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?

How many of you know teachers and pupils who have caught the virus in this current wave, then died?

Because I’m struggling to work out whether we are fucking over the economy to save lives, or to prevent people getting a virus that ultimately will not kill them.

How many of you know teachers and pupils who have caught the virus in this current wave, then died?

This is not the point of the thread. Nice try, though.

Because I’m struggling to work out whether we are fucking over the economy to save lives, or to prevent people getting a virus that ultimately will not kill them

Best to ask the government.

Re-opening schools unsafely doesn’t just endanger pupils and teachers but the whole community.

Everyone should want to know what the real impact is on the rising infection and death rates.

@CountessFrog

How many of you know teachers and pupils who have caught the virus in this current wave, then died?

Because I’m struggling to work out whether we are fucking over the economy to save lives, or to prevent people getting a virus that ultimately will not kill them.

Yes, the daily death figures are just fine, absolutely fine, we should all just plough on

Besides which, there're haven't been any occupational stats released since April. The government wants people back in their workplaces at all costs. It wouldn't suit their agenda to reveal whether there remained high risk occupations or, indeed, whether the risk has increased for some.

And... for the last time... it isn't all about deaths!

Some good data on the rebooted number-one-pure-data-thread around school infections in France.

Their PH director has stated that school infections are the number one driver.

I would expect transmission in schools to dip this week and next because different parts of the country are in half term. It should buy some time.

@NeurotrashWarrior

Some good data on the rebooted number-one-pure-data-thread around school infections in France.

Their PH director has stated that school infections are the number one driver.

Could you post them here? I’m not sure that any discussion around school data is welcome on that thread apart from tables.

Re-opening schools unsafely doesn’t just endanger pupils and teachers but the whole community Exactly!

@IceCreamSummer20 I know I've just made that point there.

It's a lot of posts by fingon so hard to carry over. Mostly within the first 150 posts on the thread.

Sorry first 100 posts:

Pure data thread #1: Daily numbers, graphs, focused analyses www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/4057030-Pure-data-thread-1-Daily-numbers-graphs-focused-analyses

This is one:

"I have some data from 2nd October, I can do some digging for more recent results.

36% of all clusters are in academic settings. As of 2.10 that was 550 clusters. Of these, 46% were in collèges and lycées (so secondary), 33% at universities, 14% in primary schools (year 2 - year 6) and 7% in maternelles (nursery to year 1). That’s nursery in the school sense, not childcare nurseries.

In termes of how many people are positive per cluster : it’s an average of 5 for maternelle, 6 for primary, 7 for secondary, and 24 for university. Parties heavily linked to the uni numbers, whereas school numbers considered to be from, well, school.

For 10-19 year olds the rate was 125 per 100,000. (251 for 20-29, under 40 for 0-9).

www.bfmtv.com/societe/education/infographies-a-l-universite-en-primaire-au-lycee-ce-que-l-on-sait-des-clusters-en-milieu-scolaire_AD-202010020244.html "

We don't appear to be able to get data of that detail.

Thanks very much @NeurotrashWarrior much appreciated.

I found this interesting analysis on twitter today. Israel is one of the few countries we can look at to see how a 2nd lockdown fared, and it worked much better than the first. It pushed down cases, death rates, hospitalisations much quicker.

Why? This is the analysts (Eran Segal) opinion of course, however he cites closing schools because of high spreading potential and mask wearing were perhaps the key?

For 10-19 year olds the rate was 125 per 100,000. (251 for 20-29, under 40 for 0-9). That is significant, 125 per 100,000 in secondary is high enough for the assertion that schools are low risk to be false.

I know that a third of ALL clusters in France are in schools or Universities, but did not know what that meant. This is good data - I’d like the same for the UK too but also from week to week.

Also I do think that the term ‘driver’ needs to be clarified as it is key. We are told that schools are not ‘drivers’ however it is only a detailed contact tracing that can clarify this (which must go beyond looking at 2metres, but to find ‘sources’ and where transmission happened and when). We cannot therefore rule out schools being ‘drivers’ without this kind of detailed contact tracing.

This point is crucial. Much of the evidence for schools not being drivers is derived from studies over the summer in the UK and elsewhere where community transmission was low, school numbers low

I guess it's a little chicken and egg as the infection comes into the school community from elsewhere. But then it has multiple and higher chances to spread back in to the community via pupils.

And it's possible for children to be infectious within class, infect others who take it home and for that not to be communicated back to that close contact community after a good few days.

If people can become themselves symptomatic after 3-4 days and infectious the couple of days before, they can pass it on to may others outside school at home or the weekend unknowingly unless restrictions reduce that considerably.

The U.K. government keeps saying most of spread is in homes and families; many / most? homes have children and young people.

Not sure if you’ve seen this:

www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-is-creeping-into-europes-schools-11602581400

Good article

They ahve literally been gathering granular data for MONTHS, year group by year group

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/928749/Weekly_COVID-19_and_Influenza_Surveillance_Graphs_W43_FINAL.pdf

Published for the first time today , just as the numbers begin to flatten...

Thanks @Piggywaspushed The blue line for 10 - 19 year olds is the highest in many regions!

The numbers did significantly increase since schools started surely. Am I reading these graphs right? Why have they just published them now I wonder.

Because there’s no threat of a circuit breaker argument being made now, Icecream