Primary schools back sooner than expected?

[deeplybaffled]

It’s hard to know what to believe, but PHE now seem to be suggesting that primary schools can safely return after half term - which seems to contradict all other recent reports and government comments
focussing around Easter!

It should mutate into something milder according to science I believe?

as a theory that has been widely debunked sadly

that's not to say it will necessarily become more deadly

just that it isn't an inevitability it will definitely get milder.

I don't understand this all or nothing approach to schools

No me either - here they went back all and phased last time but that was half a day a week then a day so 2 days in total for the half term.

Waiting for Scotland's announcement now

My local authority sent an email today begging parents to stop emailing schools trying to get school places before the date of March 8th. Apparently since the government announced the phasing back of schools they’ve beeb inundated.

People are completely desperate.

Why don't we just send all of the children back without vaccinating any of the school staff? Seems like a great idea to me. Ah...wait a minute...

If the staff aren’t vulnerable, that sounds perfectly acceptable to me.

I wouldn't say there's huge evolutionary pressure for coronavirus to mutate to a milder version - infection generally happens before the disease turns more serious.

If people were flat out on their back from day 1 then there would be evolutionary pressure for it to become milder i.e. variants which didn't cause such severe illness early on would out-reproduce those who caused people to take to their bed straight away.

I don't understand why people think sending children back to school as they were in Sept will have anything other than the same end result as we had in December. Surely, for that reason alone, there's cause to do things differently?

I don't understand why people think sending children back to school as they were in Sept will have anything other than the same end result as we had in December.
The end result was not just "huge numbers caught COVID" but also "hospitals overwhelmed" so at least if most of the elderly and vulnerable are vaccinated that part won't happen.

And fewer hospitalisations due to COVID also means we can get on with other treatments (more healthy population overall) and those in hospital for COVID get more nursing, so have better chances of survival. So it's not exactly the same.

We hear a lot in the media that children rarely die of coronavirus but I wanted to get a better understanding of the degree to which they become very ill across the various age groups and regions in England.

So last week I pulled the age data for coronavirus hospital admissions in all regions of England - hospital admissions is a good gauge, I feel, for individuals becoming very ill (ill enough to go to hospital).

I published the results for every region in England here - see the tables under the hospital admissions charts.
www.covidmessenger.com/hospital-admissions/

This obviously does not tell us the degree to which children play a role in bringing the virus home or transmitting to adults. I have yet to see conclusive evidence on that.

But nonetheless, I did find the results of the admissions age analysis reassuring.

Feel free to use and share should you find it helpful.
www.covidmessenger.com/hospital-admissions/

The end result was not just "huge numbers caught COVID" but also "hospitals overwhelmed" so at least if most of the elderly and vulnerable are vaccinated that part won't happen

Maybe a reduction for hospital admissions in general, but over half of ICU admissions are under 65 at the moment (see the latest Indie Sage data presentations for the data on this - they've made this point repeatedly), so the vaccination programme won't make much of a dent there for a good while.

I think we also have to bear in mind that medics seem to be exhausted completely. As a society I don't think we can expect them to just keep going so we can open up without the most basic of safety measures or minimal investment in schools (e.g. to improve ventilation).

And beyond that, allowing unmitigated mixing of households indoors for extremely long durations is simply asking for new variants to take hold. The nightmare scenario is one arises that evades the vaccine protection - if we open schools without the basic safety measures taken elsewhere we're risking this.

Indie sage briefings:
www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqwC56XTP8F9zeEUCOttPQ

If there was government appetite for schools to be made safer, it would have happened by now. Thankfully at least the government at least learns from its mistakes...oh wait a minute

It would be negligence to force dc back now, esp secondary, with raging variants loose.

Why not go harder for a month?

Have super strict lock down in march.. And really stamp this bastard out??.. Who wants this endless in and out??.
It's know we won't everyone get rid but we ve done 🆘 well so far, why blow it up and invite more mutations??. M

Children are superb spreaders... Look how fast even this mutant raging bastard Kent strain has been tamed... In a few weeks with schools closed.
This didn't happen in December... School was open.

It's ok though as children live alone 🤔 and it's safe for adults, unless you're very old. That's why there is nobody of school kid parental age in hospital and long covid is just a cold. Kids don't spread and schools are safe...just not in lockdown.

We won’t be going back for the foreseeable.

We are doing something different to September - vaccinating huge swathes of people

@HauntedPencil Does that include school staff?

[quote Nicknamegoeshere]@HauntedPencil Does that include school staff?[/quote]
If they are older or ECV then yes! We are vaccinating the people who are more likely to be seriously affected by covid to reduce hospital admissions and deaths.

[quote Nicknamegoeshere]@HauntedPencil Does that include school staff?[/quote]
You know that it doesn't as they are still doing over 70s. Unless they need one as they fall into a vulnerable category.

The unions as far as I can see are asking for priority in the next phase not to be done now

@3littlewords Let's face it, school staff are very likely to get Covid given their working conditions.
We can't say for sure they will be OK if they do, even if not older or ECV.
My son's head teacher is early 40's and in none of the vulnerable categories. However, she has been extremely unwell and even weeks on is still not right at all. She was terrified about passing it on to her husband (who is in those categories).
School staff should be prioritised!

[quote Nicknamegoeshere]@3littlewords Let's face it, school staff are very likely to get Covid given their working conditions.
We can't say for sure they will be OK if they do, even if not older or ECV.
My son's head teacher is early 40's and in none of the vulnerable categories. However, she has been extremely unwell and even weeks on is still not right at all. She was terrified about passing it on to her husband (who is in those categories).
School staff should be prioritised![/quote]
Theres lots of people likely to catch covid due to their working conditions not just school staff. Im sorry to hear about your sons headteacher its rare for someone so young to be affected so badly by covid.
Out of interest which group of society do you think teachers should be prioritised above? And do you think it should just be teachers prioritised or other professions aswell like the police, or factory workers, transport workers, supermarket staff?
In an ideal world everyone would be done at the same time as the vaccine is of benefit to all adults unfortunately it can't be done like that so there has to be some sort of order.

I think we should follow WHO advice for schools.

So

smaller classes
small bubbles
masks
social distancing
consider rotas and blended learning

actually close the bloody bubbles if there's a positive case
proper isolation of contacts
test (with an effective test) before return to school

and perspex screens are probably a good idea

and also use test and trace

full Korea/ Japan type model

also vaccinate teachers early in their groups

very happy for schools to go back soon if we are doing that

@SansaSnark

PHE seem to be ignoring the data from primary schools at the very end of last term. I thought there was growing evidence that the new strain was more transmissible among young children?

Anecdotally, a lot of primary schools seem to have had bubbles close during lockdown compared to last term in my local area (but cases have skyrocketed locally too).

Primary schools opening involves lots of adults interacting too, which they don't seem to have taken into account?

My concern is that if they just reopen primary schools as normal after half term, then we'll end up with lots of bubble closures, people relying on the childcare will be screwed and vulnerable young children will end up stuck at home. As well as the risk to wider society, of course.

I agree. DD's school didn't have a single positive case until after Christmas, and then they had 4 in a week and a half. That's only with the keyworker/vulnerable children in. Cases in our town have been going up fast too, it's by no means under control in our area. We were doing really well here until August, then the world and his dog arrived on holiday, the holiday camps with total capacity of 5000 were full right until the end of summer then we ended up in a local lockdown by mid September.

We've closed more bubbles in January (with fewer than 10 children in each bubble) than we did in term 2.