UKH

Is there any real evidence that sanitizing hands and surfaces is having any impact on lowering covid transmission? I thought almost all evidence now pointed to aerosolised virus being the overwhelming vector for transmission.

Covid is currently ripping through schools https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57640397 but as far as I can see the DfE aren't willing to ask for student to wear masks again (it was never mandated anyway, but the recommendation to do so was removed some months ago).

At my school, we are under strict instructions to make sure kids sanitize their hands coming into and leaving the classroom, but then we have up to 34 (if they are in) of them all squashed into a small classroom with none or just a handful of them wearing masks.

Is there any evidence that hand washing/sanitizing is doing anything in this sort of situation?

Oh and, hygene theatre if you haven't heard the term: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/hygiene-theater-still-was...

At the very start of all this, the first few cases in Singapore were tracked with borderline sinister level of rigour. I think their second or third case was a lady from mainland China, she went to church while in Singapore. Some direct contacts at church caught Covid, but interestingly... someone in the next service a few hours later who had zero contact with her also contracted Covid. When the CCTV was examined the person in the second service had sat in the same chair. So surface transmission is definitely a possibility. 

I’ve found for most kids it’s no more than a mime. Hands close to the pump, then pretend to rub sanitizer in. It’s only the fidgety kids who don’t want to sit down who sanitise with any genuine regularity!

If hand hygiene mattered that much, the whole population would now have had Covid from supermarkets and other multi-touch areas. Adults are not brilliant at hand hygiene either, we just do the theatre better! 

It is an airborne virus and I think the focus on cleaning gives a false sense of security and takes the focus away from what is needed which is good ventilation and masks. 

Is there any evidence of high transmission at school?

I only have kids at one school, but we've had two isolation periods and in neither were any kids positive. One was teacher and the other family member of a child at school.

Totally accept it is a proven that you can get covid via formite transmission, but it just seems it is the least likely way for it to spread but about the only way that schools are trying to stop the spread. It just seems like it is the old "when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail".

1 in 20 kids not in school currently, but it seems to be hitting different areas disproportionately. My school has about half the kids self-isolating currently, plus a good number of staff.

I don't know how much transmission is happening in schools, that's a fair question, but it seems to be happening. My understanding is PHE calls it an outbreak when there has been confirmed transmission in school. We've had that in the last couple of weeks, and didn't have it last autumn when bubbles were being sent home, but I think all for potential transmission only - from infections that came from home or elsewhere.

The evidence is that covid spreads mostly by airborne transmission indoors. Factors such as overcrowding, poor ventilation, loud talking or singing in close proximity to others, increase the chances of transmission. The more people inside a room the greater the likelihood that at least one of them is infected and will pass that infection on to others.

Schools are collections of overcrowded rooms with poor ventilation where loud talking or singing occurs in close proximity to others. It would be extraordinary if high transmission did not occur in schools. PHE surveillance reports are showing that 30% of outbreaks are occurring in educational settings at the moment.

Meanwhile, rather than protecting us by taking measures to reduce community transmission in schools, the government have decided that all the people isolating is too harmful for profit so we will soon no longer be allowed to take measures to protect ourselves and others from school transmission (unless we are wealthy enough not to rely on a state school and a sympathetic employer). The media are currently in full propaganda mode over this. Don't worry, the government aren't still implementing their survival of the fittest and wealthiest herd immunity by infection plan or anything evil like that.

I'm baffled by the news. I have 1 child at primary school in a London borough, but because I live near a border I have 2 kids at secondary that's inside a county. In both cases every now and again we get an email to notify us that there's been a positive case at school and the child and their immediate contacts are now out of school isolating, but sending a year group home has never happened to us in the whole of Covid

Our kids (primary) school sent whole year groups home several times in winter.  Nothing this time, but maybe being the worst hit area in the city back then has helped...

Our entire school is now closed, 420 kids at home and associated families having to home school for two weeks, due to c.10 positive cases - none of which has any symptoms or is ill.

Something is going to have to change - its not fair on kids to continually be sent home and told they cannot go out of the house/garden for 10 days each time someone in the year gets a positive result.

Whilst at the same time wider society is open (and will become more open shortly) and I imagine a lot of people are positive and not facing these type of constraints as they are simply not testing themselves etc.

The PHE reports show the trends in where outbreaks have been discovered, which make interesting viewing. The image I have attached comes from covid variant technical briefing 17 (18 will probably come out on Friday) at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/investigation-of-novel-sars-cov-...

The black figures at the top are the total number of outbreaks detected that week. As you can see, they have risen a lot with Delta and dropped with Alpha, but the trends in proportion at different settings are the same.

Approximately an average of 2/3 of detected outbreaks were in education settings (across all age groups) in the weeks prior to 17/05. Since indoor hospitality opened, the proportion due to hospitality and entertainment have risen massively and the proportion in education has fallen substantially. By 02/06 there were more outbreaks measured in hospitality (~25%) than all education combined (~20%) and the trend was continuing. Workplace, healthcare and shopping have provided fairly constant contributions throughout the period (a bit of a recent increase from shopping). As the proportion from hospitality, entertainment and also travel settings has risen, it is the proportion in education settings that has dropped.

It's also worth recognising that it is much easier to identify an outbreak in education. If a kid gets covid the school or nursery is immediately notified - you have to name them when registering for the test.  The school then initiates isolation and testing of contacts to see if they have an outbreak. If someone picks up covid in a pub or restaurant, it's much more difficult. They will have to tell a contact tracer where they've been in the last few days that they think they stood close to someone for long enough to be a close contact, and an outbreak is only going to be detected if several positive cases independently identify the same place in a similar time and someone draws the link between the different cases.

So, I think it's obvious that education makes a contribution to covid spread. But it's also obvious that hospitality makes a larger contribution. And hopefully it's also obvious that ensuring kids get a good and fair education is more important than going to a pub or restaurant. So personally I'm in favour of plans to reduce school contact isolation requirements. I'd prefer re-implementing restrictions elsewhere if the enhanced spread caused by schools not sending classes home during a period of high prevalence is deemed unacceptable.

That's quite a spin. It's just possible that they've recognised the harm being done to children's education by the disruption that self isolation and the sending home of vast swathes of pupils brings. Yes, schools are an environment where transmission is likely, but amongst an age group where the likelihood of becoming more than mildly unwell is small, and in a wider population that is becoming increasingly vaccinated. Getting schools back to normal needs to be a priority. 

It's not like that in my school or the school my kids go to. Whole year groups are only being sent home when it's been confirmed they've all had contact with some one who is PCR confirmed positive. LFT positive isn't enough. 

I was phoned on Friday night by my head to see how close I was in one lesson to a student I taught two days previously and who had since tested positive. As both the student and I remembered that I hadn't been within in metre of the kid all lesson I was deemed to be not at risk, and expected back in at work on Monday. It's much the same for kids if they aren't sitting in a class close to someone who tests positive. It's more problematic with people who are asymptomatic and get caught by the LFTs, because they will have been running around in their bubbles - lunch break, playing footy on the field etc. - potentially shedding virus for days. That has led to full bubble closures I think.

I presumed he or she were writing from the perspective of a teacher. Remember us teachers didn't lockdown in November and weren't prioritised for vaccination when we went back into work in March. I teach many hundreds of different kids a week. The government even said we couldn't insist on children wearing masks, it was completely up to them if they wore them or not. Now we're told children shouldn't be wearing masks, unless they want to, despite outbreaks in school.

I've had a number of colleagues who have contracted covid at work. 

That isn't how it's happening at my nephew/niece's school.  If there's a case they all go home, but then they contact-trace and advise those who were close contacts, and everyone else does a lateral flow test and comes back.

At my son's preschool / nursery, whenever there is a positive test, everyone in the bubble has to isolate. He has had four isolation periods (the first when he was positive last summer.) There is no consideration of who was close to who, or of getting tests for people to avoid isolation.

There were quite a number of complete school closures in the Liverpool region in the 2nd and 3rd waves when they detected a number of cases. Equally I know some local primary school classes were just sending home small groups of pupils and teaching them remotely.

The only conclusion to be drawn from this discussion, which I think we already knew, is that everywhere does their best to come up with a set of rules they think are appropriate based on the guidance, but that most of them come up with slightly different sets of requirements, and some are more onerous than others.

Interesting, mine are primary and its the whole year group off if you get a positive LFT in a single kid, if that kid then gets a negative PCR then whole year can go back in - but there has been at least 1 positive PCR in each year so everyone is off.

I am at the point of do I even send my kids back this term and instead just call it quits for education this year and let them play whilst we continue to try and keep our jobs.

Real risk they go back for 2 days and then another positive test comes in and they are told to go home for 10 days and not leave the house/garden again......the impact on their mental health/wellbeing of this result vs. missing a few days school is starting to lead me to favouring not going back.

In addition to my earlier comment remembered there was 1 occasion last year when eldest didn't go in on a Monday as year group off until they identified close contacts of a positive found over a weekend, but the year group (except identified kids) went back in the next day

Agree with comments above that the rules are being interpreted completely differently in different schools

I know that schools have to have their risk assessment plans checked by PHE - so the individual physical environment of schools makes a difference. We have a lot of covered walkways between classrooms, which are around quads, so we don't have as many problems as schools where kids are in actual inside corridors and so on.

I would imagine with nursery and primaries, many are relatively small and open plan spaces so it must be really hard to stop the kids mingling, particularly when you add in the obligatory yelling, singing and crying! 

Absolutely.

I have no doubt some education settings are higher risk than others. Although, between schools at the same stage I think there are difficult questions that should have been answered about whether a fully risk-assessed approach in each school is preferable to having a more consistent policy that allows variable transmission risk but ensures educational opportunity is as fair as possible.

I was mostly just commenting on the fact everyone was telling each other what their local schools do as if it was an argument why everyone else was wrong

The absolute numbers of outbreaks detected in schools must have rocketed since 2nd June then because less than 1% of pupils were isolating on 2nd June but over 5% of pupils are as of 24th June and that increase is quite alarming.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57640397

Whether it's relatively more driven by schools or hospitality doesn't really make a lot of difference, each case of transmission has two ends, e.g, picked up in a cafe - passed on in a school or vice versa, probably the home is usually at one of the ends of each case.

If the spread is rampant in the community it will also be rampant in schools and the answer to that is not to reduce the precautions that are taken in schools or that will just drive community spread on faster.

On an individual level, I can protect myself and my family from transmission from the hospitality sector but the state compels me to send my children into the schools in which they are going to reduce the precautions taken against the spread of Covid.  The only way out of this is if you have the wealth or good fortune to be able to home school or send your child to a private school where they are able to implement better safety.

I can understand your concern about reducing safeguards in schools but the issue remains that the current scenario is damaging to the pupils’ education and cannot continue as-is.

Covid is now a fixture in our world, added to an already long list of illnesses and conditions that may harm and kill us. As the population becomes increasingly vaccinated it seems reasonable to try and return to as normal a life as possible, especially regarding education, as quickly as possible. 

I tried putting on a production of Hygiene Theatre, but the audience couldn't hear the actors behind the masks, formites were crawling over the seats in the theatre and after the first night I couldn't sell tickets... After that I washed my hands of it!

I'll get my coat...

Maybe there are better ways to manage the risk that don't involve having to send entire year groups home to isolate? 

At the moment it's still a little understood deadly and dehabilitating disease with a high chance of evading the vaccines so we might well end up in a place where it becomes part of the fabric of everyday life but at the moment I'd like our government to keep public health as the top priority.

I couldn't agree more - the current solution is a farce that is harming education as well as employment for those parents whose children are affected. The differing approaches taken by individual establishments, as shown in this thread, just throws additional confusion into the mix. My view is that many of the schools are still in a March 2020 style panic and need to sit back and take a more rational, practical view on how to continue delivering the service that public funds pay them to. This needs to take into account the ever decreasing risk of serious illness and mortality as the vaccine roll-out progresses.

Yes, it may evade vaccines at some point but we can only go on what we know now. I believe that we are now at the stage where personal relationships, economy, livelihoods, recreation and public health all deserve level-pegging, rather than us continuing to cower beneath a virus that is here to stay, in whatever format that may be.

Apparently “parents have got to be patient” guess I will see how that continues to go with my employer and my kids who are 5 days into 10 days so far and with an extremely high chance of another 10 days if they go back to school next week.....meanwhile full crowds at Wimbledon and the wider world carries on as normal 

'My view is that many of the schools are still in a March 2020 style panic and need to sit back and take a more rational, practical view on how to continue delivering the service that public funds pay them to.'

Thanks for your view and it is a super one.....but,...... Schools are not the policy makers here, the government are. Schools are following the policy laid out by the government. This means that until such a time as the government mandate schools not to send home whole bubbles/ year groups that they have to comply with the rules.

As for schools being in a 'March 2020 style panic', this is absolutely untrue. If you had entered a school during this academic year, you would have found things to running very much as normal (bar certain mandated practices like sanitising, face masks for staff in communal areas) with all school staff working extremely hard to ensure that children don't fall any further behind, careful safeguarding is taking place and that children feel secure and supported in a world which is for now heavily altered from established normality.

Perhaps you should consider entering into discussion with at least a modicum of the facts required to have something worthwhile to say. I am, as you may have guessed a teacher!

James

Just to say I totally agree - schools have worked their hardest in really challenging circumstances. 

As you say it’s a policy issue at the moment but leaves me as a parent facing a decision I never thought I would have to take - do I send my kids to school and risk damaging their mental health via a high likelihood they have to self isolate for 10 days again - or do we call it quits for this year and home school them for the next 2 weeks so we can at least go out and do things (go for a walk in the fields, a family bike ride......as opposed to hit the shops/cafes)

Since I wrote the above only *Yesterday* a whole year group has been sent home.

Times are changing !!!

Fair comment - I’ll take that on the chin, admitting that most of my experience on this is second hand

Up until 22nd June attentance in primary schools was over 93%, at this time at of year it is usually around 95%, so  more students were absent due to non-covid reasons. Going back to the OP perhaps better hand santizing should have reduced other illnesses that result in absence. Regarding sending bubbles/year groups home the increase in cases locally over the last couple of weeks has resulted in very few single isolated  cases and most heads have taken the view that if there are 3/4 cases in a year group it is better to send them all home as often far fewer than half the students avoided any of the bubbles. 

It's nice to see people willing to listen and maybe change their views in the light of new evidence like that!

Just to support what James said though as another teacher, it really isn't anything like March 2020 panic mode, simply because we all went home in March, and besides some on-rota days in school to supervise at risk and key-worker kids, I didn't go back in to work until the September term began. During the first lockdown we tried to continue teaching but it was hard having not much besides email and the homework-setting website my school uses. We phoned kids in our forms just to do general welfare checks, but that was too much for the kids in terms of their subject teachers. So some got fully stuck in and kept emailing me their completed work which was great, but others just disengaged and it was hard to know what they were up to - not much probably. Of course others didn't have solid internet access at home, or were trying to do stuff on phones not computers.

But since September we have taught every lesson "live" - up to Christmas that was mainly in school in the classroom, no November lockdown in schools - we worked straight through - or split between some of our classes in the class room and the others at home being taught over Teams remotely if they had had to self isolate. Obviously we all got sent home again in January, but taught all our lessons on timetable over Teams that time. No commute but surprisingly hard work and high stakes as I had GCSE and A level groups in their last couple of months before their exams and the government only cancelled in January with no explanation of what would replace them until months later.  We've been back in since mid-March trying to teach "normally" again and dealing with all the crap the DfE dropped on us in terms of making us, as teachers, basically re-structure the normally external exams, mark them, and be able to justify with evidence the marks. Now we have the rapid rise in infections in the last few weeks.

I've had students and colleagues catch covid in school, I know a good number of students who have lost grandparents and older relatives and two who lost a parent - trying to respond to their emails about why they won't be in school but why they want to still do their exams was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. And this in an area not as badly hit as the North West of England.

This isn't meant to get at you or anyone else, just the experience of one secondary teacher over the last 15 months. Looking forward to the summer holidays!