Is Covid currently circulating in schools?

[Dustyboots]

I met an old friend, whose a teacher, in the park today - she said staff are still being infected by kids - and that Covid is rife in her infant school.

Is this the case in any/many other schools? I'm keen for my kids to go back on March 8th but it's got me wondering whether there will be an immediate repeat of Autumn where classes are in and out all the time isolating.

Our whole nursery had to shut just before half term.

I would assume so. A friend of mine who teaches in a primary school with only keyworker children tested positive two weeks ago, four days after a Y1 child came to school with a cough and a temperature. Child was sent home and parent rang in with a positive result the next day. Friend doesn't go anywhere other than work (shopping delivered, her partner works from home, no support bubble). Friend (late 20s) was quite poorly for a week, but has now recovered.

OP. Why on earth would you think covid isn't circulating in schools?!?

Yes - this is similar to what my friend told me today. All the staff were affected/infected ...

It's got me thinking that the government is clearly not going to go to any efforts to make schools safe. I think infection rates must be a lot higher now than when schools closed in December/January. This variant is more contagious ...

There's no way that this isn't going to spread. There's no way that it can be controlled.

I'm not even panicking. Just curious as to what it's going to all pan out like.

OP. Why on earth would you think covid isn't circulating in schools?!?

Well - I don't work in schools and my kids are at home. We're properly following the rules and sadly see no one. I was assuming that everyone was kind of doing the same and so the kids in schools would be fairly infection free.

Plus in the first lockdown, I don't think Covid was circulating in schools - was it?

The latest ONS survey shows that the parts of the population with the highest rates of cv infection are young adults and primary school children. So yes.

Highest rates of infection in the last infection study was among children under 11. 25% of primary aged children are at school and nurseries are open, of course covid is circulating. When we open schools it will increase again. Most parents and nursery and primary school staff are young enough that it's not affecting hospital admissions. If community transmission is low schools are safer and overall its continuing to fall. This is why we can only open schools in March if everything else stays closed. Hopefully by March 8 infection will be low enough for track and trace to start to be able to have some effect.

In the first lockdown numbers in school were very low. Now they're not.

I’m not saying COVID isn’t in schools as clearly it is since it’s everywhere but it’s not true to say infection rates are higher than Dec/Jan. Just look at the stats.

numbers of children that is

Right - so how long are schools likely to stay open for then - if they all open on March 8th, which looks likely?

Is there any plan to contain and limit the spread this time?

We had one case in December day after the school shut for Christmas . Mine have been going in as keyworker children and been no cases this year.

You just need to look at the official data. Kids in childcare and primary schools are the most infected.

Well there hasn't been a single confirmed case at DDs school. (Obviously there could be those with no symptoms nfor all we know) but no burst bubbles at all. And we are in the north west where there was a high prevalence and we've been in the highest tier (before lockdown) for what has felt like a lifetime. 🤷🏼‍♀️

A secondary school in my area closed before half term after 9 staff and 2 students all tested positive.

DD has still been going 2 days a week as I'm keyworker

So maybe there's some schools unaffected. Plenty that are ... Who knows?

Our area has been really high with infection rates and our school was affected a lot before Christmas. It's this new (more infectious) variant that will make a difference though and lead to it spreading more this time, I suppose.

But still the papers are reporting that ALL pupils to return to school on 8 March. Our school has had to close twice during this lockdown and it only has about 10% of children in.

We had no isolation periods in my school before Christmas. We have had three in my school since. That's with KW children and vulnerable children equalling 25% of all children

There are a millions threads on this.

Aside from my personal view that schools should go back; either way I don’t think this is our last serious restriction (maybe not full lockdown) simply because I don’t believe you can eradicate COVID that easily. You get the number low enough to try and control it with mitigation (PPE, track and trace, vaccine etc). COVID will be here for a long time so I’ll take schools opening now given the other factors. If you don’t want to send your kids in - don’t.

I think it will be worse than before Christmas. Suspect the new variant will spread in schools a lot more than the old one did and up until christmas, the predominant variant was the old one in most places.

I do want to send my kids in. But I want the government to make necessary changes to mitigate the inevitable spread.

This - so that my kids (and all others +teachers) are safer - but also so that they get a less disrupted education, hoping that schools can stay open longer this way.

My dd has been in school throughout. All children tested twice weekly. Not one positive result this term.

Yes it's still spreading in schools according to dsis who is a contact tracer.

Ours had absolutely no cases up until Christmas but has had several during lockdown.