If schools were a big issue why aren't infectious dropping yet?

[Shamefullync]

Im aware that English schools have a loose keyworker criteria then Scotland. Scotland is still seeing record deaths hospital admissions etc. Quite often on mm schools got blame for rising infections but most schools have been closed for a month now and our numbers are depressing. Whats causeing it ?
Btw i do think schools need to stay closed with the key worker criteria tightened.

They all went back to school for a day because our government are dickhead and wanted to make sure the virus got spread around some.more after letting everyone spread it at Xmas.
Our school is 50% full because people are pretending they are "keyworkers".

Infections are falling now. It takes time for that to filter through to hospital admissions and then in turn fatality figures. This has been evident since last March.

That plus schools are open to 5x mote children than the first lockdown and the variant is more transmissible so the fall is logically expected to be slower.

@noblegiraffe

Ah but that extra day in school represents an extra 40,000 years of learning so I’m sure it was worth all the covid transmission.

Oh my! Would love to see the workings of that calculation. Maybe they should have spent more time concentrating in maths when they were at school?

www.theguardian.com/education/2021/jan/19/ministers-set-to-halt-plans-for-daily-covid-tests-in-english-schools
Ministers set to halt plans for daily Covid tests in English schools
Exclusive: DfE to pause £78m programme weeks after it was unveiled as ‘milestone moment’

How can you not know that infections are falling? It's all over the news!

Rates in my area were sky high in December but are now dropping rapidly - almost certainly directly due to schools closing.

The NEU finally have some data from DfE on rate of infections in school staff compared to the rest of the population:

neu.org.uk/press-releases/impact-covid-school-workforce

@EndoplasmicReticulum I was going to share that. You beat me to it.

@womaninatightspot

Lingering christmas/ new year shenanigans I'd say. I think covid fatigue is really high. I live rurally ( sufficient space indoor and out and devices) and am naturally antisocial but even I am tired of it all. Would love to have coffee with a friend

God me too

@RedToothBrush yes roughly 50% false negative in Liverpool.

Cases have halved in my area (SE) since Christmas. I screenshot the weekly stats to keep track. We were in tier 2 all over summer and lower risk area generally but despite cases halving they are 2-3x more than they were in Sept.

Obviously I'm happy the cases are falling but I fear this means no more school ever for my year 13 dd (who loves school).

[quote Northernsoulgirl45]@RedToothBrush yes roughly 50% false negative in Liverpool.[/quote]
I've been following the moonshite progress for sometime.

Its been appalling handled from the word go.

Its like some has had the idea that its a magic solution and then tried to get the evidence to prove it is and to justify all the money they have spent on pretty useless tests.

Its a lesson in how now to manage a project thats been ongoing since September.

It was obvious by October there were sufficient problems with the idea that should have killed it dead unless there was better technology.

The whole thing is a farce.

You could see this coming a mile off if you had been following whats been happening with it. Which just begs the question why did the government continue to plough on with it despite all of that being obvious?

Which just begs the question why did the government continue to plough on with it despite all of that being obvious?

See attached tweet.

Yes but even then Cummings left government on the 17th (18th?) December. And since then Williamson in particular has been pushing it hard.

We are now a month on from that and at no point has anyone in government seemed to have reviewed it and gone 'hang on a sec, this is a pile of utter crap'.

Its now January 19th.

Primary schools don't have much to do with it imo. Like you say, they've been off nearly 4 weeks now.

Apparently 1/4 of my kids year have BOTH parents working outside the home as keyworkers. I think that's a lot - 30 parents (ok maybe a few less if SEN or single parents etc)

Nevermind the schools there are a lot of people going to work everyday when they can work from home. It seems to be a macho thing that some people, often men are insisting in office working. We know a few, all men and there has been covid in every office we know of where people are working there but don't have to.

Now criteria is if you're a keyworker not WFH and those wfh lose their place, it's an incentive for people to keep working and mixing because at least they can do that without kids around.

Not all people obviously, some genuinely have 2x hospital staff families - but no way a quarter.

Everyone just feels safer with kids locked up.

[quote EndoplasmicReticulum]The NEU finally have some data from DfE on rate of infections in school staff compared to the rest of the population:

neu.org.uk/press-releases/impact-covid-school-workforce[/quote]
They, and many others are not getting the subtlety in the governments message. They have never said teachers are at no higher risk of catching Covid. What they have repeatedly said is that teachers are at no higher risk from Covid. The two are different.

It was on the 17th December that the mass testing in schools using lateral flow tests was first announced (the moonshot schools testing was announced the 15th I think). This was just after millions of lateral flow tests were not needed any more due to their use in testing centres over Christmas being binned because of concerns over lack of accuracy.

The demand that schools set up mass covid testing centres took the headlines and the close contacts thing seemed to get totally overlooked. Then schools closed anyway.

But teachers have been banging on about it since it was announced and once again, it’s just everyone else being slow to pick up on it. It has been conflated with the mass testing plans which have to be ok because it’s what care home workers and NHS staff have been doing for ages.

Incidentally, daily testing instead of isolation has been pushed for NHS workers too by a shady outfit working with Us4Them; a lockdown sceptics group called Recovery.

So I reckon it’s being pushed so hard by Williamson because he’s a lockdown sceptic and schools were the launch pad.

They have never said teachers are at no higher risk of catching Covid. What they have repeatedly said is that teachers are at no higher risk from Covid

They definitely said of. Not from.

Infections are falling as everyone has said.

But teachers have been banging on about it since it was announced and once again, it’s just everyone else being slow to pick up on it. It has been conflated with the mass testing plans which have to be ok because it’s what care home workers and NHS staff have been doing for ages.

Really?

www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/30/doubts-raised-over-rapid-covid-tests-in-plan-for-english-care-home-visits
Doubts raised over rapid Covid tests in plan for English care home visits
Council advises care providers not to use lateral flow tests, citing concerns over accuracy

There were a number of councils in the NW which banned the use rapid tests in care homes as they felt they were too unreliable and thus posed a risk to residents.

I'm trying to find a link to the exact story but there were quite a few coouncils involved. This covers the gist of it though.

www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/blackpool-health-boss-urges-caution-19401928
Blackpool health boss urges caution over rapid Covid testing before care home visits as cases missed
Rapid coronavirus tests, known as lateral flow tests, only picked up 70% of Covid-19 cases with high viral loads in its Liverpool trial

I note from the article (dated 4th December)

"We already have a risk assessment process for facilitating visits to care homes and are continuing to support each individual home to ensure that measures are in place.

"We are following the national guidance which clearly states that you cannot rely on a negative lateral flow test alone in ensuring that a visit is COVID-safe."

news.sky.com/story/covid-19-sheffield-city-council-warns-care-home-providers-not-to-use-governments-rapid-tests-over-doubts-about-accuracy-12147500
Sheffield City Council has warned care home providers not to use the government's much-hailed rapid COVID tests over doubts about their accuracy

It is understood the council asked the government for technical data on the accuracy of the tests, but has yet to receive it.
Date 1st Dec

There were quite a few others who expressed concern, with some outright banning their use in care homes.

But yep crack on in schools...

This makes me shudder. Teacher daughter who lives with us went through a report last Friday with another teacher who has now tested positive. Lateral flow test being done tomorrow, but will it be reliable?

It's like playing that game of Russian Roulette. Will we get the vaccine first or will we pick up the wrong gun?

Eh? Numbers are dropping. They remain high, yes, but that's because they were so high before , eg some areas have reduced from 1,400 per 100,000 to around 700 . Obviously that's still really high but it's gone done by half . Overall apparently reduction is 25%. As R number goes down numbers should continue to reduce . Sadly numbers of those seriously ill and dying May continue to rise for a couple of weeks still as they are a couple of weeks behind infections .

It’s because they were being dumped from the other places they were supposed to be used that they were available for school use at such short notice.

School leaders went ‘wait, where are you going to get millions of tests?’ and the govt said ‘actually, we have them right here’,

Schools were the dumping ground for the tests that nobody else wanted because the general public would see it as a good thing and wonder what teachers were complaining about now they were being tested like the NHS.

It’s about the optics, not whether it will actually make a difference. All the government messaging has been about saying schools are safe, not actually making them safer or spending any money on them.