every child every two weeks to have an accurate representation of the asymptomatic cases within a school age group.

Also, as social distancing is more difficult in primary schools, and pupils are not wearing face coverings, I wonder what the R number would be.

You can bet your bottom dollar that a drop in children seeking tests will be used as positive data at some point to suggest that they don't have it, rather than that the government spin machine managed to dissuade testing.

It is honestly a huge relief to society that young people, in the main, don't suffer with covid. But that is also the concern : clever little virus with its asymptomatic spreaders to the vulnerable.

If we could guarantee that no young people passed it on to anyone older , or vulnerable, no one would be worried.

I don't even know if there are cases in my own school!
People citing local papers have clearly google searched. the readership of online local papers is tiny. My DH's private school has had 4 cases and has not been reported anywhere. Not all LAs do share info. The one example given upthread was an exception. The only school local to me that has been reported (again only in online local paper) is one with 16 cases. (11 children, 5 staff)

They are doing that study in Brsitol. One of the schools being used : guess what they found? Had to close it down for several days!

@QueenBlueberries

But what you're saying is contradictory. You're saying on one hand that a large percentage of a class may be asymptomatic and therefore spreading it into the community. Then you're saying that asymptomatic people may not speed it very much.

The point is, if a class of 30 children were all spreading the virus asymptomatically, it would go straight to their parents, and this would not go unnoticed f it was happening on a large scale.

The point is, if a class of 30 children were all spreading the virus asymptomatically, it would go straight to their parents, and this would not go unnoticed f it was happening on a large scale

And all the teachers would be off

Parents absolutely demanded the full opening of schools. A look on MN will tell you that. And now, schools appear to be the no 1 priority to be kept open.

Schools have become a blind spot. We cannot control cases with schools open, no matter what other lockdown procedures are implemented. There are 3 confirmed cases in our school. Nothing is shut, not even one bubble. A handful of people are isolating and that's it.

The large amount of pupils off in my primary school hasn’t been reported anywhere.
Neither has the 20+ cases in my dd2 school.
The first case was mentioned in the local paper at dd1 school but as of yesterday the other 7 cases hadn’t been.
In dd2 school they are just trying to send home close contacts. In the last two days we have had messages about children sat at the back of the bus upstairs , then the middle of the bus , then rows downstairs as more cases appear.
At dd1 school they only sent home children close to the positive contact two days before the positive test. The year group has had 4 more cases since then.
We absolutely need someone who is collating all this data and also some sort of testing in schools or this is going to continue to spiral.