BMJ: Teachers not at greater risk of hosp'n, and lower risk of severe disease, than general population

[Kokeshi123]

www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2060?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_term=hootsuite&utm_content=sme&utm_campaign=usage

Unlike previous studies, this one actually looked at periods when schools were open and compared like-with-like for those periods.

Compared with adults of working age who are otherwise similar, teachers and their household members were not found to be at increased risk of hospital admission with covid-19 and were found to be at lower risk of severe covid-19. These findings should reassure those who are engaged in face-to-face teaching.

This should not be taken to mean that we should do schooling with no mitigations whatsoever--I'd be in favor of doing indoor masks for kids and teachers till the winter is over if it was up to me, and ventilation is always a good thing anyway. However, at least this should provide some reassurance for teachers and families. And in my opinion, this kind of thing should settle the argument on having any further school closures; mitigations are one thing, but schools absolutely must remain open IMO.

@ChloeDecker

Working alongside another profession does not mean you know the ins and outs. I work alongside teachers and I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to make sweeping statements about your working conditions.

During the first lockdown, many local schools did close completely, except for one small keyworker children hub. I have teacher friends who did have an easy ride. They were bored! They’re hard working people and I know they’re great teachers. I still wouldn’t make sweeping statements about all teachers working from home and doing nothing etc because it’s my tiny experience,

How many times are they going to get it?

As double vaccination only gives 20% protection against catching the Delta variant of Covid (IIRC from recently posted data), immunity anyway seems to wane and reinfection of those who had Covid early in the pandemic is anecdotally increasingly common though not recognised because of the lack of testing at that point, I am expecting to catch Covid at least once a year, possibly a bit more. Maybe a little less if booster vaccinations are rolled out, especially if in future years these are adjusted for new variants.

I am reassured that my risk of hospitalisation and death from these infections is significantly lower than they were at the start of the pandemic.

So you're annoyed at the teaching unions lobbying on behalf of their members (their actual job

I am annoyed that people are saying that “no teachers wanted schools to close” , when their union were advocating for schools to close.

I am annoyed at the (in my opinion) exaggeration of the risks to teachers’ safety posed by keeping schools open, in the light of the scientific evidence.

I am ultimately annoyed by both the closure of schools, and the continued advocacy for measures to be put in place (masks , isolations, mass testing, bubbles etc) to mitigate covid spread. I believe these measures are detrimental to the well-being of children, and I do not think there is evidence to suggest their potential benefits outweigh the costs. Either in the short or long term.

The analyses of the evidence that I have read have all concluded that teachers are not at increased risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of covid, when compared to the general population

Can I just check - is this fully corrected for age and gender, so that we are truly comparing occupational risks without other complicating factors? (Correction for ethnicity would also be useful)

ie what i want to know - as a 50 something white female teacher - is whether, compared with a 50 something white female in another profession, I am at higher or lower risk.

My understanding is that the current study shows that teachers are not at increased risk compared with other professions because they are, on average, younger and more likely to be female and white than the professions they are being compared with.

It is only when we strip away the factors of age, gender and ethnicity that we can truly see the impact of profession.

If there has been a truly matched study recent study with Delta, could you link to it? It will obviously understate the risks in schools because it will be under old mitigations which are being taken away this term, but it would still make really interesting reading.

I should note for clarity - this is not because i wish to withdraw by labour, ask for schools to close, even change what I am being asked to do and how. I have long ago accepted the risk to myself, and as I posted earlier, have worked and will continue to work for children's benefit. I would just like clarity and honesty from everyone that the risks are there.

What's interesting, Biz is that that data came out well after teachers had been shoved back into schools with none of the protections that were afforded to other workers. Teachers are at a lower risk of serious illness and death because of their demographic, not because their workplaces are 'safe'.

Do you think it's acceptable to go 'phew, happy that gamble paid off' after the event when it's people's lives we're talking about?

Shoved back....

@cantkeepawayforever

The analyses of the evidence that I have read have all concluded that teachers are not at increased risk of becoming seriously ill or dying of covid, when compared to the general population

Can I just check - is this fully corrected for age and gender, so that we are truly comparing occupational risks without other complicating factors? (Correction for ethnicity would also be useful)

ie what i want to know - as a 50 something white female teacher - is whether, compared with a 50 something white female in another profession, I am at higher or lower risk.

My understanding is that the current study shows that teachers are not at increased risk compared with other professions because they are, on average, younger and more likely to be female and white than the professions they are being compared with.

It is only when we strip away the factors of age, gender and ethnicity that we can truly see the impact of profession.

If there has been a truly matched study recent study with Delta, could you link to it? It will obviously understate the risks in schools because it will be under old mitigations which are being taken away this term, but it would still make really interesting reading.

Hi @cantkeepawayforever the study adjusted for all those factors - age, sex and ethnicity, as well as more:

models adjusted for age, sex, general practice, race/ethnicity, deprivation, number of comorbidities, and number of adults in the household, teachers showed a lower risk of hospital admission with covid-19 (rate ratio 0.77, 95% confidence interval 0.64 to 0.92) and of severe covid-19 (0.56, 0.33 to 0.97) than the general population

Teachers are at a lower risk of serious illness and death because of their demographic, not because their workplaces are 'safe'.

yes, female university graduates in their 30s etc.

Apologies - my fault.

Major failing of reporting - the study is in SCOTLAND.

Rules about returning to schools, number in schools, mitigations and controls within the rest of the population were ALL different in Scotland, alongside a consistent caution in messaging that was wholly different between the two countries and has influenced behaviour, and a different test and Trace organisation (family associated with schools in England, Scotland and Wales, - comparisons have been fascinating).

@Refreshpage

Shoved back....

Yes, shoved back.

We had to override any concerns we had about lack of mitigation measures or catching covid. We had to ignore the fact that everyone else was being told to avoid close contact, confined spaces and large groups of people. We had to ignore the government 'covid safe workplace' guidelines. We were vilified in the press and on social media, horrendously so.

I don't think we should have to pretend that the return to schools last September was a gentle process where teachers were involved. It was pretty brutal.

I am annoyed that people are saying that “no teachers wanted schools to close” , when their union were advocating for schools to close.

That is like a child saying, when his mum wants him to put his coat on, in case he catches a cold, that his mum wants him to catch a cold.

And then, when he has caught a cold, blaming his mum for wanting him to stay at home...

@herecomesthsun

I am annoyed that people are saying that “no teachers wanted schools to close” , when their union were advocating for schools to close.

That is like a child saying, when his mum wants him to put his coat on, in case he catches a cold, that his mum wants him to catch a cold.

And then, when he has caught a cold, blaming his mum for wanting him to stay at home...

What??! Most incoherent comment yet.

Actually it’s like a child saying that when his mum asks him to put his coat on , she wants him to put his coat on.

Don’t even understand the second part.

What is hard to do, and what i think we need to do in makking fair comparisons, is to consider at each point in the pandemic what school staff were being asked to do versus other workers at that point in the pandemic.

From our current viewpoint - and the government-massaged public sentiment of 'cases don't matter, let's all get back to normal' - we can form incomplete judgements because we are comparing actions of then against today's additional knowledge and the carefully-orchestrated views of public opinion.

So we may want to judge the level of anxiety in schools last March against today's knowledge, and wonder why asthmatic older teachers were so worried.

We may judge home schooling in the 1st lockdown against what is required today, and see it as inadequate, rather than viewing it against what the Government required (a total suspension of the curriculum, with minimal childcare for keyworker children).

We may judge how many children were allowed to return to school in June 2020, while forgetting the public sentiment and level of restrictions still in place elsewhere - ad the fact that the Government itself explicitly created rules that prevented more children returning.

We may judge the September return against today's laissez-faire attitudes, rather than comparing the conditions in schools against those in the majority of other settings.

We may judge the January lockdown against tomorrow's school return and say 'it was nothing', forgetting the fear in the country, the state of the NHS and the ongoing restrictions in everyday life - and also forgetting that many schools continued to teach half or more of their pupils in school, continuing close contact and without any masks.

It's really easy to look back and go 'we now know that we didn't need to worry about that', but we do need to see each stage in the context of its own time, not with the benefit of hindsight.

@Bizawit

Okay to simplify further , the teachers were advocating measures that would avoid schools having to close

if they had been listened to earlier, schools might have stayed open longer or not had to close

for example, implementing masks in September rather than March but other measures would have helped the situation overall quite a bit

come January we were in a crisis which is why the Government was so very reluctantly forced to close schools

however, if we had been in a better position with schools and infection rates it is possible that we could have managed at least with a shorter closure.

I can explain in more detail if you'd like?

@Bizawit I think you are using “wanted to” too simplistically.

If my car is damaged beyond repair in an accident, do I “want to” scrap it, or do I realise that, sadly, this is the only safe option?

@Bizawit

So you believe the government propaganda that teachers don't catch covid in school

Of course they do and can catch covid in schools. But people can and do catch covid anywhere. I didn’t (and don’t) believe that teachers are particularly more at risk teaching at school , than anyone else is at risk anywhere else in the community. And therefore I don’t believe the harm caused by the closure of schools was appropriately balanced by the need to protect teachers’ safety. This is my understanding of the evidence. (Feel free to go ahead and continue to belittle , insult me etc, if you think that’s the best line of attach that you’ve got , that says much more about you than in does me).

Nurses are at elevated risk when caring for people who are sick and dying of covid.

So why did everywhere else that was a crowded area close to everyone due to public health reasons?

If crowded schools were safe then surely so we're pubs, clubs and cinemas etc?

@noblegiraffe

And therefore I don’t believe the harm caused by the closure of schools was appropriately balanced by the need to protect teachers’ safety.

You think that schools were closed to protect teachers?

Wow. You really are clueless.

I'd go with completely ill informed!

And if I had offered lots of road safety advice to avoid a car crash happening, does that mean that I wanted the person to have an accident?

Or the opposite?

(apologies if you struggle with metaphors)

@ChloeDecker

Time to get on with it now. We are.

I though we always did?

Because if I had time off and wasn't in school daily then whole way through (and for free during Easter) - then I missed it

It seems like denial is still in full swing and it will do no one any favours in the long run. I know several teachers who have left the profession - not because of their COVID risk per se but because of the outright lies and down playing which made them feel like their lives were not valued including
No mitigation in schools - still an issue
Safe working policies applying to workplaces but not schools
That Covid doesn’t spread in schools (magically?) - still appears to be the official line despite upswing in cases when schools are back.
It is a shame but I can completely see their point and they know they are likely to catch it but feel better cared for in their current low paid and low skilled jobs - lost talent, knowledge and skills.
The same seems to be happening with HCP as they just can’t take the strain anymore.
In general I think we are in a much better position than we were and hopefully schools will remain open but the impact on education will be longer term than just those whose education was disrupted. We have to treat teachers better and stop ignoring their concerns

That Covid doesn’t spread in schools (magically?) - still appears to be the official line despite upswing in cases when schools are back.

I work in a school which was magically protected by the special Covid tape*. But since returning we no longer have the magical tape, and now we already have 2 staff members and several students isolating.

• Please note the effectiveness of special Covid tape is dependant on case numbers and your student / staff population. Covid may still enter the school, and will cause illness, isolations and staffing chaos.

@itsgettingwierd

For free in Easter? Perhaps you should stop being such a martyr, it will not do you, or your colleagues in the profession any favours.

Failing that find a new head who likes to encourage a better work life balance, they do exist.

[quote Chillychangchoo]@itsgettingwierd

For free in Easter? Perhaps you should stop being such a martyr, it will not do you, or your colleagues in the profession any favours.

Failing that find a new head who likes to encourage a better work life balance, they do exist.[/quote]
All schools were asked to provide childcare for keyworker children throughout the Easter holiday in 2020.

As far as I know, no-one was paid for this, and all heads had to provide it either onsite or through a keyworker hub.

Yes, the teachers quietly gave up their Easter holidays to provide childcare for keyworkers.

Their only reward apparently being the insults and truth-twisting they listen to on here.

(I'm not a teacher by the way)