Will those blaming schools for the rise in cases admit they were wrong?

[notevenat20]

R is now around 0.71 and the case numbers are dropping rapidly (hooray!). It seems obvious this huge improvement has been caused by the lockdown. But schools were open the whole time. It's also therefore clear that schools cannot have been the main cause of the second wave.

What is the link for that data though? That’s what’s being asked, which study has shown that?

The react study is suggesting overall r of around 0.88 nationally with the lowest being north west at 0.76 and London still being 0.95

notevenat20
That's not giving a source.

Right now the government's own page with R numbers says 0.9-1.

If you're going to start a thread arguing that the UK r number is substantially less then it would be good for an actual source.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince

They may have just informed you if the first cases. As they do. Then they stop.

I live in a big city. All the secondaries and 68% of primaries have had at least one case. Most much much more.

Average of 250 kids isolating in my school every day.

But of course there is 'one case' in the majority of schools. Think about it, many parents are key workers and are at risk of contracting the virus in work. Many will pass it to their DC before symptoms present. However this does not mean there are high levels of transmission in school. It is unhelpful to worry about schools that have isolated cases, of course this will happen. My DC attend 3 different schools, there have been isolated cases in 2 of the schools and none in the third school. Yes its anecdata, but surely they can't be the only schools in this situation? We need to look at spread in schools, not isolated cases. Though I appreciate that won't make for such dramatic data.

(By isolated cases, I mean one case was found after their father tested positive. The other case was a teacher who developed symptoms during the first day back after our 2 week half term, this had a massive knock on effect on school but clearly the teacher contracted the virus outside of work). There were no further cases beyond these.

www.imperial.ac.uk/news/209713/coronavirus-prevalence-fallen-nationally-with-below/ Link to the latest information from the react study

Downward trends were seen across the majority of the country, including in previous hotspots in the North, and most age groups except those of school age, where there has been an increase

From the imperial study.

Coronavirus: Scientists call for action after 50-fold rise in infections in schools:
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/independent-sage-coronavirus-infection-schools-b1762906.html

Covid and schools: 'Children know things aren't right'
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55105275

My kids school has had 3 cases (pupils - no teachers) since reopening in August. Each of them were an individual pupil (all contracted from their parents) and none of the other kids who have been isolated have tested positive. Kids round here are doing no social distancing and are continuing to go to each other’s houses/sleepovers etc. If spread was a virulent as claimed between pupils and they were superspreaders then you would have expected mass infection rates but there has been none.

OP I heard the chief medical officer on local radio one day explain this well (I am not in England). He reckoned that closing school would reduce the R number by (sorry I can't remember exact numbers so I might not be precise here) 0.2. He then said closing down hospitality drops R by 0.3 or 0.4 (I cannot remember exactly but it was higher than schools).

However I do think they need to consider the negative impact of these measures. Eg would online learning for secondaries reduce the R 'enough' to relieve pressure on hospitals - even if it isn't as much as closing hospitality - whilst causing less havoc on individuals? It has to be a balance, it is terrifying hearing job losses every day and that is going to have a severe impact on many DC too.

I don't the answers, just saying we need to consider lots of things, not just R.

Yes that's right. Turns out that if you close pubs and restaurants and stop people from mixing indoors but keep schools open, the infection rate plummets.

Well this isn't anything unexpected. Equally if you opened hospitality and closed schools the infection rate would also plummet. Closing something rather then nothing will always lead to a reduction in spread. I'm not sure why anybody finds this remotely surprising.

@TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince I got the email yesterday, so I'm confident my school made it thus far without cases. Maybe they won't tell us in future, but so far they've been very open, as they should be, obviously without giving details beyond year group and number of cases.

Of course this doesn't mean cases aren't rising in other schools, which is why I said it's anecdata.

I live in Ipswich where cases have been rising all through lockdown. The council sent out an update which said that although some cases could be traced to schools or workplaces, most of the cases had been found to be due to households mixing.
So thanks to those people breaking the rules, the whole of Suffolk will be in tier 2.

OP why not link to what you're posting? People are asking for a source, and an explanation of why this data differs so much from the government data, not little cut and paste efforts.

See the results section of www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/institute-of-global-health-innovation/imperial_react1_r7_interim.pdf .

MrsSlocombesPussy Love your user name😂😂😂

TheEmoji , thanks! As you can tell my formative years were spent watching the classic 70s comedies.

Hell of a lot more data showing transmission in schools than there is to support the idea that the virus has somehow reached a "natural peak" or a y such garbage.

The virus spreads where hosts gather close together. The lockdown slowed down transmission in the wider community, which is all it was supposed to do.

If schools had closed the drop in r would have been much greater.

A friend is CEV - had a worrying time recently because their partner got covid. Partner works in a school and has not been going anywhere else - shopping gets delivered. No way can you tell me schools dont contribute to spread.

But of course there is 'one case' in the majority of schools.

No there really isn’t! Classes and bubbles popping all the time. It’s rife in my Tier 3 city.

OP, we were originally in a tier 1 area. Numbers have gone up throughout lockdown, just stablising now. We've had four cases at our primary in last couple of weeks and known transmission into the commusnity so keeping schools open does add the spread. Our Headmaster has told us to assume we have many undetected cases in the school, so remain vigilent and we're now allowed to wear masks in corridors and communal areas, ie halls, small teaching areas off corridors - thankfully the children are all taking the masks in their stride.

Also, over the last seven days, the number of children in the 10-14 age group have had slightly more confirmed cases per 100k that my own age group, so it's more risky working with our 10-11 year olds who it's very hard to distance from.

Personally I find it hard to believe the current case count, I've seen plenty of threads of Mumsnet of people saying they are sick but aren't going to get a test cus it's 'just a cold' or they're already locked down and isolating so don't see the need to get one, so the numbers are probably skewed. Schools are just one of many ways this is spreading, supermarkets, hospitals, they all have the ability to easily spread it around but I don't think it's ever been mainly due to schools

The lesson here is that you can't have schools open and social mixing outside at the same time.
For schools to open safely, households have to keep contacts to a minimum.
And for households to keep contacting each other, then schools have to close.
It's a problem outside the UK too.

There's no transmission in schools only if strict respiratory hygiene and distancing is observed. Or if there are no cases entering schools.
If there's transmission outside the schools, there will be transmission within schools.
If there's no transmission outside the schools, then there's no transmission inside schools.

The schools can still act as superspreader places if there are cases entering and there are no safety measures to prevent transmission inside schools.

8th November 12500 students isolating in my city. That’s not one case per school

we're now allowed to wear masks in corridors and communal areas, ie halls, small teaching areas off corridors

Allowed? Wow.

Sorry haven't read the full thread but doesn't the data show that cases have dropped in all ages apart from school age children, where it's still rising? So actually children and schools do transmit the virus, with kids then taking it home to their parents and thus offsetting some of the gains of the lockdown?
Think how low we might have got the R number had we extended half term by a couple of weeks. A lost opportunity.

My year 11 ds has been in school for 12 days since September due to his bubble bursting/half term and firebreak. He’s on his 3rd 14 day isolation period starting today, missing 2 mock exams and his English oral gcse.
No cases in ds2s primary school though.

Does seem to support the case that you can keep schools open and the infection rate will still fall, not as fast as if you close schools maybe but it does seem to support schools staying open as much as possible.
My experience is that schools are not a major spreader certainly where I live. Yes we have had cases but spread fairly evenly throughout the classes / years and not all in one class / year say they which does suggest the infection comes into school from outside rather than from child to child or child to teacher within the school.
Good news I think