Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[The Golden God]

Tory MP here being very reasonable about the situation

[Wee Bully]

Where is that figure from anyway?
When I Google it, I get this: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/920889/Department_for_Education_explanatory_note_on_SAGE_modelling.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwjWkffq-N7tAhUJZcAKHc9RCy4QFjABegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw31VK34r20eNHu04eLStcaD
Which suggests schools being fully open could contribute a change in R from anything from 7.5% to 68% dependent on the type of contact model used and which assumptions around child infectivity you apply.
Is the 0.4 of all R some type of aggregate number? Or am I just looking at older publications?

Well, it was definitely quoted on here as a definitive number a few weeks ago now, and has become an article of faith for some ever since.

Don’t try and bring nuance into the debate.

[Cairn Terrier]

1 hour ago, Marshmallo said:

The government's own statistics have schools contributing 0.4 to the R rate. "Factories or food processing plants" aren't contributing anywhere near that.

Do you believe this government?

[ICTJohnboy]

15 minutes ago, David W said:

At least they were allowed to play a game of football with their mates.

 

Before being blown to kingdom come.

[Cairn Terrier]

42 minutes ago, Gaz said:

The Government's own stats have schools as a massive contributory factor to the spread of infection. Far more than factories or food processing plants.

Why is it not more uniform across the country then?

[Marshmallo]

3 minutes ago, Cairn Terrier said:

Why is it not more uniform across the country then?

How do you think this virus spreads?

[TheScarf]

1 hour ago, Cairn Terrier said:

 

Plenty big schools in remoter places.
Stranraer Academy about 1200 pupils, Oban used to be about the same.
Can’t imagine the schools in Inverness are small.

 

Of the 5 high schools in Inverness I think the roll varies from 500 to about 1300 pupils.

[Cairn Terrier]

2 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

How do you think this virus spreads?

Well if schools are such a big driver and pupils are going out into communities you would think there might be more infections across even sparsely populated areas.

Maybe not, I'm only asking a question.

[Michael W]

If the prevalence of covid in an area is low, the chances of it spreading around a school are also lower. 

You have a two areas: one with a rate of 120 per 100k, and another with 30 per 100k. Both schools have 1000 pupils. Which school is riskier? 

[Cairn Terrier]

3 minutes ago, Michael W said:

If the prevalence of covid in an area is low, the chances of it spreading around a school are also lower. 

You have a two areas: one with a rate of 120 per 100k, and another with 30 per 100k. Both schools have 1000 pupils. Which school is riskier? 

Fair enough, but why is one region so much higher when the proportion of the population that are school pupils will be roughly the same.

Is it because other factors are making more of a difference?

[Bairnardo]

8 minutes ago, Michael W said:

If the prevalence of covid in an area is low, the chances of it spreading around a school are also lower. 

You have a two areas: one with a rate of 120 per 100k, and another with 30 per 100k. Both schools have 1000 pupils. Which school is riskier? 

Why then were high prevalence areas able to drop their numbers in the tier system despite schools staying open?

[Marshmallo]

2 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Why then were high prevalence areas able to drop their numbers in the tier system despite schools staying open?

Because various other places closed down which reduced community transmission.

No one is saying schools are the ONLY place where covid is spreading. 

[Honest_Man#1]

7 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Because various other places closed down which reduced community transmission.

No one is saying schools are the ONLY place where covid is spreading. 

I can’t believe people aren’t getting this incredibly simple concept. I think some have got so wound up by people talking about schools that they think that anybody mentioning schools thinks they are the only source of transmission.

[Donathan]

1,504 new cases. Think super covid has arrived in Scotland

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

I can’t believe people aren’t getting this incredibly simple concept. I think some have got so wound up by people talking about schools that they think that anybody mentioning schools thinks they are the only source of transmission.

Unbelievable that people could get that idea, they're barely mentioned. 

[renton]

34 minutes ago, Wee Bully said:

 

Well, it was definitely quoted on here as a definitive number a few weeks ago now, and has become an article of faith for some ever since.

Don’t try and bring nuance into the debate.
 

 

I realise the "debate" around this has become somewhat entrenched. I do recall a SAGE modelling paper from early in the epidemic 1st wave talking about various controls. School closures had something like an R impact of 0.5, but that value came with confidence intervals wider than the Panama canal. Basically, it was them saying "here's an number, don't hold us to it" I assume the current 0.4 number being quoted is from a newer publication.

Since then we have publications like this based on the limited number of schools that reopened in June, down south: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.04.20121434v2.full.pdf+html

Where basically, the point was that secondary schools were riskier to keep open but neither would, alone, raise R above 1 and that the impact of schools was more keenly felt the higher the community transmission rate was.

We kinda see that borne out in the Scottish data regarding symptomatic cases. Early years and primary education is largely untouched, secondary education we see 2/3rds of schools with at least one case, and 20% of those with more than one case. There are still very few obvious clusters in Scottish schools.

That may reflect the generally lower incidence rates in Scotland. If you look back at November, when Glasgow was at it's then peak, the incidence rate was 312.7 over 7 days/100k population. There were areas in England on the same metric  that were at 680 odds. So the differing proportions of younger symptomatic infections seen on either side of the border might well be predicated on higher community transmission.

So are schools adding to infection rates based proportionally on background community rates or are they driving and accelerating the trends themselves? Given how other relatively closed environments like care homes and university halls racked up scores of cases in a matter of a week or two, once infections got in, wouldn't you see that in school cases as well? 

Question comes down to two things: asymptomatic cases and infectivity. How many kids have it, but don't show it? And how well do kids pass it on, both symptomatic and asymptomatic. Studies I posted links to show that generally there is an aggregate of maybe 28% of all PCR tested cases that were asymptomatic. A couple of studies showed that it was higher in younger age groups. Assuming that type of figure you'd still get 5 to 6 single case schools before the chances of finding an asymptomatic, tested case. 

The question of infectivity is still open. Do kids generally pass it on as well as adults, and within that do asymptomatic kids pass it on at the same rate or worse than symptomatic kids. There is a lot of data, some of it contradictory. It's very difficult to get that information in a controlled manner. Its why modelling is quite difficult, without being able to confidently isolate factors, models are subject to GIGO.

One other question I do have is this: If schools are infection factories where kids, in a closed environment pass it through asymptomatically in large numbers, then after 4 months of being fully open, wouldn't we almost have infected the whole school population to the point where school closures won't make a big difference? At least in the central belt?

It makes sense to keep the kids off longer through winter. Schools will add to case numbers, and the risk to both them and the community will be higher. It makes more sense now if this new strain does have an infectivity in kids equalling that in adults, though they can't possibly be sure of that at this stage. Its a wise precaution. 

[madwullie]

2 hours ago, G51 said:

I can't speak for NHS Lanarkshire, but I know for a fact that NHS Highland have prioritised their staff based on their roles within Raigmore Hospital and divided them into "groups". So ICU staff were Group 1 and received their first dose a few weeks ago or whatever, and maintenance staff, for example, are something like Group 10.

The online booking idea was binned because the website didn't work properly.

I'd be surprised if NHS Lanarkshire wasn't doing the same.

Well be surprised then mate. My wife works in an NHS Lanarkshire hospital and can't gets vaccine because her job is lab based and is therefore never on a pc at work. She isn't normally patient facing, but on occasion has to go into icu. She can't get a vaccine because she keeps missing the batches, and people she knows who are not patient facing at all have managed to book and already had vaccines, before many staff who are patient facing and can't. 

Not even sure why I'm bothering here - I have literally no reason to lie about this, and unless she's a secret covid hoaxer, she has no reason to lie to me. Iirc @Inanimate Carbon Rod has family who have experienced similar in GCC.

So there you have it.  

[Billy Jean King]

Even when faced with the governments facts about the virus spreading through schools people stick their head in the sand because they want the school babysitters.

I have zero need for school babysitting and haven't for years !

[MP_MFC]

1,504 new cases. Think super covid has arrived in Scotland

Last week a few days were abnormally low with under 100 cases in Glasgow and Lanarkshire, I think more likely is that is the data lag coming through.

[madwullie]

1 hour ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

Yeah I had a look at that one. They are at home, but we would need to travel to get there. Looks like it’s fairly accepted anyway.

Woman asked similar on the radio to some health expert earlier, and the chat was (although specifically about care homes) that the restrictions didn't apply and you could contact the care home in this situation to arrange visiting.