What are your predictions for this school year?

[Sheepsheepmoresheep]

Be interesting to look back. I didn’t think they’d close the schools again this time last year, but I was wrong!

I don’t think they’ll close the schools again … but we’ll see!

@lightattheendofthetunnel2021 you have forgotten a very important thing in your equation that ALL theee children have been living under lockdown circumstances and many covid restrictions limiting their exposure to the virus.
Now all the mitigation are gone.
Schools were shut for 6 months since the beginning of the pandemic, children generally have been shielded from it all.
Highly transmissible Delta didn’t take hold until July time that’s when Scottish schools had already shut, private schools in England shut first week of July and the rest two weeks later. So in a way schools shutting was a saving grace.
No all the restrictions are gone. Yes a good chunk of the society is vaccinated, but the hob should keep some mitigations to keep a lid on the spread of the virus. No one wants to be in another hard lockdown. Simple things like working from home, masks, ventilation, isolating households when one member tests positive to limit the spread, hepa filters would be excellent to keep the economy going but protect the vulnerable and protect many from long covid, and hospitals can treat these poor noncovid patients again that have been thrown under the bus over and over again.

[quote VaccineSticker]@lightattheendofthetunnel2021 you have forgotten a very important thing in your equation that ALL theee children have been living under lockdown circumstances and many covid restrictions limiting their exposure to the virus.
Now all the mitigation are gone.
Schools were shut for 6 months since the beginning of the pandemic, children generally have been shielded from it all.
Highly transmissible Delta didn’t take hold until July time that’s when Scottish schools had already shut, private schools in England shut first week of July and the rest two weeks later. So in a way schools shutting was a saving grace.
No all the restrictions are gone. Yes a good chunk of the society is vaccinated, but the hob should keep some mitigations to keep a lid on the spread of the virus. No one wants to be in another hard lockdown. Simple things like working from home, masks, ventilation, isolating households when one member tests positive to limit the spread, hepa filters would be excellent to keep the economy going but protect the vulnerable and protect many from long covid, and hospitals can treat these poor noncovid patients again that have been thrown under the bus over and over again.[/quote]
It is true that schools were shut for six months (far too long in my opinion) but if you look at the big picture, child mortality i Covid is vanishingly low across the board. And this includes countries that followed the science in respect to age-related mortality such as Sweden that did not shut schools for the under 16s - their child mortality is not higher either.

If you look at Euro momo www.euromomo.eu/ , you can see that excess deaths for the aged group 0-14 has been lower than previous years. Of course it will rise slightly once kids are out and about, on bikes, in traffic etc but, essentially, excess deaths for that age group has been LOWER than normal throughout the pandemic.

Princess

School disruption was almost entirely due to contact isolation - not cases

Isolation has gone so majority of disruption over

Most kids are asymptomatic and with less testing less cases - parents are not stupid, anyone now doing twice weekly tests is asking for their kid to be off so people less likely to do it

I’m dds school no parent I low did the tests and I can guarantee even less will do them now as covid fear has long gone

Teachers are double vaccinated
Many would have been exposed last year - March 2020 covid was everywhere and we just didn’t test

Cases aren’t even a fraction of back then

“Thousands of children be admitted”

How why are you posting such scaremongering bullshit

Kids are hospitalised everyday

Some will test positive on admission

Child mortality and hospitalisations has been low throughout even when cases high

Trying to say children are at risk is ridiculous

They have never been at risk

@Watapalava

“Thousands of children be admitted”

How why are you posting such scaremongering bullshit

Kids are hospitalised everyday

Some will test positive on admission

Child mortality and hospitalisations has been low throughout even when cases high

Trying to say children are at risk is ridiculous

They have never been at risk

Exactly this!

@Watapalava Isolating has not gone for those who test positive. Delta was not around in March 2020, I know more people who have tested positive in the last few weeks than at any other time and they have all been double jabbed. Kids will get it, teachers will get it vaccinated or not, thankfully the vast majority of people will not be seriously ill but there will be disruption due to kids and teachers and community spread and people isolating.

Yes people will test positive but the highest uk case rate is about 600/100,000

I’m between Liverpool and lancs
Our case rate at peaks has been 1200/100000 each time and yet only 2-3 cases in school so I think people are massively over thinking the numbers of those who will be isolating

Plus most cases found are likely via asymptomatic testing given most kids are asymptomatic

Our school did the ons study all year - all tested every 6 weeks, each time upto 20/30 positive cases and those kids (and all their contacts at the time) had to isolate when not a single one had so much of a sniffle
It’s a disgrace

We need to stop the asymptomatic testing when vaccines offer protection against severe and moderate disease

People shouldn’t be this protected against a few days unwell which is all it is for the majority

We seem to be obsessed with trying to stop covid mild disease

We really need to keep monitoring the infection levels

Why are you lot so "obsessed" with making sure all the kids in the country get covid?

It's not some sort of health cure you know.

Well if they all get it it may reduce rates moving forward

Natural immunity and all that

immunity appears to wane

which is one reason that setting out to give it to folk is such a bad idea

Not according to jcvi who currently are thinking natural immunity for teens is better...

...and are poised to roll out vaccines for 12-15s according to the most right wing newspapers? We'll have to see, won't we?

After all JVT said at a recent briefing that they expected to extend the vaccine offer more broadly. And presumably he should know.

@Watapalava

Not according to jcvi who currently are thinking natural immunity for teens is better...

It sounds like that will be changing imminently.

@Watapalava

Not according to jcvi who currently are thinking natural immunity for teens is better...

The balance between natural immunity and the vaccine depends on the level of infections, with a move towards vaccines when infection rate is really high.

That's because, simplistically:

Probability of harm from natural infection = probability of harm x probability of being infected

Probability of harm from vaccine = probability of harm

If we are moving towards '100% of people will be infected if unvaccinated', then it comes closer to comparing:

Probability of bad side effects from vaccine vs probability of bad effects from infection, of which the latter has always been known to be higher.

• Availability of Pfizer
• The balance of benefits of boosters to the vulnerable vs vaccinating the young (and thus reducing the exposure of the vulnerable) and
• The strength and duration of immunity conferred by infection vs vaccination

are obviously also considerations, but the main publicity has been around side effects of the vaccine for teens. As these remain very far below the side effects of the infection, with 'everyone is going to get infected' the current assumption, vaccination becomes the obvious solution.



@Watapalava

Yes people will test positive but the highest uk case rate is about 600/100,000

I’m between Liverpool and lancs
Our case rate at peaks has been 1200/100000 each time and yet only 2-3 cases in school so I think people are massively over thinking the numbers of those who will be isolating

Plus most cases found are likely via asymptomatic testing given most kids are asymptomatic

Our school did the ons study all year - all tested every 6 weeks, each time upto 20/30 positive cases and those kids (and all their contacts at the time) had to isolate when not a single one had so much of a sniffle
It’s a disgrace

We need to stop the asymptomatic testing when vaccines offer protection against severe and moderate disease

People shouldn’t be this protected against a few days unwell which is all it is for the majority

We seem to be obsessed with trying to stop covid mild disease

Yes, yes, yes. Worth saying that not all countries test for asymptomatic disease and it would make sense for us to stop doing it in schools.

Yes we test more than double all of Europe and triple Spain per million population!

Mad that we are so intent on disrupting the country for a virus that you need to test for to know you even have it -it’s mind boggling to me

Why are we so intent on doing this when other countries do not

It is true that schools were shut for six months

Not true at all. Most schools never shut. Many children were unable to attend but even that is way off 6 months. Schools were closed for 12-14 weeks for the first lockdown (depends where your school put the Easter hols) and then for 8 weeks at the beginning of this year. So 20-22 weeks in total which is not 6 months.

You really do think that by ignoring it, it will go away, don’t you?

I really hope the coming months follow your narrative and that your comfort blanket for dealing with the impact of Covid isn’t ripped away again.

Schools were closed to some children March-September last year. Which is six months, but of course the Easter and summer holidays did occur during that period.

@TreaslakeandBack

It’s not going to be great but I don’t think they will close schools or do a national lockdown. Individual classes, even schools may shut temporarily- not because of bubbles but staffing or to stop large outbreaks.

It's halfway through the first term of the school year and I'm re-reading what we predicted back in August.

Some people were spot on.

None of my children have had their education disrupted this year so far. It’s been great.

@PrincessNutNuts

My prediction is that our children's education will be disrupted for a third school year by the government's refusal to protect them adequately.

Hundreds of thousands of children will get covid.

Thousands will be admitted to hospital because of it.

And tens of thousands will have long term health consequences.

So make sure you keep evidence of positive tests in case you need to access one of the new Long Covid centres or other medical support because of long term covid effects in the future.

A few people took issue with this post back in August but^^ we're only half a term in and already:

Hundreds of thousands of children have had covid.

Thousands have already been admitted to hospital because of it.

I just didn't think so many would die.

High level of cases passing though then low to no disruption.

Much better than last year so far - even with the actual ten days off for a vaccinated dc