Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[LDC]

“There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.

Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mistake to close schools in March given the limited role children play in spreading the virus.”

No known case of teacher catching coronavirus from pupils, says scientist

There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers.Mark Woolhouse, a leading epidemiologist and member of the government’s Sage committee, told The Times that it may have been a mi

www.thetimes.co.uk

That first statement is not true, and the rest of the article is just speculative and quite possibly bollocks.

 

[wtfftw]

Last time schools were properly open was there even testing outside of hospitals?

 

[nagapie]

Not unaffected but more likely to be asymptomatic. So potentially spreaders.

That's what I meant, unaffected as in asymptomatic as opposed to uninfected. I spoke to an epidemiologist friend this week and she said the current evidence shows that children under 11 are not super spreaders, either to each other or adults. Most infection of the young adult to child, but with the children still not suffering severely.

 

[kalidarkone]

Meanwhile:

The Coronavirus Infected Hundreds at a Georgia Summer Camp (Published 2020)

The camp took precautions but did not require campers to wear masks, the C.D.C. reported. Singing and cheering may have helped spread the virus.

www.nytimes.com

Children certainly haven't been ruled out as spreaders. And as for the first sentence I'd imagine a very tiny percentage of cases have a confirmed vector anyway.

nagapie

 

[SpookyFrank]

Last time schools were properly open was there even testing outside of hospitals?

No, community testing was abandoned long before schools closed.

 

[wtfftw]

No, community testing was abandoned long before schools closed.

That's what I thought.

 

[Cid]

nagapie

Yep. Does anyone have a source on that that gives symptoms by age range? Either way, given the very small number of older counsellors and the high levels of infection it is not a good picture. That article also links to a study on an outbreak in an Israeli school:

Eurosurveillance | A large COVID-19 outbreak in a high school 10 days after schools’ reopening, Israel, May 2020

On 13 March 2020, Israel’s government declared closure of all schools. Schools fully reopened on 17 May 2020. Ten days later, a major outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) occurred in a high school. The first case was registered on 26 May, the second on 27 May. They were not...

www.eurosurveillance.org

In that the youngest grade (age 12-13) had infection rates at 20% with more than 40% symptomatic. So yeah. School opening something to be very cautious about. Particularly given the time of year.

 

[clicker]

I'm not feeling confident about September, with regard to secondary schools fully opening. If that is the plan.
They are harder to contain at that age. Most probably use public transport and it's cheek to jowl. Schools are far bigger and pupils move around to attend classes.
Combine that with autumn/winter, closed doors etc.

 

[kabbes]

If you have the HIV virus but have not developed AIDS (and are thus asymptomatic) we would not say you are immune from spreading HIV just because you don’t have AIDS. Similarly, a child may have the coronavirus but not COVID, which means they are still in danger of transmitting the coronavirus to others.

 

[Cid]

The cdc report doesn’t seem to have any more info...

SARS-CoV-2 Transmission and Infection Among Attendees of an...

Limited data are available about transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), among youths. During June 17–20, an overnight camp in Georgia (camp A)...

www.cdc.gov

But we do know that 50% (overall) of 6-10 year olds tested positive. And we know that 76% (of those tested) were symptomatic... which I suspect indicates some level of symptomatic cases in the youngest group. Someone else might be able to unpick the data a bit. Or I’ll have a go later.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'm not feeling confident about September, with regard to secondary schools fully opening. If that is the plan.
They are harder to contain at that age. Most probably use public transport and it's cheek to jowl. Schools are far bigger and pupils move around to attend classes.
Combine that with autumn/winter, closed doors etc.

-Why don't we get to go back to school mum?
-Well Bobby, people wanted haircuts.
-But such catastrophic disruption to the structure of my life and the near-total loss of social contact with my peers at such a crucial stage of my development as an individual is going to have profound and unknowable consequences for me and my entire generation.
-I don't think you understand how bad the split ends had got Bobby.
-Couldn't we just have closed the schools a week earlier?
-Oh no Bobby, nothing is more important than your education.

 

[Cid]

Ah probably not, symptom data only available for 136, and doesn’t state age.

 

[nagapie]

I think the data is still mixed on how spready young kids are, secondary is another matter.
The UK fucked up so now we've got our lot. I would hate to see the mass closing of schools again and hope it would be a last resort; there are so many problems that come with having children mostly isolated at home.

 

[Thora]

I feel that primary schools can be reopened in a fairly low risk way - children in small groups etc - but secondary schools are a completely different ball game. "Bubbles" of 200-300 children with many mixing beyond that on public transport is just ridiculous, you might as well give up any pretence of there being any risk-reduction going on.

I know it will cause all sorts of issues for working parents, but part time school so groups are smaller seems like the best way to go to me. And the government need to give schools money for extra cleaning, dividers, screens, testing etc.

 

[elbows]

There is a natural bias from authorities and some experts in this pandemic away from things that are hugely inconvenient with massive implications. We saw this clearly with attitudes and denials in regards asymptomatic cases & transmission, but that stuff was unsustainable and they had to accept the likely reality in the end. I have no reason to think its different with schools and the role children in spreading the virus. I could be wrong, but I'd need very good and strong evidence to convince me, and anyway as I've said before I think that disruption to adult routines is one of the reasons school closures are effective in pandemics in the first place.

 

[Chilli.s]

Don't other countries have far better online education, where population lives further from each other? Someone said that to me but I don't know any facts. Seems like a good idea. Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Don't other countries have far better online education, where population lives further from each other? Someone said that to me but I don't know any facts. Seems like a good idea. Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.

There are inherent limitations to what you can do remotely. Responding to the needs of indivudual kids in real time, something that has been comprehensively identified as being vital to effective pedagogy, could become almost impossible. And frankly at this point I think education itself is secondary to the need for social contact and some kind of reliable, ongoing sctructure for kids to feel they have a place in.

 

[maomao]

Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.

I'm sure some have. Doubt it's very many though. And it assumes access to study space and PC. It also assumes a single negative-positive scale whereas the effects are pretty wide ranging. My kids (1 reception, 1 under school age) have loved lock down and have each thrived in some ways and withered in others. I'd rather they had the chance to go to school and if it does come down to trade-offs then yes, I think that's more important than a lot of other things.

 

[Orang Utan]

I let rip at three maskless people in Aldi today - selfish bastards

You don't know why they weren't wearing mask, so you could have let rip at someone who is exempt on medical grounds

Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn't be allowed out if I can't wear one’

With face coverings compulsory in many settings, people unable to comply for health reasons are being challenged and abused

www.theguardian.com

 

[spirals]

“There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. "

That is bullshit! Mr S caught it from from one of his pupils and was very very ill with it as was I!

 

[nagapie]

Don't other countries have far better online education, where population lives further from each other? Someone said that to me but I don't know any facts. Seems like a good idea. Some kids have thrived working from home, less distraction and lessons in self managing time.

These children are the minority and mostly academically able and middle class, with access to all the equipment they need.

 

[andysays]

You don't know why they weren't wearing mask, so you could have let rip at someone who is exempt on medical grounds

Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn't be allowed out if I can't wear one’

With face coverings compulsory in many settings, people unable to comply for health reasons are being challenged and abused

www.theguardian.com

There are lots of places where you can go out without a mask, and whilst I don't condone people being attacked or abused (whether they have a medical condition or not) I think it's understandable that some people may be both annoyed and concerned if they see someone not wearing a mask in a setting where it's now mandatory.

And I can also see an argument for saying that if people genuinely can't wear a mask for whatever reason, they might have to be temporarily excluded from eg supermarkets in certain circumstances.

 

[kabbes]

There is a natural bias from authorities and some experts in this pandemic away from things that are hugely inconvenient with massive implications. We saw this clearly with attitudes and denials in regards asymptomatic cases & transmission, but that stuff was unsustainable and they had to accept the likely reality in the end. I have no reason to think its different with schools and the role children in spreading the virus. I could be wrong, but I'd need very good and strong evidence to convince me, and anyway as I've said before I think that disruption to adult routines is one of the reasons school closures are effective in pandemics in the first place.

And the problem is that if you refuse to countenance an unpalatable idea, you don’t plan for it. Then when the situation is forced upon you, you have no option but whatever hurried reaction you can scrape together in a rush.

Universities decided months ago that they would be doing online lectures next year and so they have been able to spend the summer creating those materials. Schools, by predetermining there was no way they would be doing anything but returning in September, now find themselves screwed if this isn’t possible.

 

[maomao]

“There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. "

That is bullshit! Mr S caught it from from one of his pupils and was very very ill with it as was I!

But it wasn't recorded was it. I doubt there's many recorded cases of teachers having definitely caught the flu or a cold from a pupil either. It's not the kind of thing that gets recorded and it would be hard to prove anyway. By the time a virus has hit schools then the scientists have already lost track of chains of infection.

 

[Thora]

“There has been no recorded case of a teacher catching the coronavirus from a pupil anywhere in the world, according to one of the government’s leading scientific advisers. "

That is bullshit! Mr S caught it from from one of his pupils and was very very ill with it as was I!

I imagine if no one is tracking/recording where teachers are getting it from, they are confident to say they have no recorded cases Trump was right - too much testing just makes the stats look bad

 

[SpookyFrank]

And the problem is that if you refuse to countenance an unpalatable idea, you don’t plan for it. Then when the situation is forced upon you, you have no option but whatever hurried reaction you can scrape together in a rush.

It seems pretty clear that the unpalatability of lockdown to Johnson and many others in power resulted in a delayed, ill-conceived lockdown and probably a doubling or tripling of the death toll.

 

[gentlegreen]

You don't know why they weren't wearing mask, so you could have let rip at someone who is exempt on medical grounds

Mask rage: ‘One man told me I shouldn't be allowed out if I can't wear one’

With face coverings compulsory in many settings, people unable to comply for health reasons are being challenged and abused

www.theguardian.com

Yeah right.
One obviously healthy young chap of around 20 years old, one couple around 40 ...

 

[Orang Utan]

Yeah right.
One obviously healthy young chap of around 20 years old, one couple around 40 ...

you don't know that at all - people have hidden disabilities - did you read the article? Keep your thoughts to yourself next time

 

[gentlegreen]

you don't know that at all - people have hidden disabilities - did you read the article? Keep your thoughts to yourself next time

Are you serious ?
I hope you, like me, have been wearing a mask in shops since the beginning ...

 

[Orang Utan]

Are you serious ?
I hope you, like me, have been wearing a mask in shops since the beginning ...

yes, i have. read that article.
that young man could have had asthma or have autism. The couple could have had COPD or PTSD. you just don't know.