Will cases rise when schools go back ?

[DinosaurDiana]

The obvious answer is yes, but I’m wondering if we will end up in lockdown again ?

Yes. Look at Israel. But by how much depends somewhat on how everyone behaves (probably with abandon) and our luck with the variants (we'll be lucky if the vaccine still works).

I work in a school. We've had about 30% of the children in, no more than 15 in a class. We've had 5 covid cases this term, three were completely separate and the other two were siblings. None of these cases spread in school (as far as we know). I can't see how this would stay the case if we had 30+ children in each classroom, with people told windows only have to be open when children aren't in the room because it's too cold, and adults swapping bubbles to cover.

The idea that we need safe schools is not helpful - nothing is safe normally. We don’t wrap people in cotton wool

Does your school have fire extinguishers and a fire safety plan?

Do we think that's over the top?

All everyone is asking for is the same kind of very basic risk mitigation for covid.

If we send back kids as normal, no rotas, no social distancing, no extra money for ventilation we are actively doing the thing that might make all this vaccination utterly pointless.

I want a fire extinguisher so my child is safe from fire in their individual school.

I want anti-covid measures in place so we are nationally safe from vaccine failure, which could be caused by high numbers of mutations and high rate of spread.

@PatriciaValiant I have already watched that video and thought that the epidemiologist was hugely irresponsible. She suggested that there could be tens of thousand more deaths as a result of opening schools in March (85k to 150k) even though the vast majority of those that are at risk of dying have already received a vaccination.

@IloveJKRowling

If we send back kids as normal, no rotas, no social distancing, no extra money for ventilation we are actively doing the thing that might make all this vaccination utterly pointless.

Absolutely this.

I can feel myself getting as stressy about thebidea of just fully opening schools as I did about the idea of mixing households over Christmas.

I read somewhere that full school opening moves the R rate up by around 0.5 which would take us above 1 again. I would much rather a rota and a gradual back to school rather than playing hokey cokey with self isolation which is far more disruptive. (And allows more people to have their second vaccine.)

@noblegiraffe

It seems that there are two answers to this thread.

'Yes, so we need to mitigate against that'

And

'Yes, but I don't care'.

You've missed one very important answer:

"Yes, but a rise in cases does not necessarily mean a rise in death or hospitalisation".

I filed that under ‘risk it for a biscuit’, mole

@noblegiraffe

I filed that under ‘risk it for a biscuit’, mole

Not a clue what you mean, but presume you mean that you're not going to give it any credence because it doesn't fit with "schools must stay closed".

Yes, and it's a fool's idea to forge ahead with the plan.

Wrt the over 50s, this is the age group which includes a lot of grandparents of young, school aged children (aka free after school childcare).

It won't end well, although I very much hope that this post doesn't age well.

because it doesn't fit with "schools must stay closed".

I don’t want schools to stay closed 🤷‍♀️

You've missed one very important answer:

"Yes, but a rise in cases does not necessarily mean a rise in death or hospitalisation".

A rise in cases does mean a rise in mutations which risks mucking up the whole vaccination programme.

@Rosesaresweet

Must remember this in future and send DC’s to school with a sick bug.

How on earth is a sick bug (where child vomits and feels awful) comparable with Covid (which for most kids is asymptomatic or very mild)?!

Because with covid it's the people they can pass it to that can be really ill.

So it's the same theory. It's not who the bug affects but the contagion of it and how many people can become ill.

@PracticingPerson

Opening after Easter would help a lot more, five more weeks of pushing it down for only three weeks more home schooling.

Never thought of it like this. Definitely a good point. And those 5 weeks could make so much more difference. Both in cases and numbers vaccinated.

The fire extinguisher argument only holds weight for certain measures. We don’t stop schools using paper as it can catch fire . Yes r courage washing hands and not sharing cups etc but we need to get back to like - we are in danger of thinking that we need security and safety to stop any virus which is not feasible.

Schools reflect cases elsewhere in the community. If they're falling there, they'll fall in schools. It's nonsense that it's the other way around. Adults working and mixing does far more to spread covid. We've yet to have one case in our school in the whole year.

Really stupid argument, twelly. We are taking measures to limit covid spread everywhere else, so why not in schools?

You have to argue why schools should be exempt from basic measures implemented elsewhere.

I think cases will rise from now anyway as no one is observing guidelines. Lots of children meeting for half term play dates and large groups of mums and children out walking today .

Any measures introduced in schools are not likely to be followed when children aren’t being supervised I do believe we want to live in a world where children are policed. Basic rules for public transport where people are thrown together is enforceable. Even those countries such as China that went down zero tolerance have recognised that schools cannot follow such procedures.

There's a big difference between two families meeting up outside (I've seen a lot of this as well) - both of whom are 100% at home, know the others risk and have decided to meet for the benefit of their children's mental health because the government is doing fuck all....

and 100s of kids mixing (so effectively 100s of families) in 'bubbles' INSIDE with no social distancing, no ventilation and no masks for hours and hours.

If a couple of families meeting up outdoors and letting the kids play was the main issue, rates wouldn't still be falling.

Yes but why should it actually matter is the question I want answered ?!

Life is pretty much normal in China now. See also Australia, New Zealand.

Get cases low, then open up and it can be as normal because you can stamp out outbreaks with decent test and trace (of course we're still waiting for that). If cases aren't low, then it's a recipe for disaster and a recipe for breeding a variant that evades the vaccine.

We've seen this already in December. If we don't learn from that we're stupid (as a nation).