A third of confirmed teacher cases of coronavirus were in north-west England at one point, according to data seen exclusively by the BBC”

[motherrunner]

I posted this in another thread but I actually think it deserves a thread of it’s own.

Worrying article on BBC this morning: www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54695618

This is what we teachers are really concerned about - the disparity of continued education. I’m in a Tier 2 area and my school have had 4 year closures since Sept. We are not unique - I don’t know a school in my city that has gone untouched. One school closed completely as over 20 teachers tested positive. This is just the first half term and anyone who works in a school know the real illnesses haven’t started yet. Going to be a tough year.

Not surprised at all Noble. It'll be Christmas by the time they take any action. Same with the 2021 GCSE arrangements, there will be indecisiveness yet again. The worst is them now doing PHE role when it comes to schools. I'm worried where this is going.

@Starlight101

I tweeted Gav to ask where the fuck he is. Turns out he’s swanning maskless around an FE college. He’s probably the most incompetent of the lot of them and that’s saying something. Utter tosser

Dickhead. All these ‘school’ threads would be unnecessary if we had a competent government.They are flying on the seat of their pants hoping people are either too stupid to see what’s going on or things will miraculously fall into place.

Transparency and leadership. If they told us, we are proceeding with A but if A fails we have B and explain the details to schools to pass on to parents etc...

Vote here on whether Gav should resign www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4062477-Gavin-Williamson-Secretary-of-State-for-Education-should-resign?watched=1

What’s really hilarious about all of this, well it’s not but...

Two positive cases in school (one child, one adult). Found out almost a week into half term. By which time many children, parents and staff had travelled, gone on holiday, visited family, etc, etc.

We are in real trouble come the end of November.

The rate per 100k is for 7 days so the rate above is more like 2800.

How how how can they force vulnerable teachers to go in - or any teachers really? That is staggeringly awful.

@IloveJKRowling

The rate per 100k is for 7 days so the rate above is more like 2800.

How how how can they force vulnerable teachers to go in - or any teachers really? That is staggeringly awful.

Truly awful

That rate isn't correct, although the correct one isn't great either.

The 2,028 is, almost certainly, the amount of Teachers off on that snapshot day of Oct 16 with a positive test. It is not going to be "the number of teachers who tested positive that day" - otherwise teachers would have accounted for more than 14% of ALL tests that day.

Assuming the 2,208 teachers are under 10 day quarantine, that's an average of 221 positive tests a day, or 1,547 a week.

There are 450k teachers in England, so that's a ratio of 343 per 100,000 over the week. Compared to the England overall rate for the week Oct 9-16 of 177. So almost twice the England rate as a whole.

Is it really that surprising/awful that teachers have a higher figure? It’s surely blindingly obvious that, simply by virtue of not working at home/being retired/unemployed and therefore being out in the community that teachers would be a higher risk than “average”, that average includes a decent chunk of people who barely leave the house. I suspect they have double the average risk of other contagious diseases as well. Simply being above or double the average doesn’t necessarily make it an unacceptable risk.

How do teachers compare to rates in other public facing sectors would be much more useful to know. I’d also really love to know how those teachers were split between types of schools and settings.

Is it really that surprising/awful that teachers have a higher figure?

I suppose that depends on how much has been done to mitigate the risk. Presumably dentists and so on have a much higher risk of exposure than others, which is why they have changed their working practices to mitigate the risk. It's a bit different when you aren't able to do that, like teachers. Imagine how it would sound if dentists were working as normal and we just shrugged off their additional risk.

@Triangularbubble

Is it really that surprising/awful that teachers have a higher figure? It’s surely blindingly obvious that, simply by virtue of not working at home/being retired/unemployed and therefore being out in the community that teachers would be a higher risk than “average”, that average includes a decent chunk of people who barely leave the house. I suspect they have double the average risk of other contagious diseases as well. Simply being above or double the average doesn’t necessarily make it an unacceptable risk.

How do teachers compare to rates in other public facing sectors would be much more useful to know. I’d also really love to know how those teachers were split between types of schools and settings.

Yes it is awful. The return to school (secondary at least) was on the premise that teacher's would be 2metres apart and not at any higher risk. We knew this was a) not possible and b)not true. The only occupation where it was encouraged to be inside with 30 other people with no PPE.

Dentists is an interesting one. I had an appointment before which I was called twice to confirm I didn't have symptoms. Had to wait outside until my time. Mask on to go in. Temperature check. Obviously mask off for my check up. Mask on to go out.
My classroom is nothing like that!

The difference is going to be that dentists have to touch you and get close to lots of people's mouths. I really wouldn't want to be them (any time but especially now). Hairdressers, massage therapists etc also have precautions of masks, visors, PPE because they have to get close

The government argument would be that teachers don't get close. They can stay 2m away (or was that downgraded to 1m in fact?)

But the bus and taxi drivers still got it and I don't think they were up close and personal with customers a lot. It's more likely that they were in confined spaces for a long tome and hence masks mandatory on public transport.

You really would think the same would apply for schools.

I’m not necessarily arguing there shouldn’t be mitigation for teachers (although I think there’s a balance, clearly no one is going to be entirely “safe”), and I’m not shrugging anything off, I just don’t find it remotely surprising, shocking or necessarily wrong that they are in the riskier half of the population, given the less risky half includes vast numbers of people who either aren’t going anywhere (working at home, are retired, are not leaving by their house until there’s a vaccine) and also children, who probably are catching it we just don’t know about it because the testing criteria for children are daft and lots are asymptomatic. Who did people think was in the riskier half of the population?! But someone has to be in the riskier half, by definition.

The comparison with dentists is absurd, no teacher is doing aerosol generating procedures leaning over a child’s mouth during a regular lesson!

My point was more about the reception than the actual dentist!

A year 10 girl sneezed right on my face in the corridor in my first week back. Don’t know if that technically counts as an aerosol generating procedure though

The comparison with dentists is absurd, no teacher is doing aerosol generating procedures leaning over a child’s mouth during a regular lesson!

Of course they're not, but schools were told they would be covid safe if they were to just do the hand washing and bubbles, and there would not be additional risk to teachers. That's not what the data seems to be saying. The point I was making is that the risk was acknowledged and mitigated for dentists (and transport workers, health care staff, etc) whereas this wasn't the case for schools, because there was a fishy narrative about "children not spreading" which now seems to be debunked by the data.

@TaxTheRatFarms

A year 10 girl sneezed right on my face in the corridor in my first week back. Don’t know if that technically counts as an aerosol generating procedure though

It's not really a full day in KS1 if a child doesn't sneeze in your face!

@TaxTheRatFarms

A year 10 girl sneezed right on my face in the corridor in my first week back. Don’t know if that technically counts as an aerosol generating procedure though

I work in an SEN school, very hands on and regularly come into contact with every kind of bodily fluids plus solids

So true Barbie222 (not envy!)

Pretty sure on the occupational Risk of Infection charts , SEN teachers , nursery workers and TAs are right up near the top, as it goes. Behind careworkers and health workers, obviously but ahead of nearly every other job.

Yep, here's primary in the yellow circle. Secondary was a lot lower on this chart though. It would be good to see how the infections in teachers are split given that far less primary children are testing positive.

My own theory is that no parent of primary gets past one test with each child before they'd chew their own arm off rather than do it again!

In the Detailed document published for Northern Ireland, 42% of primary related cases were staff and 21% of secondary.

61% of primary "clusters" were a single case, vs 29% of secondary.

I would be interested to see the overlap of single case and staff case, to see what the level out outbreaks that didn't involve children was (in primary.) of course, that might be because the kids had it, but never presented with any symptoms so weren't tested. ONS random sampling has UK primary incidence low though. Secondary is a different story!

What's interesting about that occupational hazard report is that it is based a US survey of occupations, asking them "how physically close to other people are you when you perform your job" and "how often does your current job require you to be exposed to disease or infection".

So it's not unfortunately based on any data about infections for any disease, and it predates Covid as it was conducted in 2019. It's based on US teachers (and other occupations) essentially self reporting on their feelings about exposure.

I suspect a similar UK study conducted today might look quite different. And still not sort the lack of solid data problem.

It's about general Risk of Infection, though patricia so I mentioned it in response to the person who suggested teachers never encountered any hazards or risks. It isn't meant to be Covid specific.

It is also worth noting that all the jobs higher than teaching on there have PPE and some have rigorous SD and other measures.