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?

Anecdotally - OH is Mr Covid for a large educational setting:

Where a setting can determine pretty precisely who the close contacts are, and where their other Covid protocols are good, only close contacts now get sent home.

However, where schools can't quickly provide data about close contacts or where there are obvious other occasions for mixing across a year group without SD, then the whole year group has to go.

Maybe it would help if they kept Y10-13 in full time

From the data it looks like those are the more problematic years, covid-wise. Maybe they could come up with some Nightingale solution to have them in, but spread out more.

Secondary should close and go remote. No reason it can’t work,

Unfortunately there are kids without internet or computer access at home. It would be an unfair playing field, especially with exams next year.

@Harrysblondie

Are we talking about the same Carl Heneghan? You know the one that forced the Gov to look at the dreadful full way the NHS was documenting stats?

Lack of evidence based thinking? His whole career is based on evidence based medicine and studies

Sorry if that doesn’t fit with your narrative. Not all of us think the sky is about to fall in

Carl Heneghan is a GP by training (nothing wrong with that). He does do Evidence based medicine, but he is not an epidemiologist,

He has been collaborating with Professor Gupta (a zoologist) and Karol Sikora (whose status is a bit unclear) and unfortunately the 3 of them seem to occupy a strange and tenuous on the right with respect to covid, that is indeed a bit distant from mainstream medical and scientific thinking, Prof Viner, who is an eminent paediatrician, seems to be in that corner too,

I think that this letter from Prof Greenhalgh (another academic GP) and other medical signatories in the BMJ, represents the bulk of medical opinion rather better.

"We strongly support... continuing efforts to suppress the virus .... rather than adopt ....segmentation or shielding the vulnerable until “herd immunity”

blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/09/21/covid-19-an-open-letter-to-the-uks-chief-medical-officers/

Where a setting can determine pretty precisely who the close contacts are, and where their other Covid protocols are good, only close contacts now get sent home.

However, where schools can't quickly provide data about close contacts or where there are obvious other occasions for mixing across a year group without SD, then the whole year group has to go.

See, what bothers me about this is that our Head would describe our school as being in the former category - we’ve only had individuals rather than year groups sent home - but in reality it is absolutely in the latter.

@IceCreamAndCandyfloss

Secondary should close and go remote. No reason it can’t work, the teachers could follow their usual timetable but just online. Primary could go part time.

Better to tweak education as it can be caught up on then the health of everyone.

Theres many reasons why it can't work! Not every child has a stable home life or access to the Internet or device to be able to do this and theres probably more children out there in these situations than you think. Just because that idea might work for your dc and your family circumstances doesn't mean it suits all!

@HipTightOnions

Where a setting can determine pretty precisely who the close contacts are, and where their other Covid protocols are good, only close contacts now get sent home.

However, where schools can't quickly provide data about close contacts or where there are obvious other occasions for mixing across a year group without SD, then the whole year group has to go.

See, what bothers me about this is that our Head would describe our school as being in the former category - we’ve only had individuals rather than year groups sent home - but in reality it is absolutely in the latter.

In my DS secondary school there has only been 2 cases (so far) on both occasions only close contacts sent home. They were different year groups and at different times ( the 1st in the first week of term 2nd about 2 weeks ago) so the cases couldn't be linked. If it was wrong to send home only close contacts then you'd of expected other cases to have shown in their year groups. Of course some may have had it asymptomatically but its not unreasonable to think at least 1 other pupil would have shown symptoms.

You can’t have cases continue to rise because schools are in full time because of vulnerable children. I hate to say it but, before this, not many people gave a stuff about vulnerable children outside of school time. What about them during the school holidays? No one campaigns to have the free school meals continued through holidays in normal times. I have seen first hand as a teacher the hardships these children suffer but they can’t be used as an excuse for schools to carry on as they are. Vulnerable children should be kept in school. They should be given the tech promised by the government (although some parents would sadly sell it) And more more pumped into supporting them both now and when it isn’t a pandemic. For other children, they need to be back in school In a more sustainable way, which may be blended learning. The government needs to spend money to support schools and working parents to do this.

I've heard of 2 separate cases today following school bubbles sent home to isolate. Year 8 child isolating due to being in contact with a positive case at school was asymptomatic however their parent who was previously shielding has 10 days later tested positive having continuous cough and now chest infection. The parent has not been anywhere outside of their home. Another child at a different school in y9 again had no symptoms but was sent home following a positive case in their bubble and now 3 members of their household have tested positive after developing symptoms. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who is spreading the infection and highlights how difficult this is to control.

@sunflowers246

We’ve identified our priority pupils and will keep them in school full time in their own bubble (as we did during lockdown).

@Worriedmum999 in some deprived areas the majority of the school could be deemed as socially vulnerable

3littlewords:
"Not every child has a stable home life or access to the Internet or device to be able to do this and theres probably more children out there in these situations than you think.
Just because that idea might work for your dc and your family circumstances doesn't mean it suits all!"

Agree. So if everyone's situation is different, let parents weigh up the risks and decide whether to send their child to school or not. There would be more room in classrooms if absence fines were removed.

Dcs school has 2 teachers off with positive covid tests and 2 year groups off. Had a year group off 2 weeks ago too.

@NotQuiteHere

3littlewords: "Not every child has a stable home life or access to the Internet or device to be able to do this and theres probably more children out there in these situations than you think. Just because that idea might work for your dc and your family circumstances doesn't mean it suits all!"

Agree. So if everyone's situation is different, let parents weigh up the risks and decide whether to send their child to school or not. There would be more room in classrooms if absence fines were removed.

Totally agree with you although I think those who have chosen to learn at home are only able to do so on the proviso that work is completed to a good standard otherwise its back to school, ie parents who aren't arsed whether their kids do school work or not are made to send them in. Although practically this is all just a pipe dream as teachers are already stretched to the limit without having to teach online and in the classroom at the same time. Theres no easy answer to it all .

Surely they just can't continue to force us to send them in under these circumstances (and I won't engage with any comments saying "deregister" as I've had enough of the disgusting Ableism). I'm just in constant disbelief at this situation. I'm desperately hoping parents will be given more choices/flexibility after half term and hoping the DC's don't bring it home before then. I'm so stressed and worried all of the time .

I personally can’t believe they expect the exams to go ahead next year. That’ll change.

@Beebityboo

Surely they just can't continue to force us to send them in under these circumstances (and I won't engage with any comments saying "deregister" as I've had enough of the disgusting Ableism). I'm just in constant disbelief at this situation. I'm desperately hoping parents will be given more choices/flexibility after half term and hoping the DC's don't bring it home before then. I'm so stressed and worried all of the time .

It's completely nuts. Do sign the petition to ask them to stop fining/prosecuting parents for non-attendance: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/551740

Even KS1 SATS, the most pointless assessments of them all which could easily be cancelled and replaced by pure teacher assessment, are scheduled to go ahead. The government are completely blinkered about it all.

@NotQuiteHere

3littlewords: "Not every child has a stable home life or access to the Internet or device to be able to do this and theres probably more children out there in these situations than you think. Just because that idea might work for your dc and your family circumstances doesn't mean it suits all!"

Agree. So if everyone's situation is different, let parents weigh up the risks and decide whether to send their child to school or not. There would be more room in classrooms if absence fines were removed.

My school has definitely reached tipping point, where parents are keeping children off for safety. Most of my classes are bore only half full and the students are openly discussing if their parents plan to let the stay at home. An increasing number have “parents refuse to send in” as their code.

Would it not have made sense to have switched to blended learning, rather than closed entirely? I can’t say anything meaningful for those who are isolating because I am still teaching half classes. We have sent one whole year group home, but the time freed by doing that is now being used to cover the teachers who are isolating.

My area is not even on the watch list. Cases in my school are running at ten times the rate in the local community. I am convinced that the rate of spread is connected to both the closeness of contacts (making sen schools vulnerable) and the sheer size of the school. Mine is a very large comprehensive and I think those are being hit like cruise ships. We all said- a bubble of over 300 students is not a bubble at all.

I posted this on another thread as well. Head teacher (and several others replying) explains that DFE and PHE are telling schools not to bother reporting additional cases, and to deal with the issues themselves. (Ideally without sending many kids home)

This is part of the reason school responses to positive cases aren't consistent. It also means it's harder to pinpoint potential outbreaks within schools.

That is very concerning, for DC who were formerly shielding, all moderately vulnerable pupils, and (worst) those with ECV family members. Who are relying on prompt and proper notifications from school, so they know when there is need to isolate from their DC in the home.

Looks like they're being overlooked again, and living within a fractured household (with one or more person having no contact with the others) is considered acceptable enough that it can endure indefinitely, rather than just when there are cases in a specific school

That's a pretty shitty consequence, and really does mark the abandoning of the ECV. It's bad enough to expect them to run the risk of infection via schools (or be fined, or lose your DC's schooling as you have to dereg), but to remove the information which lets them know when risks are higher is just dreadful

@MarjorytheTrashHeap

Even KS1 SATS, the most pointless assessments of them all which could easily be cancelled and replaced by pure teacher assessment, are scheduled to go ahead. The government are completely blinkered about it all.

KS1 is already submitted as teacher assessed grades. The "End of Key Stage Tests" in Year Two are just there to inform the teacher's judgement. They are teacher marked and the results aren't reported unless parents request them.

Today, I should be teaching 3 lessons and 1 double. Of 100 students normally, I have 2 positive cases, 65 isolating and 33 due to attend. I am not certain how many of the 33 will show up. I also have a cover class, but one of the students in that class is marked as being positive, so I imagine that they just haven't got round to putting the surrounding students into isolation yet.

But yes, let's recommend schools stay open as long as they possibly can, so our children get a nice consistent education.

@Nellodee and

I am so frustrated with parents who due to intransigence and wishful thinking pushed the kids into this mess. I'm not a teacher, I'm just another parent, who wanted stable part-time school over this winter.

[quote PracticingPerson]@Nellodee and

I am so frustrated with parents who due to intransigence and wishful thinking pushed the kids into this mess. I'm not a teacher, I'm just another parent, who wanted stable part-time school over this winter.[/quote]
It's all starting to unravel just how teachers and school staff predicted. There's definitely a sense of foreboding made worse because of the lack of reporting. We know it is happening but we're just carrying on until when?