COVID-19: ENGLAND'S SCHOOLS ARE GOING BACK

England's schools have started to go back.  Many today (Wednesday), some last week and some later on.  Scotland's already have been back, as they have in some other parts of Europe.


RISKS FOR INDIVIDUALS

It's worth remembering the risk profile for catching the disease, based on age:

• Low risk:
• Young children
• Medium risk:
• Teens
• High risk:
• Sixth-formers and university students
• Teachers and other staff
• Parents at the school gates
• Very high risk
• Older teachers and staff 
• Shielding teachers and staff
• Grandparents bringing children to school

WHERE WOULD PEOPLE CATCH COVID-19?

The classroom is probably the safest place, provided some distancing can be maintained.  Whilst that is not easy to do when space is inevitably limited, nor to create suitable 'bubbles', the real problems come:

• In crowded corridors
• In crowded staff rooms and canteens
• Through touching surfaces such as doorknobs
• When traveling to and from school:
• On public transport.  Here's the steps being taken by one bus company
• In shared private vehicles 

 
CONSEQUENCES FOR INDIVIDUALS

In terms of consequences of catching the disease:

• Older adults are especially at risk of death.   
• LongCOVID can affect all ages
• Long illness times and the need for self-isolation of contacts can mean teachers in particular are not available to teach  

For children, LongCOVID is called MIS-C, Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children, which is a similar multi-organ problem to that which affects adults.  Here's a new paper published in  The Lancet, which says:
"In the past 3 months, there have been increasing reports from Europe, North America, Asia, and Latin America describing children and adolescents with COVID-19-associated multisystem inflammatory conditions, which seem to develop after the infection rather than during the acute stage of COVID-19."

For younger adults, a major concern is that they have seen that deaths have mainly affected older people, and so have felt they need not take precautions.  LongCOVID can readily affect them too.

Devi Sridhar, an advisor to the Scottish government and a member of the Independent SAGE group warns at 30min30 that this virus is “too dangerous to spread through the population, not only because of the mortality [dying] but because of the morbidity [LongCOVID] it causes in young adults…that’s going to be the story about COVID, not about the deaths”.  Chilling stuff.

RISK FOR THE COMMUNITY

If someone infectious attends school as child or adult, the inherent risks of the school environment mean that person's presence can soon turn onto a full-scale outbreak.  Infections can spread through the school and out into the wider community.

Especially if the infected do not wear masks to provide protection against infecting other people.  Though this is provided the masks are not fiddled with such that hands become infected and viruses get passed on through touching surfaces.  So masks are perhaps appropriate for older children.  The pros and cons of masks and face coverings for children is a discussion far too broad to cover here.


A particular concern is multi-generational households like my neighbours, where older grandparents live with their families:

• Children, especially the older ones, bringing infection home
• Parents of younger children being infected at the school gates   

OTHER COUNTRIES' EXPERIENCE

A study was published by Public Health England on 23 August suggesting very few outbreaks in June.  Yet schools weren't back then. just the children of key workers.  In that context it does not bode well for everyone being back.

In Scotland, by 18 August there was already a long list of schools with an outbreak of some kind.  

A week later some of these had developed into larger outbreaks, and Nicola Sturgeon had been obliged to introduce rules on face coverings


Outbreaks have also happened in Berlin, with dozens of schools incurring infections.  Various other places too, as schools reopen across Europe.



HOW CAN SCHOOLS STAY OPEN?

It looks like schools will do their best to stay open by isolating specific grouos.  That can mean whole year-groups sent home, or the whole school closed. 

The only way to keep schools open is to reduce the chance of infections getting in.  That requires the community infection rate to be very low, #NearZero .  Far lower than at present in most of England.