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

@TrustTheGeneGenie pretty sure my kids know they’re my top priority and are resilient amazing people who have empathy and an understanding of greater good versus temporary pain and discomfort.

[quote DfEisashambles]@TrustTheGeneGenie

How am I downplaying socialisation and education you daft woman. You do realise it’s temporary?

This affects so many people in horrible ways who get on with it and do the best they can for the greater good. You are unbelievably dramatic saying your children’s lives comes first when their lives aren’t even at stake. It’s temporary and necessary.

My DC have done their best to learn online and cope, they hate it but they understand.[/quote]
You literally called it a play date?

Yes my child understands too, I'm not sure why you think he doesn't?

Just because i don't want to put him through total isolation again doesn't mean I don't explain it to him you know

[quote DfEisashambles]@TrustTheGeneGenie pretty sure my kids know they’re my top priority and are resilient amazing people who have empathy and an understanding of greater good versus temporary pain and discomfort.[/quote]
I'm glad your children didn't have any issues but if you think the only difference is your parenting you're deluded.

Are people really so self interested that they expect us to care more about their well-being than that of our own fucking children? It seems they are. Well newsflash, like most parents, my child is more important to me than anyone else on the world. That isn't new and it's not unusual so stop fucking trying to make it something shameful.

Thing is @TrustTheGeneGenie , you and your children are not separate from the rest of the world.

I have a stable job and no children at home. Indeed no-one else at home (single person households are doing it hard, believe me!).

I've locked down and followed the regulations and indeed stayed very restricted (mostly shielding) - because I realise the importance of keeping schools and universities open.

But the only way we can keep schools open is if everybody else follows restrictions properly. It is because we want to keep schools open that we need to lockdown the rest of society.

So, you know, I - and many, many others - we are all limiting our lives quite considerably so your - and everyone else's - children can keep going to school.

So less of the "I don't give a fuck about other people, I'm looking after my own" - what this pandemic is demonstrating every single day is that you and your children's well-being is connected with my (and millions of other complete strangers) behaviour. And my well-being (and millions of other complete strangers) is connected to you and your children's behaviour.

GoldenOmber - I don't want to get into a slanging match. This new strain is a big threat to us all. I didn't want people getting the impression that if it turned out that it didn't affect kids particularly, we'd actually be okay. I think it's important that people realise that this new strain means we are in a very difficult position until we get vaccines out. I think you probably agree with that.

I am following all the rules, excuse me if I am not enjoying it. Excuse me if I feel uncomfortable isolating my child and watching his mental state decline in front of my face.

HoneyBadger’s posts make a lot of sense to me. @Remmy123, your school has been LUCKY so far. So has mine. From what I have seen, you go from lucky to unlucky in about four days and that’s it for a long time. There are a lot of Us4Them kind of statements on here and I think it is time to move on. Yes, your children need an education and yes, you think the schools must stay open; however, it is unlikely they will stay open when hospitals are overflowing because that looks bad for the government. Your concerns are understandable but move on to pushing the government to provided monetary support for parents of KS1 children (for example) and other practical solutions such as clarifying what will be offered by schools/what technology will be provided. You will soon find that if your ‘wants’ don’t match the government’s ‘needs’, you will be pushed under a bus.

If you actually look at table 1 in the linked paper you will see that closing schools according to their model has almost no positive effect.

And not once have I said I don't care about other people. I've said to me my child is the most important thing in the world. Doesn't everyone feel that way? I'm not saying I'm going to deliberately kill pensioners ffs.

I mean just read "Peak ICU requirement and peak deaths are higher under the “Tier 4, schools closed” than under the “Tier 4,
schools open” scenario because closing schools shifts the peak later in East of England, South East, and London
NHS regions, so that it coincides with the projected peak in other NHS regions."

@TrustTheGeneGenie

That must be true for almost everyone.

@Noellodee

GoldenOmber - I don't want to get into a slanging match. This new strain is a big threat to us all. I didn't want people getting the impression that if it turned out that it didn't affect kids particularly, we'd actually be okay. I think it's important that people realise that this new strain means we are in a very difficult position until we get vaccines out. I think you probably agree with that.

I didn’t say it doesn’t affect kids particularly, and it feels incredibly like you’re arguing with what you think I believe (that this isn’t something we need to worry about?) than what I actually said.

This is a fraught and stressful time for everybody, and a lot of people will read the first few posts on this thread and assume that ‘the scientists’ now know we must keep schools closed, because we know that this virus is as transmissible among children as it is in adults. That is not what the paper says. I’m sorry if you feel I should have caveated the words ‘modelling assumption’ with a whole paragraph about how this is STILL VERY SERIOUS.

[quote notevenat20]@TrustTheGeneGenie

That must be true for almost everyone.[/quote]
So why am I being slated for it like some kind of granny killer, then?

The illness in children and young people is relatively mild. Schools and universities must remain open. However to facilitate that we need to think more carefully about the distribution of the vaccine and teachers/lecturers must be given parity with front line NHS staff. I agree with Prue Leith's comments and know the children's (albeit grown up ones) grannies in their 80s would too.

We need to facilitate the working population and continue shielding the elderly population.

TrustTheGeneGenie if you look at Tier 4 restrictions, it seems that you can form a 'childcare bubble' with another household who aren't already in a childcare bubble.

This would potentially permit some socialisation between young children.

You can also meet another adult outside, and children under 5 do not count towards the '2 person rule'.

So you could meet a friend with young child outside perfectly legally, even if you're not in a childcare or support bubble with them.

Confusing, yes. Ideal in December, no. Ideal in anyway at all, no but it's the best we've got at the moment.

So even Tier 4 doesn't have to mean total isolation from other children for your child.

@notevenat20

I mean just read "Peak ICU requirement and peak deaths are higher under the “Tier 4, schools closed” than under the “Tier 4, schools open” scenario because closing schools shifts the peak later in East of England, South East, and London NHS regions, so that it coincides with the projected peak in other NHS regions."

You're right - they looked at closing schools in January and then reopening them in February and doing this only pushes the peak back. I think we are looking at longer term closures than this, to be honest. We need to close schools until we have a higher proportion of people vaccinated. I think their "good" scenario of 2 million vaccinations per week and schools reopening at the beginning of February is unfeasible and I think we should really be looking at 0.5 million vaccinations per week and opening delayed until March.

@RosesAndHellebores

The illness in children and young people is relatively mild. Schools and universities must remain open. However to facilitate that we need to think more carefully about the distribution of the vaccine and teachers/lecturers must be given parity with front line NHS staff. I agree with Prue Leith's comments and know the children's (albeit grown up ones) grannies in their 80s would too.

We need to facilitate the working population and continue shielding the elderly population.

It’s too late for that now, a lot of over 80s have either been given the vaccine or appointments for it already. In order for that to work you would also need to vaccinate all school kids parents too. There’s too many! Hopefully teachers will be prioritised once the vulnerable have been vaccinated but that won’t be for a while.

@TheHoneyBadger

I think some people are still talking as if we are in an 'ideal world' scenario.

Yes in an ideal world pupils need to be in school and being in the classroom full time may be the best for some kids education. BUT we're not in an ideal world - we're in a pandemic and back to levels of exponential growth in transmissions and crazy high numbers of deaths and hospital admissions.

I personally would rather rotas than full closure both for my students and for my son and I really hope parents will start to be a bit more reasonable so that we don't end up with total closures because they refuse to countenance rotas. We needn't have been in this mess if we'd been allowed to use sensible blended learning plans in secondary.

I would far rather as a parent that my 13yo was in school every other week and I only had to facilitate a bit of consolidation work that had already been introduced to him and had the foundations put in place for whilst he was in school than doing full remote learning.

As a teacher I would prefer the same for my students and I would prefer to be still teaching all of them at least once a fortnight and setting bridging work that consolidates our learning and/or provides extension for those able for the lesson that they don't see me.

That would mean classes of 15 being able to spread out and at least have a chair empty between each student in a row and it would mean half the traffic in the corridors, lunch queue, half as many queuing for and using the same toilets and half as many crammed on buses together.

Vulnerable students could still be in school on their non teaching weeks in a computer room doing their remote learning supervised by a ta or teacher. Same for genuine key worker kids as we did in the summer.

Why are people so resistant to this?

I am not resistant to this. This would be my preferred option. My DD is Y13. She's a self-motivated and diligent student. During lockdown 1 - she was taught online but there were still some topics that she would have benefited from being in a classroom - asking questions, asking for something to be gone over again, hearing what her peers had to say on a topic. For A level students. I think this approach would work fine to keep them on track for the A level exam (as it has been proposed) But I am not sure how it would work from a timetable point of view.

You wouldn't have to vaccinate all the young people and children because the illness presents minimal risks for them. Whilst one can't unvaccinate the over 80s one can amend the rollout plans for those not already vaccinated and for the 75 to 80s.

Before this thread goes on, is there anything in the paper we are discussing that suggests closing schools would save a lot of lives? Certainly table 1 doesn't.

I am no scientist but

Who will listen to you then when you're no expert.

[quote Fieldofyellowflowers]@SchrodingersUnicorn

Not all kids managed well with online education.

Not all schools provided good online learning.

So to say that all kids can get a good education online is untrue.[/quote]
No. But I'm saying that many can, and those who can't (we know who they are, it's our job to know) could be catered for safely in school with actual social distancing with lower numbers.
Last time the government told schools not to provide learning. Doesnt mean those schools are incapable of providing it.

Table 1 shows schools closing for January and opening for February. This doesn't save many lives unless you can get enough people vaccinated in January to make a difference.

They didn't model longer school closures. The authors did conclude this, though:

We note that both the increased transmissibility and the increased child susceptibility hypotheses are consistent in their conclusion that the difficult societal decision of closing schools will be a key public health question in the months ahead.

I'd like to see some models of both longer closures and blended learning.