I think this new variant of the virus infects children more as its been allowed to mutate due to school being open

[ssd]

Just my theory

I read on Reuters this new variant affects children more than the first one

I think this can only be because its been allowed to mutate between children in schools due to the poor safety precautions

I know viruses mutate but there must be a reason its been allowed to mutate

The virus has always been able to infect children. My children had covid before first lockdown. Primary school children ended up with a inhaler for a few months.
The majority of kids weren't in school before September and we definitely weren't testing them unless hospital treatment was needed. So the cases were mostly not detected.

Schools in some parts of London have been asking parents to take children to be tested even if no contacts or symptoms in the last couple of weeks. Plus before that if close contact or symptoms. Therefore the up tick in cases is largely due to that.

The mutation has caused more cases on top of this. I am however a little sceptical about just how much more infectious. Definitely more but probably not as much as currently claimed. Still hoping it is now a little milder.

No evidence just thoughts.

@MummaBear4321

I also have a theory. I think it prefers coffee and croissants as opposed to a beer as cafes have been allowed to stay open but bars have been closed. 🙄

Lol, I love the Mumsnet armchair scientists!

Rumours are like arseholes. Everybody's got one.

Commons Committee with scientists now.
Sky news.

@MummaBear4321

I also have a theory. I think it prefers coffee and croissants as opposed to a beer as cafes have been allowed to stay open but bars have been closed. 🙄

😂

I'm not a scientist so don't have any scientific theories about this. I'll leave it to people with the appropriate expertise.

I'm not an epidemiologist either, but I'm fairly sure that the more the virus spreads the more chance of it mutating, but that would include everyone who gave it to someone else. The virus isn't thinking "oh I'm in a school I can start mutating now". Maybe it came from one of those on the current threads boasting of how they don't follow any rules.

Rightly or wrongly it was decided that we couldn't do much in schools to make it safe other then closing them and there are several reasons why we couldn't do that.

Those other countries where they wear masks in school. Are they all covid free now? Did it actually make a difference?

@SoscaredforJan

Yep!! It will definitely come out in the future that we encouraged this mutation by our ridiculous schools policy. Many scientists are coming out to basically say as much.

Umm. No they haven't. Viruses do not need any encouragement to evolve. Because that is what they are going. Using the word "mutate" may be equally accurately scientifically, but "mutant" carries with is so many negative connotations that are not scientifically accurate. All living things evolve to be better equipped to survive. Get over t - humans do the same thing, and right at this very minute, in lots of minute ways, our bodies are "mutating" to build up natural resistances for future generations, just as they have for all other viruses that they have come across over the last millennia or so, even before we got to be homo sapiens.

Scientists have said they are investigating whether children are more likely to catch and transmit this particular strain. They might be able to make a best guess at that, but they could never know with certainty because there is no baseline to compare it to - we simply do not know how many children caught and transmitted the disease in in the past, so any study now cannot compare like for like.

We have enough idiots in government saying ridiculous things that spread hysteria and fear unnecessarily without keeping up this constant deluge of threads based on scare-mongering. I wish to God that Mumsnet would act responsibly and stop this fake news and conspiracy theories. I never thought I would see the day when I considered Facebook et al to be acting more responsibly than Mumsnet.

It's mutated to facilitate ease of transmission despite distancing and lockdown. There was no evolutionary pressure for such a mutation to be fostered though open schools - quite the opposite.

This mutation is the virus' "answer" to lockdown. Life Viruses always find a way.

Those other countries where they wear masks in school. Are they all covid free now? Did it actually make a difference?

The difference is that there was less virus spread between hosts when all were in masks, so if new variants did happen to arise, the chances of them spreading were less. It's not really an accident that we have seen a mutation spread fast among children, because basically children were the reservoir we gave the virus to work with - other countries denied the virus this opportunity.

There are a lot of amateur epidemiologists on here doing a great job demonstrating the Dunning Kruger effect.

The half baked theories are embarrassing, leave this to the experts.

'It's mutated to facilitate ease of transmission despite distancing and lockdown. '

Among the community which didn't practise distancing or lockdown. Funny that!

Professor Neil Ferguson has said there have been "anecdotal reports" of "more explosive" outbreaks of the coronavirus in schools in the London and the south east in recent weeks.

@PicsInRed

It's mutated to facilitate ease of transmission despite distancing and lockdown. There was no evolutionary pressure for such a mutation to be fostered though open schools - quite the opposite.

This mutation is the virus' "answer" to lockdown. Life Viruses always find a way.

Yes, in my expert opinion 😂 it would make sense that it's lockdown and social distancing, rather than free and easy mixing, which would make a virus mutate to become more easily transmissible? So that it can overcome the distancing problem that it has?

That's ma theory and I'm sticking to it

Go back to the science

No no no, it's mutated because people have got longer hair than normal. Viruses mutate in dying cells where there's a weak immune response - we've all got more hair as no one can get a haircut, and hair is just dead cells, so that's why the virus has had more chance to mutate. It only appears to infect young people more because older people are more likely to be bald.

Some people might say this is a crackpot theory but it's just as believable as thinking primary school children somehow have created this new form of the lurgy.

@TheKeatingFive

There are a lot of amateur epidemiologists on here doing a great job demonstrating the Dunning Kruger effect.

The half baked theories are embarrassing, leave this to the experts.

This

Wouldn’t it better to wait for the scientists to confirm why something has happened rather than speculating with no expertise whatsoever?

What if the virus has actually mutated to be more like a common cold?
What if it is therefore milder and actually a good thing that it is taking over?
What if to keep immunity up against Covid 19, it is actually important for children to be around each other and catch the more usual common cold too?
What if shielders are actually in a worse position because they have not been around other humans enough so their immune system has actually suffered as a result?

You don't need to be a scientist to know (and they agree anyway) that having 30 kids in a classroom (no masks/social distancing etc) is proving a virus with the ideal environment to spread.

Where it mutates & where it spreads are not the same thing.

It's irrelevant what people 'want', having ALL children in school is utterly ridiculous & will go down in history as a VERY bad decision.

Why isn't it rife in all areas where schools have stayed open then?

The new variant

@MrsMiaWallis

Why isn't it rife in all areas where schools have stayed open then?

I believe it is now.

Why isn't it rife in all areas where schools have stayed open then?

Because it's not in those areas yet.... hence Tier 4 to try and stop it spreading. I don't think it will work, but that's the idea behind it. If it was across the whole UK already there would be no point.