Outbreaks in schools

[Trustisamust]

Since schools have returned there have already been major outbreaks in both my child's secondary and the primary I work at.
The majority of school staff remain unvaccinated.
For how many other schools is this already the case?
I just don't know what to think any more.

Our secondary school status:
DD has been back 5 days..... Now self isolation until After Easter.
Since mid Dec she's had 5 days in real school. The masks work then? 🙄
2 other Yr groups are also off.
Schools are safe...

A couple of local secondary schools have picked up asymptomatic cases in lfts, but thats it.

We have had no staff testing positive throughout, and one child back in October.

My school is fine- no cases (staff or children), youngest daughter is also clear and eldest daughter at secondary is clear and not aware of any cases. However, my friend has children at a different secondary and she tells me 7 children in one year group have tested positive. That seems crazy!
Another friend has had to recommence online learning with her youngest as the school bubble has burst (child in primary tested positive).

Wondering if the number of cases detected will possibly decrease as many people will just not bother to test at home on a regular basis.

Hopefully yes then we get freedom back.

This school in Wales has had 21 positive cases!
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/pontprennau-primary-cardiff-covid-coronavirus-20198848

I think it’s daft to be focusing on positive test results in kids -esp LFT without confirmatory PCR test. There is 0.3% false positive rate for LFT which means if a thousand kids are tested on average 3 will test positive without having the disease. Without the need for confirmatory PCR test it means that a whole bubble then has to self isolate. It makes no sense. In nhs positive LFT means you need PCR test to confirm - why not the same for kids?
We are going to have to live with covid forever. It’s going to become less problematic as vaccination program progresses. Positive tests in otherwise well people who are not even ill are not what we should be focusing on.
Kids need to be at school, parents need to be able to work and our economy must be given a chance to recover otherwise the harms of lockdown will far outweigh the harms of covid eg additional suicides, late cancer presentation, people having to wait more than a year to be seen by hospital specialist.
Bare in mind the number of kids with serious illness from covid is very small, and that teachers are not at higher risk compared to general population and at lower risk of serious covid illness compared to general population.

Yep our area has lots of year groups out, high school is closed and both of my schools have covid. Its not good news

That’s rubbish. The more you test, the more you find, the more you can stamp it out.

You’re ignoring the fact that kids spread it. They maybe OK, their teachers may or may not be OK, but children will spread it in the community.

Look at the daily rates since schools reopened to all - they have stopped falling and are now slightly increasing.
Teachers/TAs need the vaccine.

No cases here. Large secondary.

I read this about the tests generally, sounds a bit weird. I just find it hard to trust these tests, however much I would like to mobile.twitter.com/deeksj/status/1372506978661109760

Daily rates are only increasing because of the fuck off huge amount of testing going on in schools.

Rates are not increasing. At least the last few days have all had down arrows, which seems a little weird to me.

Local primary my friend's children attend has closed to all of year 1 & 4 due to a case in each. After just one week back at school 🤦‍♀️ They are due back next week.

DC1 @ secondary no cases to date.
DC2 @ primary, reception year sent home to isolate after a positive case (approx 60 children & 3/4 staff). 2 form entry but reception is open plan, so if an outbreak had occurred in any other year group it would have been 30 children & 2 staff.

I work across schools and nurseries.

From 'my' 45 primary schools and 50 nurseries and PVI's I have this week:

Schools -
1 full closure
6 part closures - in each school numbers range from 20 - 90 children at home isolating & 4- 22 staff, positive cases 4 - 8 adults and 3-9 pupils so far.

Two day nurseries are completely closed due to everyone being in isolation. 6-8 staff members positive, 6-9 children up to now.

@HedgeSparrows

Look at the daily rates since schools reopened to all - they have stopped falling and are now slightly increasing. Teachers/TAs need the vaccine.

Because a lot more testing is being done.

They are bound to increase a bit when schools went back. The government said this all along. What matters now are hospital figures.

In my town there are cases in 4 schools and 3 nurseries. In all, about 200 staff and pupils having to self isolate. A bit concerning to say the least.

Another one of my colleagues in school has just tested positive.

Lucky old staff. We knew numbers would go up so we knew we were putting you all in positions where you could get sick. And now you are. It's fine though as you probably won't die, although you might be really ill for the rest of your life, but we don't keep stats for that. I mean we could have vaccinated the older staff but then we'd have to admit schools aren't as safe as we'd been saying. We gave you magic tape so what more do you want. Now stop moaning as we know kids don't get sick from covid. We'll just ignore the 570 school staff who have died and the many who now have chronic illness, and we won't count the ones who now get sick because we gave you v little protection. It's all fine, schools are COVID safe, Boris said so.

They only reopened on the 8th March, there hasn't really been time for major outbreaks yet. There can be some cases, but major outbreaks sounds like an exaggeration.

Cases will go up as we open up, of course.
Thinking otherwise is unrealistic. As long as hospitalisations and deaths are low...that's the goal.

We had no cases at all, right through to January, then maybe 4 or 5 in total during the time the schools were off. I think 2 staff members and 2 or 3 kids. But nothing since they started testing years 7 and 8 the week before they went back .

@HedgeSparrows

Look at the daily rates since schools reopened to all - they have stopped falling and are now slightly increasing. Teachers/TAs need the vaccine.

As the amount of testing has increased so dramatically it is no longer useful to compare case numbers to previous levels to assess differences.

I don't disagree on giving teachers vaccines though to be clear - whatever is needed to keep schools open should be done.