London School of Hygiene & Medicine states that all schools need to be closed

[SoscaredforJan]

Pre-print of the new B.1.1.7 lineage published 23rd Dec 2020.

“Our estimates suggest that control measures of a similar stringency to the national lockdown implemented in England in November 2020 are unlikely to reduce the effective reproduction number Rt to less than 1, unless primary schools, secondary schools, and universities are also closed.

We project that large resurgences of the virus are likely to occur following easing of control measures.

It may be necessary to greatly accelerate vaccine roll-out to have an appreciable impact in suppressing the resulting disease burden.”

cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/uk-novel-variant.html

That's right, GoldenOmber - that was one of the four scenarios they modelled.

The best fit was the first model:

First, we modelled increased infectiousness as an increase in the risk of transmission of VOC 202012/01 per contact, relative to preexisting variants. This model was best able to capture the data parsimoniously among the four hypotheses tested (Deviance Information Criterion DIC = 9395, ΔDIC = 0, Fig 2A ). Such a mechanism is consistent, in principle, with observations of lower Ct values (i.e., higher viral load) for VOC 202012/01 ( 14 ) .

Not all viruses get milder as they mutate. It's a comforting hope, but not one that currently has any evidence to back it up with this particular strain.

@Noellodee

Not all viruses get milder as they mutate. It's a comforting hope, but not one that currently has any evidence to back it up with this particular strain.

There's no evidence the other way either. And considering it was already mild in children I think the word attack is a bit misleading, no?

I think thats why the younger year groups were prioritisdd in going back for summer term. Its the foundation of everything and much harder to recreate at home. It requires much more parental skill .

PicsInRed if you really think all that's at stake here are some weeks in the sun then you are deluded. And for the most part the wc/mc divide you are drawing is total nonsense - WC children suffer just as much from constant education days lost to teacher sickness and repeated self isolation as mc children. No point having schools open if no education is happening inside.

@PandemicPavolova I am so sick of hearing ‘just go online’

The reality for children is that they don’t have devices or resources to enable them to do that. My dds’ school provided no online teaching in March, they just set loads of work. My 13 year ASD dd just switched off after a few weeks and I don’t think she learnt much at all in the summer term.

Plus the safeguarding issue of vulnerable children being at home with no one looking out for them.

Why all or nothing though? I think they should have introduced part time schooling from September. Each child gets say 2 or 3 days at school per week on a rota basis. It would have massively reduce the numbers in school each day, they could have smaller classes with proper social distancing.

Whilst I admit the rules for various tiers are confusing, is it not the case in Tier 4 that if one adult meets one other adult outside for exercise, children can be included in that?
So @TrustTheGeneGenie, you could organise for your dc to meet up with other children socially in that way?

*many children that should have said

@CallmeAngelGabriel

Whilst I admit the rules for various tiers are confusing, is it not the case in Tier 4 that if one adult meets one other adult outside for exercise, children can be included in that? So *@TrustTheGeneGenie*, you could organise for your dc to meet up with other children socially in that way?

Not school age children, no.

Universities other than medical students and a few others should be required to go online next term, and encouraged not to travel to January. Government funding to make up some of the lost rents that universities would have is a lot less costly than a further extension of furlough.

Same perhaps with FE colleges. However, schools in some form should stay open in my opinion.

Mask or face shield wearing has a much greater chance of happening in a school than anywhere else. As with all restrictions, there should be proper enforcement or sanction.

The point about middle class holidays is well made- a start would be no overseas trips until Easter for anyone except for things such as going to funerals or visiting those near the end of life. With the need to request formally as the French did for travelling out of area at one point.

That's right, GoldenOmber - that was one of the four scenarios they modelled.

Yes. Which is why I said they modelled it.

Not sure what it is you’re trying to correct me on, but tell you what, just pat yourself on the back and award yourself the points. I’m sure I’m not being as clear as I could at the moment what with the considerable stress of the situation, including how the fuck I am supposed to do my own job supporting covid response while homeschooling and caring for a toddler.

(Hey maybe I can get my 5-year-old to help out on the calls about body bag supplies this time, won’t that be a lovely learning experience!)

I think the use of attack rate is fairly standard, to be honest.

Attack rate
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In epidemiology, the attack rate is the percentage of an at-risk population that contracts the disease during a specified time interval.[1] It is used in hypothetical predictions and during actual outbreaks of disease. An at-risk population is defined as one that has no immunity to the attacking pathogen which can be either a novel pathogen or an established pathogen. It is used to project the number of victims to expect during an epidemic. This aids in marshalling resources for delivery of medical care as well as production of vaccines and/or anti-viral and anti-bacterial medicines.[2] The rate is arrived at by taking the number of new cases in the population at risk and dividing by the number of persons at risk in the population.

GoldenOmber, I believe (but am happy to be corrected) you said that the whole report was based on scenario 4, and we didn't know yet whether it was true that children were now more contagious.

@TrustTheGeneGenie

Take your own advice and do a bit of homeschooling with a 4 year old

Yes I'll invite over 23 other small children in an attempt to replicate what he would get from school shall I?

Do you honestly think I don't read / count/ play with him? That's not all school is, is it? And if it is why the hell do we bother?

You aren’t getting my point. I know how important that early interaction is. However, things aren’t exactly the same now though are they? My 4 year old has had to isolate on so many occasions, different teachers covering for absent ones. I highly doubt that he’s receiving the same interaction and attention my older DS was at that age. I have a 6 month old baby now. When my boys were 6-9 months old they were going to nursery, regular swimming sessions from 13 weeks old etc. I found this was great to help them develop certain social and emotional skills from an early age. No chance of that happening with this baby though. She hasn’t even cuddled her grandparents and many aunts and uncles! Considering we are in a pandemic though, it is what it is. I don’t think she will be that badly scarred from this, as long as we are healthy and together that’s all that matters right now. We will have plenty of time to play catch up later.

@Porcupineintherough

PicsInRed if you really think all that's at stake here are some weeks in the sun then you are deluded. And for the most part the wc/mc divide you are drawing is total nonsense - WC children suffer just as much from constant education days lost to teacher sickness and repeated self isolation as mc children. No point having schools open if no education is happening inside.

I'm sure working class kids will do better for having no formal provision at all for a long period. Like it used to be in the good old 200 years ago. Halcyon days.

I see. I mean it certainly seems that it's use on here was to promote an emotional response irt children.

@Noellodee

GoldenOmber, I believe (but am happy to be corrected) you said that the whole report was based on scenario 4, and we didn't know yet whether it was true that children were now more contagious.

No I didn’t. But like I said, award yourself the points and a nice lovely trophy as well if you want.

@trustthegenegenie you miss understood me. I agree regarding the socialising. I meant education wise your son will be fine. It's a nightmare I have 4 children. My primary are OK butI have a Yr 7 who is very shy and went from a tiny primary to huge secondary. She just started to feel comfortable and school was closed for the last 3 weeks so with Xmas and no date to return that's a long time out already. I also have a yr11 very stressed about GCSEs and not seeing friends. But I work in a school so I sadly feel something needs to change for at least Jan and Feb.

I use the word attack as in that's what a virus does - it attacks the immune system and the immune system tries to mount a response/defense. Pretty standard language.

@GoldenOmber

If you read the paper, they are modelling a scenario where children are as infectious as adults to the new variant. This might be true, or it might not be true, or it might be partly true. But we don’t actually know. They’re not saying it is - they’re saying “if it is, then this is what we think the consequences are.”

This was your remark. You didn't explicitly say that it was the only model, but you didn't acknowledge any other model, or say that this was not the one that best fit the data.

You aren’t getting my point

I'm assuming your point is tough shit, deal with it.

Yes that's what ill have to do and then I'll pick up all the pieces again with fuck all support, again.

I did say that we don’t yet know if it is true that children are as infectious as adults. Because we do not know that.

This was your remark. You didn't explicitly say that it was the only model, but you didn't acknowledge any other model, or say that this was not the one that best fit the data.

No, I didn’t in fact do a comprehensive review of the paper, well spotted. Like I said, give yourself the points, give yourself a pat on the pack, award yourself a lovely big trophy and do a victory lap round AIBU, well done you for whatever it is you think you’ve proved me wrong about.

Are people honestly moaning about their children not having play time with friends for a month or so TO SAVELIVES????

No, we don't.

But we DO know that this new strain is massively more contagious than the old one. The exact mechanism of that increased contagiousness does not actually affect the proposition that schools need to close in order to prevent exponential growth.

So really, it doesn't matter whether children are specifically more contagious or not. If the virus as a whole is more contagious (which it is, no ambiguity there) we need to decide between school closures or exponential growth.