WHERE are people catching Covid?

[Summerfreeze]

I don't mean where in the country, I mean what settings? I know they lie a lot about it not spreading in schools but is there any data about where they are at least purporting that it's spreading?

My sister (a teacher) and my nephew and niece (another teacher) all caught it in school. Categorically from identified children. In my class (also a teacher) I had 2 cases both of whom then spread it to their families. Our TA also caught it. As the only place any of us have been apart from school is our own cars to get there, that makes it pretty obvious they caught it from school.

I would dearly love to be able to wear a mask but the DFE in their wisdom have declared them to be unnecessary in primary, despite the fact that my year 6 are adolescent and mostly as tall if not taller than me.

Maybe the many thousands I saw on the beach this summer all crowded next to each other. The town was packed solid all summer too.

No evidence suggesting people outdoors are spreading covid. Otherwise we'd have seen higher numbers much earlier after the protests and from thousands going to beaches in April/May

If you want to know how it's spread and how to avoid that, this is brilliant

english.elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html

Of course it’s not from people sitting on beaches. The case levels were basically falling or flat until September when the schools/unis went back!

Why on earth think it was a good idea to outsource track & trace to the private sector, when there is existing infrastructure that could have been expanded in the public sector.

They have wasted a shit ton of money (just in time for Brexit) and it doesn't even slightly work.

Being in an enclosed space with someone else breathing out covid for more than 15 min will put you at risk.
Esp without ventilation, a window open etc.

The thing is that because the government is insisting schools and universities remain in operation, we have fewer options of what else can remain open.
Does anyone remember Chris Whitty actually saying that, back in July in a Downing Street press conference where Boris was telling is how things would open up? He said it really bluntly-that we can't go back to normal because it will just spread quickly again, that whatever we open will be at the cost of something else opening and that we may have to close other things if we want you protect schools and universities.

It spreads everywhere-we are at the point again where we have to minimise as much contact between people in as many places as possible the things we have decided must remain open. A total lockdown- including schools, unis, colleges, no contact with anyone other than your household, shielding of most vulnerable, would do it faster (I am not advocating that, just saying).

I don't know why we are not closing takeaways and stopping anyone coming into or leaving the country.

It's fairly obvious now where highest risk situations are: anywhere people are together indoors for prolonged periods without masks - ie places where people eat or drink in the presence of others, and classrooms or workplaces where masks are not worn.

The school thing is interesting- in our town, many of the primary schools have lost a bubble due to 1 child testing positive, but in every case, everyone has gone home for 2 weeks then returned to school without other children who had been in class with that 1 positive child getting sick.

Normally, one child get a cold and is off school then within a few days, several others are sneezing/ unwell.

Obviously this is our towns experience and not data, but it does feel like its not spreading fast through school classes.

Given how infectious we are told it is, I would expect if one child had been in a class of 30 for 2/3 days, infectious before symptoms came out kept them at home, then at least another 5 or 6 would be showing symptoms within a week.

Which is good for those of us with school aged dcs. Just because they were in the same classroom as someone infected all day, doesn't mean they are going to bring it home.

Bristol University cases have surged. 1,600 positive cases according to local press reports.
It is lunacy bringing people together from all over the Country at Universities , sharing possibly different 'strains' of Covid.

I'm fairly certain it's peoples homes. No one is policing who is where and no one who is caught out is going to admit it are they? I work in a hospital last lockdown people were sticking their heads / hands through the window to strike their family member / meeting in large groups in the car park to meet up with mobile patients. The most memorable was 30 + people swearing up and down they lived in the same house as the patient.

It was absolutely awful and goes against everything I believe / was taught as a nurse. I sat with people as they died but it's not the same as family by a thousand miles. Unless their are gangs of police walking the streets looking for house parties the like it will just continue, people are fed up and now with the worry it will ruin Xmas people will rebel.

So care homes are still affected? That's where the majority of deaths are coming from! What is going on???

I have no idea how it is spreading but I do know that:

Both my young adults have worked through lockdown in large retail stores, neither of them know anyone at work who has had it.

We have visited numerous hospitality places for breakfast, coffees, meals/EOTHO, since they re-opened, both local to us (current T2) and on holiday in Yorkshire and Wales. I have also eaten out a few times with friends when it was allowed. Not once have we been contacted by T&T.

I'm not convinced universities are causing the spread into the wider community.

My friends DD in T3 uni travelled home (also T3) by train last weekend for her brothers birthday. They went out for a meal. The DD is very much a party animal and I would be amazed if she wasn’t going out in her uni city. Just one example of how it can be spread into wider community. I am sure she is not alone in not adhering to rules.

Friend is a HoD at our local sec school - 2000+ kids. Every single year group has been sent home at least once in the last half term. Her comment on lockdown/schools last night was that she really didn’t feel safe in school, and felt very stressed, but recognised the exam years, and probably Y10/12 need to be there.

The school lets years 10-13 out for lunch. Large crowds of teens wander into centre of small town and gather around local chippy and 2 supermarkets, no social distancing.

I can see why they don’t want to close schools and unis, but am not convinced that closing everything else but them will lower the numbers. Time will tell.

Both my kids go to school in a Tier 3 area and haven't had a broken bubble 🤞. Just a matter of time though. They are children of key workers though (mum & dad) so have been to school t though out both lockdowns.

When I say and I would be amazed if she wasn’t going out in her uni city - I obviously meant before T3 came into effect.

@Ilovemypantry student nurses / health care students were 'called up' as extra staff for the first wave. They were working. Probably the same this time. They are actually paying the government (via student loans) to put themselves at risk to bolster the care sector as there is just not enough of us. Our hospital fills up EVERY winter Oct -March and we put patients in repurposed offices / closed wards / turn 4 bed bays into 6 bed bays / make 'corridor bays'. This was before Covid. The whole care sector is held together by blue tack and the sheer will of the staff working there. Covid may be the straw that breaks the camels back

https://english.elpais.com/spanishnews/2020-06-17/an-analysis-of-three-covid-19-outbreaks-how-they-happened-and-how-they-can-be-avoided.html?fbclid=IwAR1zOYEJJ_8Fk1w2Xo_YThQ2bpH29fWIScMhhyFboU7BqZNDc4igAEh2CKUQ

I’ve been very unwell with Covid for four weeks now. I have no clue where I caught it, it could have been the supermarket, work, anywhere else I was in the days before my symptoms started showing. I could have touched something that was infected. I never use the supermarket and shop hand sanitizer, I take my own. I don’t even want to think about how many people have touched those bottles. I wear a mask. I don’t go in pubs but have been visiting my local cafe.

I wasn’t particularly worried about what it would be like to have covid until I became ill. Now, having been so unwell, for so long, and still being unwell, I’m very worried about my husband and daughters getting covid.

All those people going around saying “I’ll take my chances” and not bothering to be cautious, gathering in large groups and just generally not giving a monkeys infuriate me. I’m nearly 60, fit and well usually, but I’ve never been this unwell in my life.

They may be tested in university but where they caught it is probably socialising in bars . So where they caught it and what group they are in is different.

In our city all the students are for example in all the takeaways and bars not socially distancing or wearing masks

Just a couple of points. Cases started to increase in August before schools went back. Universities obviously peak infection, but they are already reducing. Care homes and hospitals are nests of infection because of the closed environment, and the numbers of staff in and out. Pubs are a big source of infection, that has been highlighted time and again, restaurants less so.

Secondary school children have a current infection rate of approx. 2%, which is pretty low. In some areas of the country infection rates got up to 20%, so it is obviously rife in the community.

@goldenharvest

[[https://english.elpais.com/spanish]]news/2020-06-17/an-analysis-of-three-covid-19-outbreaks-how-they-happened-and-how-they-can-be-avoided.html?fbclid=IwAR1zOYEJJ_8Fk1w2Xo_YThQ2bpH29fWIScMhhyFboU7BqZNDc4igAEh2CKUQ

Really interesting article.

Makes sense of some of the advice.

Can you imagine any of our Track and Trace is being done as thoroughly as they were clearly doing it?

I don't think 'Eat Out to Help Out' helped out at all in terms of virus transmission - it simply encouraged people to do all the things that spread the virus. I suspect it will be found, eventually, to have been a source of increase.

A guy who heads up a couple of NHS trusts told me that 11-23 year olds are the key groups spreading the disease. He was surprised that younger children aren’t spreading it. But maybe primary school kids are good at sticking to their bubbles and are largely compliant to hand washing?

It’s secondary school kids and uni students who are apparently spreading it.

I think I caught it on my train commute back on the very last day of our work in-office on 14 March. No masks, obviously. There was a guy in the seat behind me - or maybe the one behind him - coughing away. I was feeling quite anxious but there weren’t any other seats so I stayed there for around 30 mins before moving, trying to breath shallowly and into my scarf. I moved down the train for the last 30 mins of the journey. I had quite a mild dose - exhaustion, 100% loss of taste and smell, high temperature, no cough. I recovered after about 8 days counting from loss of taste and smell.

Many cases in my area (Tier 3) seem to have started in factories/food processing plants. Employees have said that social distancing was non-existent in some places. Those workers will then have spread it to their households, of course.