Delta variant spreading in schools

[noblegiraffe]

Not posted one of these threads in a while but the data is starting to get interesting again.

The ONS infection survey data from yesterday shows an alarming increase in infection rates in secondary kids. The PHE survey also shows a jump in outbreaks in schools.

However the infection rates by area show that this is much more of a problem in the North West than e.g. the South West. That suggests that in certain areas, the situation is really bad and in others there's not (yet) a problem. This would suggest a localised approach (the govt are really keen not to talk about tiers).

What is obvious is that there are local variant hotspots, and in those hotspots, covid is running through schools, secondary in particular.

What to do? Stopping the spread of the variant out from those areas should be a high priority. Surge vaccination of adults won't be enough if it is spreading mostly in children. It's evident that the measures taken to stop the spread in schools from Sept-Dec were inadequate (isolation of close contacts only) so it seems clear that in those areas, far more robust tackling of cases in schools is needed -PCR testing not LFT, sending home whole year groups, proactively closing schools instead of as last resort. Schools in those areas already seem to have kept masks. We need to be hearing far more of what they are doing about schools in the news and what to expect.

There are those who would argue that the Delta variant should simply be allowed to spread now, however we know that one vaccination doesn't confer much immunity to it and it would be more prudent to wait until a much bigger proportion of the population are double-vaccinated and more fully protected.

There is also the question of allowing covid to spread through schools and the disruption to education that this would cause. The government announced yesterday that they are only willing to fund a pitiful amount of catch-up support and given that the schools affected are currently restricted to certain areas (and ones that were badly affected last year too), parents and pupils in those areas should not be expected to experience severe disruption caused by unmitigated covid spread if it can be dealt with more effectively. It would seem fair for more covid catch-up funding to be directed to those areas hardest hit but I haven't seen that proposed.

A few positive things: We've just had half term and that usually reduces infection rates in school children. Y11 and Y13 have now left, so secondary schools will have a reduced number of pupils. It's also less than 2 months to the summer holidays.

The Pfizer vaccine has just been approved in the UK for ages 12+. Vaccinating secondary children in those hotspots as a priority could be an option. Priority vaccinations for school staff there should be a no-brainer, I assume that has happened.

Unfortunately the government is currently suppressing data on the number of cases of the Delta variant in schools and there is a legal challenge to get this published. Why they are doing this is unclear. I do hope it's not because they want to pretend that schools aren't an issue until it's too late like they did before, but I don't trust them, for obvious reasons.

@Delatron

Good luck with the retirement *@CallmeHendricks*

I’m pretty sure that my kids will be just fine. As they have been since they went back at the beginning of March.

The premise of this thread has to be that the vaccines don’t work. And that simply isn’t true. Of course they are having an impact and once the adult population is vaccinated things will be very different. If you choose not to believe that then that’s your choice but it’s not based on any evidence.

No one has said that

They've pointed many school staff or unvaccinated or have only has 1 (33% effective against delta) and the pupils aren't vaccinated.

So the discussion is around what can be done to keep schools safer and open whilst we complete our vaccination programme?

You don't want to discuss safer schools or the problems this delta variant could cause. So it's an odd thread for you to be posting on every 5th post

Thank you Noble for continuing to draw attention to the safety issues in school despite so many who are intent on sticking their fingers in their ears.

The gaslighting of teachers and school staff who have been continually told schools are safe and not big contributors to the spread of COVID whilst we watch with our own eyes masses of children and colleagues falling (at times very seriously) ill is mindboggling. And the way the media completely ignored the issues in schools for so long paired with the most recent refusal to release data is shocking.

I'm pregnant and I realise we are in a pandemic you can't remove all risk -- but as a previous poster said, I'd like to feel at least as safe at work as I do in Sainsbury's!!

I can only hope at some point an inquest exposes what's happened and those who are responsible for putting so many children and school staff at risk. Schools are the only place in society where virtually no investment has been made in mitigation measures to keep people safe.

@noblegiraffe

You’re assuming it will spread like wild fire through the schools. Well we haven’t seen this happen

Dear god. Read the OP.

I'm not sure if the 0.5% on the worse graph counts as 'spreading like wildfire'. That's 1 in 200, which in your average secondary school is what? Like 1 child per year group.

What the data doesn't seem to clearly say is if that average is made up of 20 cases in one school and then 0 cases in another 20 schools. And if so are those cases in the one school in areas with low vaccine and high Covid rates, where children are just has likely to have caught it from home.

Surely we just need to keep and eye on it and dig into the data more. My suspicion is that a lot of children won't get vaccinated (not a level sufficient for herd immunity) so at some point we just have to admit defeat and let children have normality.

Also, I've read the post but I'm not sure what you're proposing?

Schools safer? But there will always be illnesses in schools. If they are not passing Covid on the vulnerable adults at home? Plus once the adult population is vaccinated cases will inevitably drop.

There will never be zero Covid unfortunately.

@JebelSherif

@ ZZTopGuitarSolo thanks.

It seems to me that America has really got on a roll with the vaccine programme. Actually, its just been on the news here that one vaccine (the Pfizer one) has been cleared for children aged 12-15, so I suppose we can follow America's lead and that might help the school issue being discussed here, today.

Which vaccine is mostly in use in America: Pfizer, Aztrazeneca (Oxford) or one we don't use (yet)? Im curious to know.

America is using Pfizer, Moderna and J&J. No AZ here yet.

Pfizer is the only one currently approved for 12-18, so adults are now mostly being given the other two and Pfizer saved for adolescents - at least in my area.

Moderna has applied for clearance to be used with 12-18s and it's likely to happen soon.

We're doing things like bringing vaccination clinics to middle and high schools, which is working out to be very successful. There are also lots of places offering Pfizer on a drop-in basis now (you can walk into Walmart for example, and get your Pfizer on the spot).

And the way the media completely ignored the issues in schools for so long paired with the most recent refusal to release data is shocking.

The media are more interested in holidays abroad sadly! (And so it seems are the MPs-looking at you Gove)

I also don’t understand the point of the post.

@Sunnyfreezesushi

I think all teachers should have to have the vaccine, make it compulsory (ducks...)

I work in a very big high school. Lots of teachers would be thrilled to get the vaccine but are too young to have been offered it yet.

You’re assuming it will spread like wild fire through the schools. Well we haven’t seen this happen

North West teacher, in a borough that isn't, technically, affected by the new variant (or any variant). Middle class, mainly white area. One school of 1,200 students shut to all but the year 11s prior to the holiday because so many asymptomatic cases had been discovered. We are fortunately under Lancashire and because of the situation in Blackburn and Darwen, we were advised to continue with facemasks. So that's a school closed to 4/5s of it's students who have been wearing facemasks in school . And we're just starting....at the very least, facemasks need to be on after this holiday in all areas, not just the North West or we'll all have it within a couple of weeks and schools will be closing en masse...again.

@Delatron

I also don’t understand the point of the post.

what's not to understand?

it was a concise and detailed summary of the issue of the delta variant spreading in schools, the consequences and possible mitigation measures

Is the problem the same seriousness as it was a few months ago?

No. But it's different, and not yet fully understood.

I'm totally optimistic about vaccines working (enough), and summer being pretty normal. I'm not concerned about being in school even slightly. If we delay a bit, up to school holidays, it gives more time to get jabs in arms.

Maybe 'we' should vaccinate 12 - 15 year olds before we do the 20s? That would prevent more issues coming into the next school year? I hestitate to say that, young folk have been screwed over, but I don't think any schools (or children, or staff) can take another year being affected by covid. I'm dreading another remote learning situation, I just want to draw a line under this shitty 18 months, get rid of this class (who are indeed feral), and move on.

But we don’t know the Delta variant spreading in schools will lead to lots of deaths do we?

Of course cases will rose amongst the unvaccinated as we come out of lockdown. That was expected.

Rise

But we don’t know the Delta variant spreading in schools will lead to lots of deaths do we?

Yet. And that's the issue.

From the Prof Tim Spector of Kings College London in the Daily Mail “ The study found that teenagers through to under-30s, who are largely unvaccinated, were recording rates of about 140 cases per 100,000 people compared to fewer than 20 per 100,000 in the over-60s and 30 per 100,000 in the over-50s. There are fears that if the virus is allowed to spread wildly in younger people while there are still millions of unvaccinated older Brits, it will eventually infect them and push up hospitalisations and deaths. Professor Spector said: 'The data highlights that the increase is happening in the younger age groups, suggesting the start of an epidemic in the young. We can’t be too complacent, and we are monitoring things closely.”

Ok so we are worrying about something that may not cause an issue.

But we don’t know the Delta variant spreading in schools will lead to lots of deaths do we?

We don’t know it won’t either. Is caution a good idea in that case?

@Delatron

I also don’t understand the point of the post.

To have a grown-up discussion of the data?

I work in primary SEN. 6 confirmed cases in one class bubble over the past week (I don't know if all pupils or mix of pupils and staff).

I think this doubles the number of cases we've had in our school since March 2020. Support staff vaccinated but class teacher is too young so hasn't had any yet.

It's going to be an anxious time next week to see if any more cases pop up.

There’s another thread in this board about the vaccines for secondary school age and to me it seems 50/50 about who wants their child protected. Obviously as a parent you have control over your child’s health until 18 but you can’t complain if they are constantly isolating - or in my case all schools sent home as there were too many ill teachers to open safely - if you refuse any measures that will help a country return to the ‘normal’ state that everyone says they want.

@Delatron

Schools safer? But there will always be illnesses in schools. If they are not passing Covid on the vulnerable adults at home? Plus once the adult population is vaccinated cases will inevitably drop.

There will never be zero Covid unfortunately.

No there won't but it doesn't mean we shouldn't try and mitigate it and reduce the endemic nature of it.

And there are illnesses in schools. Norovirus shuts schools frequently in winter. Wouldn't it be great if safety measures improved and we also prevented this?

It's not just about deaths. It's about long term health issues that COVID can bring. To young people. Why allow that to happen for the sake of a few more months of masks.

I have spent today with the children of my colleague who died last year. Early 40s, fit,
healthy and lovely. And now gone because of covid. I don't want any more of doing this.
By September all adults will hopefully be double vaccinated and everyone safer. Over 12s might all be getting done too. We will get there. Let's try not to lose any more people than we need in the remaining few months of vaccinating everyone.

@Delatron

But we don’t know the Delta variant spreading in schools will lead to lots of deaths do we?

Of course cases will rose amongst the unvaccinated as we come out of lockdown. That was expected.

But we don't know it won't either.

What you're will fully ignoring is a vast majority of people suggesting until we know we improve mitigation measures. Rather than waiting for it to happen and then announcing it's happened.

And the biggest issue (as noble highlights very well and clearly in the OP) is the suppression of data - once again.

And last time they suppressed data they did have something to hide.

All people want is caution. It's hardly a non sensical approach to the situation.

Ok so we are worrying about something that may not cause an issue

Ignoring things until they have already become an issue, would be a rather nonsensical approach though.

@ZZTopGuitarSolo - I have family in the US and they had a lot more freedom than we have had on the whole during the pandemic, as a whole.
In the U.K. government have basically convinced pretty much everyone to have a vaccine (including the AZ that has made many nervous) on the “promise” that we would get some freedom back, like not having to self isolate etc. However, government have not delivered on that, you still have to self isolate, won’t be able to travel abroad without quarantining. So I simply think you cannot big up the vaccine and get everyone’s buy in and then not deliver. Same applies to Lateral flow tests- parents started doing those regularly because they thought it would stop children having to self isolate but that hasn’t happened, people don’t bother anymore. Everyone is weary now.
Given U.K. government track record (one rule for them eg Gove, a senior politician has just gone to the football in Portugal and is not self isolating but using lateral flow tests, another rule for the rest of us especially leftie academics and teachers etc) many people are just so angry now. I just don’t think there will be sufficient buy in here from parents to vaccinate their children because trust in government has broken down. Also, many staff in NHS ready to walk out too. Many doctors&nurses are saying they can’t do this again and super stressed about waiting lists.

Brexit coupled with Covid has meant a really rubbish time in the U.K. since 2016, that is a whole 5 years. Teachers as a group have zero faith in government due to prolonged funding cuts. They feel unsupported as a group, most just hanging on for the sheer love of education/the kids, the least the government can do is priority vaccinate the teachers and other school staff. Give them something to feel even a bit valued. The whole NHS was bigged up during the pandemic, teachers were just given a bashing and more work like make up GCSE grades.