Covid and Work, Covid Advice and General Chat

[NicoleC1971]

More ill, maybe not. But how do you keep schools open with teachers and pupils at home self isolating?

I agree but then I'd say it was wrong to have them self isolating in the first place based on a) unreliable test b) only the tiniest proportion of them testing positive during isolation periods suggesting that it was adults passing it to kids or adults passing it to their colleagues in the staff room. Surely we can protect the small number of truly vulnerable teachers just as we might have done in prior flu seasons when they were a lot more vulnerable to catching that flu from the kids particularly if the flu vaccine happened not to work that year?

The data hasn't been published but it follows if the highest infection rates in society are at school, then teachers are getting more ill than other front line workers. They certainly are not wanting to publish the numbers. I think Germany closing its schools shows it's more concerned about its citizens than populist ideas our Government has about not closing schools at all costs.

https://www.tes.com/news/coronavirus-tell-us-how-many-teachers-have-died
https://www.tes.com/news/gibb-not-possible-know-teacher-covid-case-numbers
https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/c...n-rates-highest-amongst-secondary-aged-pupils
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/us/german-school-close-coronavirus-lockdown.html

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30251-0/fulltext
This is an actual study based on Australia in Winter but obviously we've had schools open in Sweden (all the way through and in mainland Europe since May I think) with no mention of rampant illness. High infection rates reflect high levels of testing in the Winter upper respiratory season but the demographic is young (of working age) and healthy. The group we know is least likely to get ill from this let alone seriously ill.
If care home workers or nurses on geriatric wards or workers on cruise ships had high levels of infection then your point that infections are always problematic, would make sense.

 

[ert]

I agree but then I'd say it was wrong to have them self isolating in the first place based on a) unreliable test b) only the tiniest proportion of them testing positive during isolation periods suggesting that it was adults passing it to kids or adults passing it to their colleagues in the staff room. Surely we can protect the small number of truly vulnerable teachers just as we might have done in prior flu seasons when they were a lot more vulnerable to catching that flu from the kids particularly if the flu vaccine happened not to work that year?

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(20)30251-0/fulltext
This is an actual study based on Australia in Winter but obviously we've had schools open in Sweden (all the way through and in mainland Europe since May I think) with no mention of rampant illness. High infection rates reflect high levels of testing in the Winter upper respiratory season but the demographic is young (of working age) and healthy. The group we know is least likely to get ill from this let alone seriously ill.
If care home workers or nurses on geriatric wards or workers on cruise ships had high levels of infection then your point that infections are always problematic, would make sense.

We've had this conversion before. Australia shut all of its schools in every lockdown because it recognised that keeping them open was the elephant in the room in terms of Covid spreading. In Victoria, in our second wave, the schools were closed for 15 weeks. As I said last time, the study you posted again doesn't reflect the numbers of Covid we have in the UK community or the lack of space, overcrowding, cold weather, lack of ventilation etc, etc. Australia hasn't had Covid cases in any great numbers, and never followed this study as their model. Our current spread of Covid is because of the schools. Secondary schools have the highest infection rates out of any part of the economy. In my UK school, we had 5-year groups out isolating for the last half-term due to an outbreak, which we couldn't stop, though working with NHS test and track England, with ten teachers testing positive. It was much more disruptive to the student's education than online learning in March. Just like Australia, Germany has made the correct decision in closing their schools.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-closures-lockdown-lancet-study-b1251617.html

Australia had 8 cases of Covid today with no deaths. The UK had 25161 cases with 612 deaths.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

 

[Max68]

The below is from back in August but if there is, shall we say a reluctance, to reveal figures for health and care workers then its easy enough to sweep figures under the carpet for other occupations. "Allegedly" of course.

Indeed I paid particular attention to ONS figures re deaths in education settings at the start of this pandemic and if memory serves there were around 65 "official" deaths back in March. Those are the last figures available as it strangely doesn't seem to have been updated since!

Government figures re deaths by occupation are wishy washy at best with hundreds of occupations crammed in on a small table making it very difficult to work out what is what.

At the end of the day who is to believe government official figures whatever side of the fence you sit?!

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...f-deaths-secret-cover-ministers-a9667156.html

 

[lucylocket61]

Why does Sweden keep getting dragged into this? The two countries have few similarities.

 

[UK T1]

ON principle that they should never ever have their education taken away from them again? It was wrong in March and it is still wrong now but I know that others see them as plague carrying granny killers etc. rather than future tax paying citizens who deserve better than the deal they've had recently..

Kindly remember that schools never closed completely. Pupils did not have their education taken away from them. I am aware standards were different in different schools, but there are now set guidelines for the provision of remote learning which schools must adhere to. Back in March we immediately started recording video and audio presentations and putting together workbooks for pupils. We arranged printed resources to be sent out to those with unreliable Internet, providing laptops loaned where possible as these weren't provided as promised by the government at the time. I spent far longer working during the lockdown than before, learning new ways of teaching, preparing all new resources and ringing families providing support etc. I appreciate not every teacher was doing that then, and I also know that not every parent knew those resources were being made available (I talked to many who hadn't read the communication from school and thought work was optional). If pupils weren't able to be at home, they were able to work in school. This included during the holidays.

It is not fair to say education was taken away, or that it would be in the event of future planned school closures. If anything, everyone is now even more prepared for a higher and better quality of remote learning should it need to happen. No more lessons missed on snow days again!

 

[NicoleC1971]

Kindly remember that schools never closed completely. Pupils did not have their education taken away from them. I am aware standards were different in different schools, but there are now set guidelines for the provision of remote learning which schools must adhere to. Back in March we immediately started recording video and audio presentations and putting together workbooks for pupils. We arranged printed resources to be sent out to those with unreliable Internet, providing laptops loaned where possible as these weren't provided as promised by the government at the time. I spent far longer working during the lockdown than before, learning new ways of teaching, preparing all new resources and ringing families providing support etc. I appreciate not every teacher was doing that then, and I also know that not every parent knew those resources were being made available (I talked to many who hadn't read the communication from school and thought work was optional). If pupils weren't able to be at home, they were able to work in school. This included during the holidays.

It is not fair to say education was taken away, or that it would be in the event of future planned school closures. If anything, everyone is now even more prepared for a higher and better quality of remote learning should it need to happen. No more lessons missed on snow days again!

Duly reminded. Thanks. My kids had online provision to a limited degree and my y12 child was in for 1 day a week from June. I am very much aware of how hard some teachers worked to give their students an education both in lockdown and thereafter in spite of all the staff self isolations and Covid regimes. I know teachers who are equally as frustrated (see UsForThem campaign) for example.
It isn't teachers I am blaming. I feel strongly because it is the kids that teachers try the hardest to help that didn't get into school for whatever reason or didn't have a laptop or a space to learn or any encouragement from parents. We can't pretend that in spite of all those teachers' efforts and the online innovations that have happened that this hasn't had an impact on those kids not to mention years 11 and 13 If it had all been worth it i.e. if we had saved lives by doing this then of course I'd have a different view but it just wasn't so I can't go along with that failed hypothesis. I have posted links to the papers that demonstrate that but on this thread many people want to believe their intuitions that closing schools is a good way to mitigate this virus's effects.

 

[ert]

Duly reminded. Thanks. My kids had online provision to a limited degree and my y12 child was in for 1 day a week from June. I am very much aware of how hard some teachers worked to give their students an education both in lockdown and thereafter in spite of all the staff self isolations and Covid regimes. I know teachers who are equally as frustrated (see UsForThem campaign) for example.
It isn't teachers I am blaming. I feel strongly because it is the kids that teachers try the hardest to help that didn't get into school for whatever reason or didn't have a laptop or a space to learn or any encouragement from parents. We can't pretend that in spite of all those teachers' efforts and the online innovations that have happened that this hasn't had an impact on those kids not to mention years 11 and 13 If it had all been worth it i.e. if we had saved lives by doing this then of course I'd have a different view but it just wasn't so I can't go along with that failed hypothesis. I have posted links to the papers that demonstrate that but on this thread many people want to believe their intuitions that closing schools is a good way to mitigate this virus's effects.

It is time the State school sector caught up with the Independent sector. The Government should have seen to it. There are no excuses. Your children should have been taught their full time-table online, with their teachers teaching their usual lessons. I only received 30 minutes of training at school - it's a very simple process to be able to do this. I taught 5 to 6 hour-lessons a day online. I recorded videos on any questions I was emailed about after the lesson and posted them on Google Classroom. We offered after school help clubs on Google Meet. I marked work from every lesson, uploaded as photographs on Google Classroom. After the switch to online teaching from March, our students still sat their end of topic tests and their end-of-year Summer exams and did brilliantly well. Disadvantaged children should be in school. If the students don't have access to a computer, they are disadvantaged, then they should be in school. If parents can't find child care, as key workers the children should be in school. If parents are struggling or the child has mental health issues, then there is space for them at school.

Yesterday 612 people died of Covid in the UK. That's equivalent to two jumbo jets crashing a day just in the UK.

 

[NicoleC1971]

It is time the State school sector caught up with the Independent sector. The Government should have seen to it. There are no excuses. Your children should have been taught their full time-table online, with their teachers teaching their usual lessons. I only received 30 minutes of training at school - it's a very simple process to be able to do this. I taught 5 to 6 hour-lessons a day online. I recorded videos on any questions I was emailed about after the lesson and posted them on Google Classroom. We offered after school help clubs on Google Meet. I marked work from every lesson, uploaded as photographs on Google Classroom. After the switch to online teaching from March, our students still sat their end of topic tests and their end-of-year Summer exams and did brilliantly well. Disadvantaged children should be in school. If the students don't have access to a computer, they are disadvantaged, then they should be in school. If parents can't find child care, as key workers the children should be in school. If parents are struggling or the child has mental health issues, then there is space for them at school.

Yesterday 612 people died of Covid in the UK. That's equivalent to two jumbo jets crashing a day just in the UK.

I have a couple of online learning courses going on. The content is excellent but it isn't as good as learning with other people and I am a motivated adult learner. My boys did their lessons double quick and my daughter became overwhelmed and more anxious with her year 12 then 13 reading. She now has excellent support in the school.
I would agree that some teachers were excellent at proving fully resourced online lessons and noticed if my kids failed to log on etc. etc. The quality of the learning as always depends on the quality of the teacher and then the quality of the management team supporting them. I don't think teachers are better in the private sector but there is a better staff/pupil ratio and better resources at their disposal so I can't realistically expect my great local comp (best in Surrey) to compete with Epsom College (fees at £30k per annum after tax).
Re the death count. Here are the ONS figures to put this into a bit more context:
In England, the number of deaths up to 4 December 2020 was 531,876, which is 63,826 (13.6%) more than the five-year average. Of these, 65,792 deaths (12.4%) mentioned COVID-19.
Our average life expectancy is 80.41 and average death involving Covid is 82.
So this is a nasty bug for elderly and already ill people but I contend that shutting schools wont' stop those people catching and dying from Covid going into January and February when respiratory viruses are at their busiest but I do hope the virus does minimise the effects of those infections.

 

[lucylocket61]

I wonder why people confuse the apparent risk to children (who get long covid too) and the transmission risk they pose?

Yes, children appear to be less severely affected by Covid BUT those children are mixing in non covid safe ways and then talking the virus home and in public transport.

The transmission of the virus is the issue, not how ill children get.

And let's not forget the unsafe exposure to teachers and other staff. Who then also talk the virus outside the school.

Talking about the low health risk to children as being a good reason to keep school open misses the real problem.

 

[Max68]

Schoolboy, 10, left in coma after suffering from Kawasaki-like disease linked to Covid (msn.com)

‘It’s been tumultuous’: Covid-19 stress takes toll on teachers in England (msn.com)

Covid-19 was the leading cause of death in England in November | Daily Mail Online

Covid-19 leading cause of death in Wales again - BBC News

Teacher forced to live in SHED as her fiance waits for coronavirus vaccine | Daily Mail Online

Covid-19 death teacher 'forgotten' by government, says family - BBC News

 

[KK123]

Not so much granny killers as teacher infectors. Let's worry about those who also pay taxes right now too.

Duly reminded. Thanks. My kids had online provision to a limited degree and my y12 child was in for 1 day a week from June. I am very much aware of how hard some teachers worked to give their students an education both in lockdown and thereafter in spite of all the staff self isolations and Covid regimes. I know teachers who are equally as frustrated (see UsForThem campaign) for example.
It isn't teachers I am blaming. I feel strongly because it is the kids that teachers try the hardest to help that didn't get into school for whatever reason or didn't have a laptop or a space to learn or any encouragement from parents. We can't pretend that in spite of all those teachers' efforts and the online innovations that have happened that this hasn't had an impact on those kids not to mention years 11 and 13 If it had all been worth it i.e. if we had saved lives by doing this then of course I'd have a different view but it just wasn't so I can't go along with that failed hypothesis. I have posted links to the papers that demonstrate that but on this thread many people want to believe their intuitions that closing schools is a good way to mitigate this virus's effects.

How do YOU know lives weren't saved? You may know how many people died during that period but NONE of us know how many lives were saved, that's impossible. People seem to forget that although you can't save everyone no matter what is done, you can minimise the impact (ie, figures go down during each lockdown), surely THAT is worth it. Remember when compulsory seatbelts were introduced, naysayers said it wouldn't make any difference and yet deaths in car crashes reduced year on year by large amounts.

 

[KK123]

Duly reminded. Thanks. My kids had online provision to a limited degree and my y12 child was in for 1 day a week from June. I am very much aware of how hard some teachers worked to give their students an education both in lockdown and thereafter in spite of all the staff self isolations and Covid regimes. I know teachers who are equally as frustrated (see UsForThem campaign) for example.
It isn't teachers I am blaming. I feel strongly because it is the kids that teachers try the hardest to help that didn't get into school for whatever reason or didn't have a laptop or a space to learn or any encouragement from parents. We can't pretend that in spite of all those teachers' efforts and the online innovations that have happened that this hasn't had an impact on those kids not to mention years 11 and 13 If it had all been worth it i.e. if we had saved lives by doing this then of course I'd have a different view but it just wasn't so I can't go along with that failed hypothesis. I have posted links to the papers that demonstrate that but on this thread many people want to believe their intuitions that closing schools is a good way to mitigate this virus's effects.

Yes because of course YOU are the only one that is right!

 

[hankjam]

Our average life expectancy is 80.41 and average death involving Covid is 82.

Could you give me a link to this data please?

[/QUOTE="]
So this is a nasty bug for elderly and already ill people
[/QUOTE]
I have a neice who is an anesthesiologist and her life this year compared to last year are not even close. She is absolutely shattered... and she works mainly on children...

[/QUOTE]
but I contend that shutting schools wont' stop those people catching and dying from Covid going into January and February when respiratory viruses are at their busiest but I do hope the virus does minimise the effects of those infections.
[/QUOTE]

How is that going to work?

 

[Robinredbreast]

I wonder why people confuse the apparent risk to children (who get long covid too) and the transmission risk they pose?

Yes, children appear to be less severely affected by Covid BUT those children are mixing in non covid safe ways and then talking the virus home and in public transport.

The transmission of the virus is the issue, not how ill children get.

And let's not forget the unsafe exposure to teachers and other staff. Who then also talk the virus outside the school.

Talking about the low health risk to children as being a good reason to keep school open misses the real problem.

I had to self isolate for 2 weeks because I was in contact with someone who had contacted coronavirus. I escort children to school and I went to Morrison's on the Tuesday, before I was contacted. I don't know who I was in contact with, but my bet would be from the children or child, as some children in the school had been tested positive for the virus, and those in the same bubble or class, had to self isolate.

I wish, I wish, I wish to get back to some normality so we can live our lives and not just exist in this sorry planet of ours.

 

[Max68]

The problem is no matter which way the Government went there sadly would be deaths, job and business losses, mental health issues etc etc. However if they had done nothing and just carried on there would be far more deaths than the 60,000 odd who have sadly died already and you would still have had job and business losses and mental health issues on top of that not taking into account the grief of the families who have lost loved ones or who are still seeing those loved ones affected by this disease with Long Covid or the possible permanent damage done to lungs, heart and other parts of the body.

Even if they had opened everything up to "shield" young people from mental health issues many of those issues would still occur in other ways. Sure there would be no lockdowns or restrictions but there would be far more families affected by deaths caused by family to family contact.

My dad died of a heart attack 20 years ago and I still feel regret and guilt that I never noticed anything that could have made me push him to see a Doctor. Mum has dementia and is in a care home and I fight with my guilt constantly because I "should" have been able to do more. I can't imagine therefore what turmoil those are going through who have inadvertently and accidentally given Covid to a loved one who has died without them knowing it at the time. Can you imagine a child or young person knowing that they gave Covid to mum, dad, gran or grandad who then passed away from this disease? No amount of A Levels is going to take that away.

 

[Bluetit1802]

I don't like the stats on Covid deaths. The numbers quoted are for deaths from ALL CAUSES of people that had a positive test within the previous 28 days. That will include anyone stabbed, shot, injured in an accident, with a very short prognosis due to many conditions etc. When anyone is admitted to hospital for any reason they are immediately given a test and if positive moved to a covid ward. That person will have Covid on the death cert, even if, for example, he had life threatening injuries from a road traffic accident or whatever.

 

[Dusty911]

I don't like the stats on Covid deaths. The numbers quoted are for deaths from ALL CAUSES of people that had a positive test within the previous 28 days. That will include anyone stabbed, shot, injured in an accident, with a very short prognosis due to many conditions etc. When anyone is admitted to hospital for any reason they are immediately given a test and if positive moved to a covid ward. That person will have Covid on the death cert, even if, for example, he had life threatening injuries from a road traffic accident or whatever.

I agree. The actual more realistic cfigure is about 80,000 which is the amount of excess deaths for which there really is only one cause.

 

[hankjam]

or which there really is only one cause.

and that would be what?

 

[Dusty911]

and that would be what?

Covid 19

 

[lucylocket61]

The numbers quoted are for deaths from ALL CAUSES of people that had a positive test within the previous 28 days. Tha

I believe that changed on August 12th and figures were retrospectively adjusted to reflect that. Since then Covid has to be a probable, reasonable and prominent cause of death, according to whoever fills in and signs the death certificate.

Further, excess expected death figures are also used as a check on the numbers submitted. This is why there are often weekly or monthly adjustments made to totals.