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.

Kent, which went to tier 4 before anywhere else, has dropped substantially with almost all areas at below national average. I think Tier 4 with schools open does work.

Tier 4 was announced on 19 Dec, at the same time as the change to the Christmas rules. London, Kent and various parts of East England were all put into Tier 4 at that time and Christmas mixing was banned. Then other areas were put into Tier 4 on Boxing Day. Since schools mostly broke up on the 18th, there wasn't really a period when Tier 4 areas had schools open (except 4 Jan, but schools in the areas that were put into Tier 4 first were shut then too).

What is different for Kent is the county went straight into Tier 3 after the Nov lockdown, whereas London etc had a couple of weeks of Tier 2 before moving to Tier 3 on 16 Dec. So data from the first couple of weeks of Dec may be useful for comparing the effectiveness of Tier 2 vs Tier 3.

What the data from Kent really shows is that Tier 3 with schools open and the new variant is a terrible idea.

My Kent based kids didn’t miss a single day of school last term and that’s one in primary and one in secondary. There were one or two cases in other year groups but their bubbles were not effected. The schools have been excellent about keeping things as safe as possible. They are also good job of homeschooling but cannot replace actually being at school...

affected not effected.

My Kent based kids didn’t miss a single day of school last term and that’s one in primary and one in secondary.

Well that's great for your kids but given the attendance stats, they were incredibly lucky. Things were even worse in Medway.

Worst attendance was in London. Redbridge, 17% attendance at secondary last week of term.

No point in saying 'schools open' if the majority of kids can't attend due to isolation. If schools are going to be open, they need to be open in a sensible and sustainable way.

They were a bit lucky but why should they miss that chance. Kids should be at school and schools should be as safe as possible.

During the 2020/21 autumn term, average on-site attendance in state-funded schools was 86%. Following the restriction of attendance to vulnerable children and children of critical workers only, on-site attendance dropped to 14% in state-funded schools on 13 January. Pupils not attending on-site should receive remote education.
Attendance on 13 January was 21% in state-funded primary schools, 5% in state-funded secondary schools and 30% in state-funded special schools.
explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/attendance-in-education-and-early-years-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak

For anyone who thinks that the number of children physically attending school now is anything like it was last term.

@GhoulWithADragonTattoo

They were a bit lucky but why should they miss that chance. Kids should be at school and schools should be as safe as possible.

Indeed. And if attendance is 34% due to covid then that shows that the government are failing in their duty to make schools as safe as possible.

Which we know, because they haven't made any effort to make them safe at all.

Why should your kids miss that chance is a good question, why were my kids allowed to miss that chance through negligence is one that the other two thirds of parents should be asking.

Some schools were evidently managing to keep safe. Perhaps they should share best practice more widely. It shouldn’t mean all schools shut.

@pinbinpin

But kids haven't been at school since the beginning of December? 5 weeks ago at least. We'd have seen the drop by now if school kids had been the largest factor, and not feckless adults continuing to mix an socialise over Christmas etc

Schools didn’t break up at the beginning of December. Some LAs were threatened with legal proceedings by the DfE to force them to keep children in school until 18th December (in some cases).

@GhoulWithADragonTattoo

Some schools were evidently managing to keep safe. Perhaps they should share best practice more widely. It shouldn’t mean all schools shut.

No, they weren't 'managing to keep it safe'. This suggests that they were doing things that schools badly hit by covid and that somehow the schools that were badly hit were somehow to blame.

This is bullshit nonsense.

I think they were. In secondary masks in communal area. Kids sitting only with their bubble for lunch. Reminding about hand washing / hand gel. Assemblies done remotely. In primary not keeping too close eg no hugging, only sitting with their year group at lunch and only playing with you year group at break. And supervising hand washing lots. Remote assembly too.

Some schools were evidently managing to keep safe. Perhaps they should share best practice more widely. It shouldn’t mean all schools shut.

Many soldiers survived the trenches in WW1. Clearly they were following best practice in avoiding being blown up by artillery or picked off by a sniper. What a shame that more didn’t follow their example.

Lots of extra cleaning too.

@GhoulWithADragonTattoo

I think they were. In secondary masks in communal area. Kids sitting only with their bubble for lunch. Reminding about hand washing / hand gel. Assemblies done remotely. In primary not keeping too close eg no hugging, only sitting with their year group at lunch and only playing with you year group at break. And supervising hand washing lots. Remote assembly too.

That is pretty standard. Nothing special. Schools badly hit by covid were doing that too.

The problem is that it's bollocks. No mitigation measures at all in the place where school kids spend the majority of their time, and the riskiest place for transmission - the classroom.

I think the schools that seemed safer simply have differences of those that do not. For example my daughter's school had half the amount of 'bubble bursting' compared with another local school. The reasons for this are the small size of my child's school and the one year group per floor layout that they are fortunate to have. Even still, her school had to close early before Xmas because a covid case went on to take 10 members of staff out of action.

The schools I mention are both in one of the most infected London boroughs.

Clearly a nonsense comparison. Kids deserve a decent education. It’s a human right and many are being failed by this government.

Kids deserve a decent education. It’s a human right and many are being failed by this government.

Indeed. Why the bloody hell they decided that it didn't matter if kids catch covid and therefore they'd do nothing to stop it is beyond me.

Also use of screens and and keeping room ventilated.

None of those measures - which all schools are doing - will stop Covid spreading around a school and then being taken home and out into the community. None.

Schools that had no cases (that they know if, bearing in mind children are the most likely to be asymptomatic or differently symptomatic) were lucky. That's all.

Clearly a nonsense comparison

Explain why.

Some schools were evidently managing to keep safe. Perhaps they should share best practice more widely. It shouldn’t mean all schools shut
One school in my area has had very few cases.
Another had lots of cases.

I'll let you guess which school had a high level of professional parents who were able to work from home, and which school had a high level of parents in low-paid, essential jobs and often having to work several jobs out of the home.

It seems like you're rather over-simplifying the situation to suit your agenda. The reality is Covid spread is a bit more complicated. If it was as simple as 'get schools with low infection rates to tell others what to do' then surely the experts would have suggested that almost a year ago.

They should be in safe an environment as possible but you cannot entirely remove possibility of catching an illness and nor should you try to. Schooling is more important than that.

Unmasked children and staff attending school, in classrooms with 30+ people each day is definitely against the advice to maintain a 2m distance and to wear a mask when with others indoors. It is also against the advice of household mixing...

If masks and social distancing cannot be maintained in schools, they will never be COVID safe...
What can we do to reduce the risk though?

I think we all know that if you just shut schools and open everything else then the virus will spread very rapidly. So it's not that schools are the main cause of the spread of the virus. The question about how much open schools contribute to the speed of spread is tricky and controversial. My own non expert view is that schools contributed little to the spread pre B117 and in any case if you shut most things except schools (i.e. tier 3) that was enough to get numbers down. However now we have B117 things seem much more precarious and open schools may be the straw that pushes R over 1. The only answer is the vaccinate as fast as is humanly possible.