DFE tells schools prepare for the worst.

[3asAbird]

www.tes.com/news/covid-schools-told-plan-more-remote-learning

Feeling so cross why allow schools to stop masks on may 17th.
When Hancock knew the delta varient was present in April 2021.

School outbreaks my councils 46 this week and a fair few in neighbouring county with some schools fully shut.
Lots senior transition days and inter sports tournament cancelled.

We know from Kent alpha varient took a few months get really bad.
Some say 6 week break act as firebreak.
I am bot so sure as people will travel and mingle and in some cases School maybe mirror community transmission which is on the rise.

I wish having would go for starters.
They said they making education a priority back in march.
This term has been rubbish for many.
I have no faith that autumn term be any different.

No mitigation measures on ventilation
No masks or compulsory testing.
No smaller class sizes.
No vaccines for under 18s.

LFTs that had a better than 50 / 50 chance of detecting an infection (and that's a best case) would bet so much better, too....

I can’t get my head around why it matters if kids catch it, when it’s at worst cold like for them, at best they don’t know they’ve got it. Is it doesn’t affect them…

Originally they didn’t want kids to catch it, incase it was spread to the vulnerable elders, fair enough. Not the vulnerable adults are vaccinated, surely they’ll be fine?

Closing schools is a massive thing. The MH consequences of any more closures are going to immense and for what? To stop the spread for what reason? Again, it’s merely a cold to the vast majority of kids.

The only group not accounted for are the CEV children, so of course they need to be considered. So why can’t the pros - cons be considered and then give these children the vaccine as a priority?

It’s never going away this virus, ever. If it’s expected that every year they will need to vaccines every body in the UK then that’s beyond belief. It takes months and months to vaccinate everyone so by the time you’ve finished vaccinating everyone for 2021, it’ll be fine to start 2022 vaccinations.

Even if they get most adults five by September, why’s there talks about lockdowns at Christmas?

The goal posts keep changing… I hope they stick to their plan of opening up everything in July

But they better not close the schools or postpone opening in September!

*Not the vulnerable adults are vaccinated, surely they’ll be fine?
*

No vaccine is 100% effective.

People who are elderly and have specific medical concerns, especially if immune compromised, are often hit as protected as the general population as vaccines can often be less effective for them.

Originally they didn’t want kids to catch it, in case it was spread to the vulnerable elders, fair enough. Not the vulnerable adults are vaccinated, surely they’ll be fine?

Vaccination does not = fine.

Vaccination for anyone seems to reduce the chance of hospitalisation, which is great - but not to zero. And there will be those - the elderly and vulnerable - for whom vaccination is likely to be less effective.

These are acceptable risks IF cases are also kept low. However, if cases skyrocket, then the small % of hospitalisations and deaths x the number of infections is still a very appreciable number.

The risk is also concentrated, because we are clustering the not-immune in a non covid safe environment for many hours each day. Thus while many will be well-protected, those exposed to these very high levels of infectabe and infected people will be at greater risk.

I can’t get my head around why it matters if kids catch it, when it’s at worst cold like for them, at best they don’t know they’ve got it.

Why’ve you said at worst it’s like a cold when they’ve just opened 15 paediatric hubs around the country to support children who have long covid?

I mean, at worst children die, but even without that some children do seem to suffer long term impact.

@cantkeepawayforever

Originally they didn’t want kids to catch it, in case it was spread to the vulnerable elders, fair enough. Not the vulnerable adults are vaccinated, surely they’ll be fine?

Vaccination does not = fine.

Vaccination for anyone seems to reduce the chance of hospitalisation, which is great - but not to zero. And there will be those - the elderly and vulnerable - for whom vaccination is likely to be less effective.

These are acceptable risks IF cases are also kept low. However, if cases skyrocket, then the small % of hospitalisations and deaths x the number of infections is still a very appreciable number.

The risk is also concentrated, because we are clustering the not-immune in a non covid safe environment for many hours each day. Thus while many will be well-protected, those exposed to these very high levels of infectabe and infected people will be at greater risk.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but what’s the alternative for schools? Nothing is 100% affective so there’s no questions that people will still die of covid.

What’s else can be done though? Once all the adults are vaccinated, that has to be surely? Back to normal?

If Covid is such a low risk to children vaccination is on balance more a risk - or at least needs to be assessed

Then you don’t put in huge harmful disruption for sake low risk to keep adults safe. If risk is high enough, long Covid etc, then vaccinate.

Teacher here too. What I'd like is funding to be able to use other local spaces e.g. church halls so that we can decrease class sizes and actually have children 2m apart in lessons. Of course there would also need to be funding to employ additional teachers. This is what my colleagues and I have said all along.

I also wanted to add that 3 out of the 5 classrooms I teach in have no opening windows.

Same low risk to keep adults safe..

And if it’s more concern for CEV again acquired immunity is better for everyone bar them - vaccinated or not

So there isn’t an argument for continuing huge disruption other than ignoring harm and mistaking the benefit .

@noblegiraffe

I can’t get my head around why it matters if kids catch it, when it’s at worst cold like for them, at best they don’t know they’ve got it.

Why’ve you said at worst it’s like a cold when they’ve just opened 15 paediatric hubs around the country to support children who have long covid?

I mean, at worst children die, but even without that some children do seem to suffer long term impact.

But why are they concerned now? This has been about for about 17 months. There was no issues worrying about kids. So why is there all of a sudden a shift to being concerned about long covid?

Don’t get me wrong, obviously it’s a concern. No body wants they’re kids to get long covid but it could be argued that chicken pox wouldn’t be give for most kids but of course some will suffer bad with it.

If they are concerned about long covid, why not make the vaccine available to kids?

As I say, this isn’t new, it’s been 17 months but it’s only now it seems to be an issue regarding long covid.

What’s else can be done though? Once all the adults are vaccinated, that has to be surely? Back to normal?

Isolation of vaccinated contacts can of course be stopped.

Isolation of non-vaccinated contacts - should remain.

PCR testing could be used much more effectively, though. If PCR testing was used immediately there was any positive, for all contacts - accompanied by tracing and isolation for all close contacts of any positives - then a further PCR at the end of a shortened isolation period - e.g. 5 -8 days - as a condition of returning to school, isolations could be shorter and identification of cases much more effective.

@nailsathome

Teacher here too. What I'd like is funding to be able to use other local spaces e.g. church halls so that we can decrease class sizes and actually have children 2m apart in lessons. Of course there would also need to be funding to employ additional teachers. This is what my colleagues and I have said all along.

I also wanted to add that 3 out of the 5 classrooms I teach in have no opening windows.

Absolutely brilliant idea about having different spaces available. Keeping it safe for everyone.

I’m surprised this hasn’t been done tbh. I hope this is the next step.

*I don't know, Marsha, but chicken pox is massively more contagious than covid for one thing, and the other thing is that parents tend to notice when their kids have chickenpox so know when they've had it.

We don't know how many kids have already had covid. We know very little about how it spreads in schools. The reason we don't know this is because the government didn't want to collect that data (and are suppressing the data on the delta variant in schools where it is collected).*

Another difference between covid and chicken pox is the majority only get chicken pox once. Most people are willing to risk (even encourage) their child catching it, as they then are likely to have immunity from serious illness as an adult. This isn't the case for covid. It can be caught again and immunity doesn't appear to last long, so the balance of risk changes.

@lonelyplanet

*I don't know, Marsha, but chicken pox is massively more contagious than covid for one thing, and the other thing is that parents tend to notice when their kids have chickenpox so know when they've had it.

We don't know how many kids have already had covid. We know very little about how it spreads in schools. The reason we don't know this is because the government didn't want to collect that data (and are suppressing the data on the delta variant in schools where it is collected).*

Another difference between covid and chicken pox is the majority only get chicken pox once. Most people are willing to risk (even encourage) their child catching it, as they then are likely to have immunity from serious illness as an adult. This isn't the case for covid. It can be caught again and immunity doesn't appear to last long, so the balance of risk changes.

Yes and these factors also mean it’s more likely a child will get Covid, apart from the R0 which isn’t hugely different if you look up Delta and CP

We’ve found it mutating too be more transmissible too which could continue.

People may not want to get it for immunity that dies t mean it’s not likely for nearly all children. Plus do we know much about T cell yet, eg SARS situation

That’s the question - with an easily spread virus, you can’t always tell they have, that is low risk to children why won’t they get it?

And if risk is too high then the answer is - vaccinate. Not disruption.

Marsha I may be misunderstanding you, but when you say disruption, I think you are actually meaning isolation. However the disruption is not caused by the isolation but by the spread of infection which mean isolations have to happen.

I think you are saying you would happily take the risk and allow covid to spread unabated through schools and hopefully this would lead to some kind of short term herd immunity.

I (as a school worker and parent to healthy, but unvaccinated children) would not want to take this risk. Too many children in my opinion could end up with long term health issues, staff who are mostly not yet fully vaccinated could become very ill and there would still be disruption.

@noblegiraffe

I can’t get my head around why it matters if kids catch it, when it’s at worst cold like for them, at best they don’t know they’ve got it.

Why’ve you said at worst it’s like a cold when they’ve just opened 15 paediatric hubs around the country to support children who have long covid?

I mean, at worst children die, but even without that some children do seem to suffer long term impact.

Exactly Noble! if the worst for them was 'cold like' I don't think we'd have such an issue.

@lonelyplanet

Marsha I may be misunderstanding you, but when you say disruption, I think you are actually meaning isolation. However the disruption is not caused by the isolation but by the spread of infection which mean isolations have to happen.

I think you are saying you would happily take the risk and allow covid to spread unabated through schools and hopefully this would lead to some kind of short term herd immunity.

I (as a school worker and parent to healthy, but unvaccinated children) would not want to take this risk. Too many children in my opinion could end up with long term health issues, staff who are mostly not yet fully vaccinated could become very ill and there would still be disruption.

Lonely disruption is very high cost and repeated isolation extremely limiting so shouldn’t be the solution.

If Covid is such a low risk to children so that we won’t vaccinate as a balance of risk then we can’t do the above as it is also too harmful.

I’m not against vaccination, will leave it to JCVI though, but we have it and if long Covid etc is a risk then we should use it instead of other harms.

But why are they concerned now? This has been about for about 17 months. There was no issues worrying about kids. So why is there all of a sudden a shift to being concerned about long covid?

Two reasons:

1. the government is behind the curve in literally every possible way. There are people and groups who have been campaigning for support with long covid in kids for a long time

2. Matt Hancock wants to vaccinate kids. He has gone on TV and said that of course there are concerns about long covid in children and that's why vaccination was up for discussion. He couldn't have gone on TV and said that if the response to the question 'what is the government doing about long covid in children then?' was 'nothing'. So he's made sure he has done something, despite the fact that for the last 17 months the government has repeatedly insisted that there are no issues with kids whatsoever.
   The obvious follow-up question is 'why did you do nothing to stop the spread in schools then?'

Exactly Noble! if the worst for them was 'cold like' I don't think we'd have such an issue.

Then the assessment between vaccination and covid for children would tip in favour of vaccination.

It's going to be an ongoing conversation, Marsha as more data comes in.

Exactly Noble! if the worst for them was 'cold like' I don't think we'd have such an issue

But for the vast vast majority this is the case. The vast vast majority won’t get long covid. There’s millions of children. How many have died from it? How many have had long covid? Not many.

I goes back to the fact, there will be the odd exception, but that’s the case for any illness. Some children will get the flu and be incredibly ill, but thankfully that’s not the norm.

@TableFlowerss

*Exactly Noble! if the worst for them was 'cold like' I don't think we'd have such an issue*

But for the vast vast majority this is the case. The vast vast majority won’t get long covid. There’s millions of children. How many have died from it? How many have had long covid? Not many.

The biggest prospective study suggests 1.8% aged 5-17 get long covid (lasting 8 weeks or more).

That would amount to many tens of thousands of children in the UK (over 10 1/2 million children in this age group).

The government have set up a plan to open 15 centres to treat long covid in children at a cost of many millions.

Presumably you are thinking that if it doesn't affect your family directly, it should be ignored?

Here with those stats why do you think JCVI have said Covid is such low risk to children the tiny risk associated with vaccination outweighs it?