So are schools safe like the PM always says? Or did those 100 cases catch covid at school?

[CarrieAntoinette]

Did those 100 covid cases at Wilsthorpe School in Derbyshire catch it at school?

(In which case schools aren't "safe" are they? They're clearly not even "covid secure" are they?)

Or is there a hidden reservoir of presumably asymptomatic covid in that local area?

Or both?

Might there be hidden covid in other areas?

And does this have implications for the roadmap and the back to your workplace push?

@Jenthefredo

Also:

The deprived areas where these outbreaks are occurring have lots of things in common...

Less well educated residents, older population, issues with NEET, issues with homelessness, issues with zero hours low income jobs, issues with substance abuse problems...

Its not that hard to see why these areas have the highest number of infections and deaths.

Not just in England either. The valleus in Wales have been hard hit too. Very similar issues.

But, yeah. Let's just pretend these issues don't exist. Smacks of NIMBYism to me...

But the numbers here in Long Eaton haven't really been that high before this incident. They went up in January but they did everywhere. Just last week they were only at 10 in 100,000, lower than the national average.

Correct me if I am wrong, but "regular" Covid didn't really infect that many people from one case. I would expect to see a few cases on top of one positive in a school. For it to get to this level, that's either a lot more infection going on (different variant) or testing is picking up more cases that would have gone unnoticed before.

I've worked in the feeder schools for that school - would happily do so again. I don't feel unsafe - it's very close to us.

I do feel upset for the kids disrupted again, especially since some of the younger secondary pupils were pretty likely to have been affected by the juniors burning to the ground last year as well - these kids have been through so much in the last year or so... I just feel sympathy for them - but I guess I don't see children as filthy disease vectors - I see them as kids still.

Long Eaton - good and bad bits (I know most of the local area VERY well) - high street is fucked, more fucked by the effect of the lockdown - vape and charity shops... same as most small-suburb/town high streets in England these days.

Can recommend the wool shop round the corner from Heaps though down by the carpet shop - may as well get a shameless plug in for it.

Closing schools is 2020 noblegiraffe - when A school needs to be closed is a 2021 problem and beyond because other things can caused schools to be closed (Norovirus for one) so guidance does need to be created to decide when that point should occur. In any setting actually what numbers are needed to force a shut down.

Mistressinthetulips even the original strain could spread quickly and only needed one superspreader. In terms of should it have been left to get to 1 in 9 - that I guess is something that needs figuring out

@Mistressinthetulips

Quartz I don't think letting it get to a point where what, 1 in 9 people in the school? have Covid could be described as "cutting it off at the pass". That decision should have been made much faster.

Except the numbers shot up on Monday this week. My stepchildren, who attend this school, did their home tests on Sunday as they have always done, both were negative. They were requested by school to re test on Monday because there was an increase in numbers and both were positive. Not sure what else could have been done in the circumstances by the school, as with this info the school was shut from Tuesday.

No one has been saying (let alone screaming) about closing the schools.

Schools staff deserve to be as safe as they can be in their workplace and that's all we've been asking for.

If every member of school staff who feels unsafe leaves then where does that leave children then? Many experienced staff leaving in droves is not good for anyone.

I'm tired of people screaming about how selfish school staff are and how they should 'just get another job.'

All school staff I know are far from selfish.