No more masks in classrooms - hurray!

[TeddingtonTrashbag]

Hurray!
I am a secondary teacher and just hope it really happens.

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/05/06/exclusive-end-masks-classroom-boris-johnson-defies-unions/

"If youre 12, tested, wearing a mask then distance is not an issue."

Eh? But you're advocating NOT wearing masks!

@Dozer

Glad this is happening as it’ll be better for DCs’ education and mental health.

How will the likely increase in isolations due to transmission amongst unvaccinated school pupils be "better for DCs' education and mental health?"

@CallmeHendricks

"If youre 12, tested, wearing a mask then distance is not an issue."

Eh? But you're advocating NOT wearing masks!

The kids are wearing masks!

Right just to be clear.....For me my daughters school has done really well, They stopped vertical forms, they stagger start and finish times, they use seating plans, lots of hand washing and have ventilation.

Do I think thats enough to remove ALL risk? No, but I believe those that are likely to become most ill have been vaccinated (or need to take precautions themselves). Take away the masks and keep monitoring it - if cases become high then they can come back, Thats my opinion.

At the beginning of September last year, an estimated 0.2% of the population was infected. By the end of October, it was over 1%. By December rates in schools were over 2%.

Right now, infection rates in some areas are greater than they were last September. It makes sense to keep what mitigations we have, such as masks, in schools - where about 20% of the population congregates and social distancing (however defined) is impossible.

Being as cases have still dropped seems to work well.

Initial infections in schools, by and large, mirror cases in the community - it's a different case once a number of infected individuals are present in the same school (see outbreaks of 80 and 100, and 30 including new variants, in schools and colleges recently).

So cases in the community, as Boris has said, have dropped due to lockdown. So have cases in schools. They have dropped more in secondary schools (masks, testing) than they have in primary (no masks, no tests).

Other mitigations - ventilation, handwashing, class-sized bubbles in primary - have had some effect, no doubt, but since they were also present from Sept - December, when cases skyrocketed, they clearly aren't sufficient on their own. Interestingly, there was a recent paper from the US that said the increase in infections in families containing school age children only reduced when at least 7 mitigations were in place.

It is yet to be seen how high the community cases will rise as lockdown eases, but to return to only the mitigations present from Sept - December seems foolish, because they are proven to be ineffective in preventing a significant rise of in-school infections in the face of rising community cases.

Government have said throughout its not about infections

It’s about severe illness

No one cares if people get mild covid

@Pastanred

Government have said throughout its not about infections

It’s about severe illness

No one cares if people get mild covid

That's not really true, though, is it?

If enough non-vaccinated people get mild covid, the chances that those in whom the vaccination has been ineffective (at 90% effectiveness, that is still 1 in 10 of the vulnerable population, at 99% it is still 1 in 100, which given the millions of people in Groups 1-9 is still a LOT of people) will be exposed to the infection goes up.

Therefore we HAVE to worry about huge rises in mild covid cases, even when a decently effective vaccine is partially administered.

That's before we consider variants.

Luckily,the new government guidance does, sensibly, state

"The reintroduction of face coverings for pupils, students or staff may be advised for a temporary period in response to particular localised outbreaks, including variants of concern."

which is obviously good news for those in current and future hotspots.

@Pastanred

Government have said throughout its not about infections

It’s about severe illness

No one cares if people get mild covid

That's the problem. Gov is about making sure the NHS doesn't break and about optics of deaths.

BUT.... if we have mild covid across many people, the chances of mutation and long covid go up. So it would be in out best interest as a society to keep numbers low across the board. There are ways to do that - different levels:

• social distancing
• masks
• lockdown
• border control
• test/track/trace

.... I'll stop there.

What do you think will happen if one of these measures is dropped?
Let's play a game. See what happens (based on logic) if:
drop masks
more infections

drop SD
more infections

drop border control (sorry, there's nothing to drop, as we don't really have any sensible real ones)
infection numbers grow with loads of new variants introduced

drop ttr
we won't even know what the fuck happened.

Perhaps but at almost all conferences we have been told that we will come to point where we have to accept xxx covid deaths

On a bad year annually deaths are 30-40 per day on average if you balance a bad annual flu

We are already below that

This thread is worth a read.

twitter.com/dgurdasani1/status/1391819639429140484

We cannot unbalance the country for ‘long covid’

That’s why sage isn’t always followed. I’m sick of hearing of sage. Sage advise in covid alone.

They deal with covid and nothing else

Health ministers and gov use sage data and balance it against other data like other illnesses, waiting lists, poverty, and the economy

It’s about the overall better outcome not just covid

At some point the balance shifts

We are at that point and I’ll be rightly pissed off if people lives are ruined for Dublin long covid

You go by the drama queens on Mumsnet the whole bloody world has long covid

Dublin = bloody

How reassuring that the figures on the Indian variant are showing the first signs of trouble.

As ever, insufficient border measures and then insufficient mitigations. Johnson really is a tosser.

@Pastanred
Please, please, please and pretty please bring evidence of this:
Health ministers and gov use sage data and balance it against other data like other illnesses, waiting lists, poverty, and the economy

If it was true then we wouldn't be in this shitshow for more than a year now.
They do not balance anything.

No one cares if people get mild covid
You'd care between now and the end of June if your dc were one of my pupils and I wasn't there to assess their work and put together their final grade. Wouldn't have to be a "bad" case to make an adult be off for a few weeks. I at least have had one vaccine dose, most of my colleagues are younger than me and have had nothing so far.

Pastanred

You go by the drama queens on Mumsnet the whole bloody world has long covid

Why do you feel the need to make this up?

@Mistressinthetulips
You are completely right.

And I repeat, if the guidance for every other workplace is that we still socially distance and wear masks, there is no reason to do differently in schools. Schools are workplaces for many people. Why do people expect those workers to accept a lower standard of safety than in any other workplace? Goodness, the complaints from office workers going back for a day a week suggests no one else would put up with it.

@CallmeHendricks

"How many do you think died from cancer?"

Cancer is not an airborne transmissible virus.

But I, and most people, have a much higher chance of getting Cancer and dying of that than catching Covid and dying (or being v ill) of that! So sorry if a lit of us can't see the fear of Covid but the very real fear of things that have killed us decades!

@Pastanred

Government have said throughout its not about infections

It’s about severe illness

No one cares if people get mild covid

This! Who cares if thousands get a mild case - in some cases so mild they wouldn't know about it if it weren't for testing. A case so mild it's just a day of mild cough similar to cold, toothache is probably worse..

It's the serious case, the hospitalisation the deaths that matter.

There are reasons. I appreciate you don’t feel they are as important as covid but that doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons.

"It's the serious case, the hospitalisation the deaths that matter."

And how do you suppose those people catch it in the first place? From "mild" or asymptomatic cases out in the community, thinking they're invincible and that "only old and vulnerable people get it" so the can do what they like.

But I, and most people, have a much higher chance of getting Cancer and dying of that than catching Covid and dying (or being v ill) of that!

You’re comparing a lifetime risk of cancer with that of an infectious disease during a pandemic, so apples and oranges. Of course there are lifestyle mitigations that people practise to avert both - cancer, don’t smoke, Covid, wear a mask.

@CallmeHendricks

"It's the serious case, the hospitalisation the deaths that matter."

And how do you suppose those people catch it in the first place? From "mild" or asymptomatic cases out in the community, thinking they're invincible and that "only old and vulnerable people get it" so the can do what they like.

I believe that most transmissions have been from medical settings, certainly during the height of the pandemic.

The Old and vulnerable have now been vaccinated and have now only a small chance of becoming seriously ill.

Yes @borntobequiet it's about averting a risk, I'm not fat, or a smoker but that doesn't stop me getting Breast Cancer/cervical cancer etc but getting vaccinated does stop me getting seriously ill from Covid.

A mask, will not lessen my risk. Yes I'm aware it's about protecting others, if I'm ill I won't go out, I've never sneezed or coughed over anyone, I now sanitise my hands constantly, I've had both doses of vaccine (in early 40s but officially classed as a vulnerable), I've homeschooled my child for 2 full terms and more, I've stayed at home, so I think I've done plenty to help protect others (the best protection we can have is vaccines!). I've been back quite safely in the office listening to lazy people moan they dont want to go back to the office.

So yes I will ditch the masks.... I've done my bit to protect others for over a yr now. The Country needs to get back out and find normality again.

Find normality? Isn't that what India did a few months ago?