Teachers at far higher risk of covid than general population - New data

[noblegiraffe]

"Covid rates among schools staff in some areas are as much as four times the corresponding local authority average, Tes can reveal.

Figures for three councils obtained by the NASUWT teachers' union show that the staff coronavirus infections are far outstripping local rates, casting doubt on the government's repeated assertion that teachers are at no greater risk than other workers."

www.tes.com/news/exclusive-teacher-covid-rates-333-above-average

The government won't release the proper data, I wonder why. They've been given an extension to midday today to show the evidence that schools are safe, as part of a legal challenge by the headteacher unions. Good luck with that.

Drops mic 👏🏽

You don't say.

No shit.

Noble, you deserve a medal for all the work you have done on this in the face of relentless teacher bashing, gaslighting, and personal attacks.
Those people need to have a long hard look at themselves.

Is this only being reported in TES? Hope other places pick it up.
Wonder what Us for ourselves will make of it?

Three councils.
Produced and published by organisations with clear biases.

I’m sure teachers have more risk than the average say office worker which of course needs to be addressed but I’m sick of the victimisation of some teachers. Doctors, nurses, retail workers, construction workers, dentists, opticians, security guards are all exposed.

Well that explains yesterday's turnaround!

I think the families of teachers who have died should sue the government. They knew about this and did nothing to make schools safer.

The point is yoshi that no one is gathering data on any occupation any more and that is shocking. Anything about infection rates for any workers has become supposition based on evidence form many moons ago.

I don't know what you mean by bias (are you suggesting that councils fiddled figures??) but I, personally, think it is appalling that 25 MORE councils either didn't collect these stats or didn't reply.

I agree with you @Yoshinori. I think some teachers really enjoy playing the victim.

It would be really useful to compare between professions. How does this compare to supermarket employees or other groups who have been going to work every day?

Totally agree with you Noble. But did you happen to see Jeremy Vine yesterday. Both Carol Malone and Doctor Sarah Jarvis said there is absolutely no evidence that teachers are at more risk than any other profession. Sarah Jarvis said her evidence came from the Office for National Statistics.

It was so weird and completely seemed like there was some sort of hidden agenda, especially given the pressure yesterday to close schools.

There's not enough data there to draw the conclusions that are being drawn. I'm not saying its not true, I'm just saying that the information provided in that article is somewhat fudged. For example, the rate of schools staff needs to be compared to the rate of the working age population rather than the whole local authority area, since the very lowest rates of test confirmed covid tests are generally in the non-working age categories, which skews results.

An equally (in)valid study would be "rates of covid confirmed by test in all those attending school settings (staff and pupils) compared to the LA area as a whole", which would probably give lower rates for school settings to the general community as a whole, due to the very low rates of positive tests in the younger age groups. That would also not be statistically valid, but it shows how statistics can easily be manipulated to suit an agenda.

It may well be that schools staff are more at risk, it might well not be. We don't have the data to know from that article. It's a heavily biased article that presents a small picture of data that has been interpreted in a way to best suit their agenda.

It's all a moot point now though anyway, since schools are shut for the foreseeable. I'd like to see teachers and unions focusing on providing full high quality remote education and supporting families rather than all this political point scoring. That is what is really important now, parents, teachers and unions all prioritising high quality education for the pupils.

It was so weird and completely seemed like there was some sort of hidden agenda, especially given the pressure yesterday to close schools.

My understanding of the lockdown decision is that tier 4 was not stopping the spread. The govt is just shutting down everything it can in the hope that something will help. We will know in a couple of weeks if that has worked.

It may well be that schools staff are more at risk, it might well not be. We don't have the data to know from that article. It's a heavily biased article that presents a small picture of data that has been interpreted in a way to best suit their agenda.

It's all a moot point now though anyway, since schools are shut for the foreseeable. I'd like to see teachers and unions focusing on providing full high quality remote education and supporting families rather than all this political point scoring. That is what is really important now, parents, teachers and unions all prioritising high quality education for the pupils.

Beautifully put.

@mrsm43s

There's not enough data there to draw the conclusions that are being drawn. I'm not saying its not true, I'm just saying that the information provided in that article is somewhat fudged. For example, the rate of schools staff needs to be compared to the rate of the working age population rather than the whole local authority area, since the very lowest rates of test confirmed covid tests are generally in the non-working age categories, which skews results.

An equally (in)valid study would be "rates of covid confirmed by test in all those attending school settings (staff and pupils) compared to the LA area as a whole", which would probably give lower rates for school settings to the general community as a whole, due to the very low rates of positive tests in the younger age groups. That would also not be statistically valid, but it shows how statistics can easily be manipulated to suit an agenda.

It may well be that schools staff are more at risk, it might well not be. We don't have the data to know from that article. It's a heavily biased article that presents a small picture of data that has been interpreted in a way to best suit their agenda.

It's all a moot point now though anyway, since schools are shut for the foreseeable. I'd like to see teachers and unions focusing on providing full high quality remote education and supporting families rather than all this political point scoring. That is what is really important now, parents, teachers and unions all prioritising high quality education for the pupils.

fuck off is it a moot point now

political point scoring.

How lovely for you to be able to file it as simple political point scoring instead of, y’know, your actual fucking life.

I agree this data is limited, I agree this data is incomplete. What it does show is that the government need to release the actual fucking data and stop all this paternalistic ‘silly teachers, things are just fine’ pat on head nonsense.

What it also shows is that, if replicated across other areas, then even if it turns out that NHS workers or care home workers or bus drivers have a similarly high risk, they cannot re-open schools as they were. There are measures that can easily be taken to lower the risk to school staff that are currently not being taken on the basis that they don’t need to be taken. Well clearly they do. Measures have been taken to protect other workers going about their jobs, it is unacceptable to put a group of people at higher risk without making any effort to lower it.

@notevenat20

It may well be that schools staff are more at risk, it might well not be. We don't have the data to know from that article. It's a heavily biased article that presents a small picture of data that has been interpreted in a way to best suit their agenda.

It's all a moot point now though anyway, since schools are shut for the foreseeable. I'd like to see teachers and unions focusing on providing full high quality remote education and supporting families rather than all this political point scoring. That is what is really important now, parents, teachers and unions all prioritising high quality education for the pupils.

Beautifully put.

No sen schools aren't.

And most schools seem to be over 50% capacity.

Other settings allow mask wearing in both the employee and those around them (eg supermarket customers).

And don't involve cramming 30+ people into a small room for hours on end.

@noblegiraffe

political point scoring.

How lovely for you to be able to file it as simple political point scoring instead of, y’know, your actual fucking life.

I agree this data is limited, I agree this data is incomplete. What it does show is that the government need to release the actual fucking data and stop all this paternalistic ‘silly teachers, things are just fine’ pat on head nonsense.

What it also shows is that, if replicated across other areas, then even if it turns out that NHS workers or care home workers or bus drivers have a similarly high risk, they cannot re-open schools as they were. There are measures that can easily be taken to lower the risk to school staff that are currently not being taken on the basis that they don’t need to be taken. Well clearly they do. Measures have been taken to protect other workers going about their jobs, it is unacceptable to put a group of people at higher risk without making any effort to lower it.

Surely you can see that taking incomplete data, and deliberately cutting it and presenting it in a way that suits your agenda is political point scoring?

I agree that it would be ideal for full and complete data to be available and to be analysed without bias to have a better understanding of which professions were at higher risk.

If it was shown that teachers were at higher risk, then yes, it would lead to a discussion on how to manage and minimise that risk. But at the moment we don't know that they are, and indeed lots of data has shown that cases in schools are below average.

Most of the mitigations suggested by teachers were hugely detrimental to pupils education and wellbeing and to the parents ability to work. Things like remote working or part time education simply aren't things that could be implemented without extremely good reason because of the amount of detrimental impact they would cause.

That said, I have no idea what the objection to masks for all is (clear ones for teachers). That is one of the mysteries of the Pandemic for me, as a parent I would 100% support the full wearing of masks in school, and I struggle to see the resistance to it. I equally struggle to understand why supermarket workers don't wear masks though!

@Yoshinori

Three councils. Produced and published by organisations with clear biases.

I’m sure teachers have more risk than the average say office worker which of course needs to be addressed but I’m sick of the victimisation of some teachers. Doctors, nurses, retail workers, construction workers, dentists, opticians, security guards are all exposed.

This data is gathered by the councils, so it not really relevant that the NASUWT collated it. It's a huge leap to imply those councils are falsifying this data.

The majority of councils will not have high enough rates of Covid, over sustained periods, with sufficient data from teachers and non-teachers, to do statistically valid analysis on. So the fact that it is from only three councils means nothing unless other councils have data which shows the opposite.

These results match other data. At various phases of the pandemic HCPs and teachers have alternated as the two jobs with by far the highest infection levels.

Certainly one should be careful of drawing too strong conclusions but to dismiss the data we do have because you don't like it is silly.

@MakeWorkYourNewFavourite

I agree with you *@Yoshinori*. I think some teachers really enjoy playing the victim.

Especially the dead ones.

Most of the mitigations suggested by teachers were hugely detrimental to pupils education and wellbeing and to the parents ability to work. Things like remote working or part time education simply aren't things that could be implemented without extremely good reason because of the amount of detrimental impact they would cause.

Many mitigations (like PPE, thermometers on doors and hiring extra staff for a year) are not detrimental at all.

Those that were detrimental are not as detrimental as having to fully shut schools. Part time learning for some groups in a planned way could be much higher quality than the chaos we've had.

Surely you can see that taking incomplete data, and deliberately cutting it and presenting it in a way that suits your agenda is political point scoring?

Surely you can see that looking at this data that has been provided by councils and immediately trying to pick at it and find flaws to suggest that maybe teachers aren’t actually at higher risk despite them spending hours a day in the company of loads of the most infected subset of the population with no social distancing or masks is just trying to deny the obvious?

But at the moment we don't know that they are

We know that they are, of course they are, it’s idiotic to suggest otherwise, but the data is being suppressed to show that they are.

This data is gathered by the councils, so it not really relevant that the NASUWT collated it. It's a huge leap to imply those councils are falsifying this data.

Its not falsified data. It's misrepresented data. They've taken data that is correct, and cut it and presented it in a way to tell a story that it doesn't necessarily tell, which just so happens to suit their agenda. Sadly it happens all the time across all sectors.

I get that presenting data from only 3 LA's is extremely limited and may give rise to incorrect assumptions .

But has this happened - could you explain how ?

and cut it and presented it in a way to tell a story that it doesn't necessarily tell,