School closed due to 100 cases!

[Santastealer]

A 900 capacity school has closed due to 100 covid cases. I find it really hard to comprehend how this has happened when community transmission is so low at the minute!

Is this reported news? I am sceptical.

Covid-19: Wilsthorpe School shut after more than 100 test positive www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-56988415

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.nottinghampost.com/news/local-news/school-closes-least-2-days-5373115.amp

Very real news sadly.

Just googled and found same link. Blimey. Fuck.

Makes you wonder how many of those kids were doing the flow tests.

FFS. This shit just will not fuck off. I feel so badly for all of you with young children trying to survive this bloody pandemic. My children are adults, and I can't even imagine how frustrating this past year has been. No school, stuck at home, no activities. I think I would have marched into the ocean by now.

@Kyph

Makes you wonder how many of those kids were doing the flow tests.

Not really, they have been proven to be not much better than useless.

@Kyph

Makes you wonder how many of those kids were doing the flow tests.

Makes you wonder how useless the tests really are

It’s a really really contagious disease. The fact that there’s very little of it out there at the moment doesn’t butter any parsnips if the one person who has it is sitting right next to you for a couple of hours. And no test is perfect. You could be sticking kids with needles every morning with a 99.9% accuracy test and still miss that one teen.

I am local. I don't have children at this school but they've been fantastic at communicating from what I've heard. All siblings at other schools have been asked to stay home too to try and prevent it from getting into other schools.

This isn’t necessarily representative of what would happen in wider society as the children have not been vaccinated. But does indicate it doesn’t take much for it to spread like wildfire!

@ManyMaybes

This isn’t necessarily representative of what would happen in wider society as the children have not been vaccinated. But does indicate it doesn’t take much for it to spread like wildfire!

Yes, we were at only 10 cases per 100k in the local area this time last week.

Kids aren't vaccinated so these things will happen.

As an unvaccinated teacher in a large secondary school it really worries me.

A number of school cases involved in the outbreak in Moray also. Ongoing worry for many teachers and parents until everyone is vaccinated.

@Santastealer

As an unvaccinated teacher in a large secondary school it really worries me.

I’m assuming though that you are young and not classed as vulnerable so do remember that the likelihood of you falling ill is low (including with long covid). A lot of the risk and danger is blown out of proportion by the media so you shouldn’t need to worry :)

Jesus wept!

As much as it is scary, its helpful to see how a 100 strong outbreak in a concentrated area affects the health provision/death rates.

I wouldnt wish anyone to suffer with covid, but equally, all those anticipated to suffer worse from it are vaccinated. It remains to be seen how this will affect the wider community.

@ManyMaybes I’m not classed as vulnerable and am just under 40. Shouldn’t be too long before I get my vaccine now I don’t think.

@Aquamarine1029

FFS. This shit just will not fuck off. I feel so badly for all of you with young children trying to survive this bloody pandemic. My children are adults, and I can't even imagine how frustrating this past year has been. No school, stuck at home, no activities. I think I would have marched into the ocean by now.

This .... so done with it

That explains why our local rates have rocketed! Thankfully we've got no links to that school but definitely emphasises how fast in can still spread.

@Santastealer

As an unvaccinated teacher in a large secondary school it really worries me.

It is an UTTER disgrace you are not vaccinated as a teacher. My sympathies I just cannot understand why not. You are so much more at risk with older pupils.

As scary as it all sounds there are some questions that need to be answered to get the full picture.

1. How many are actually displaying symptoms? How many are asymptomatic? How many are a little off colour? How many are seriously ill?

1. How many are vaccinated (there will most likely be at least a few in the school that are vaccinated, How many of those have tested positive and where are they on the spectrum of asymptomatic to seriously ill?)

1. Of those that haven't tested positive, how many have been previously infected or have had the vaccine

1. Of those testing positive How many have passed the infection on to their families? Is there any difference in the transmission rate if family members are.vaccinated?

I would hope that PHE is looking in to all these points, it may well show one way or another what is the best way going forward with schools as much of the adult population becomes vaccinated.

*I an Well aware that what I've put above sounds very cold, I find it hard to get emotional in the same way others do.

Not vaccinated yet here too, so yes, this is concerning.

However, I fully expect that there were outbreaks of this size quite regularly before Christmas, but the government were doing everything they could to avoid finding covid in schools - only allowing tests for symptomatic pupils (and not with the common child symptoms), not testing close contacts, only isolating a tiny number of students instead of whole classes.

This time they are sending mobile testing units and appear to be actively trying to find cases and contain the outbreak. This is actually quite positive news as it shows that this time they might actually try to keep on top of infections in schools.