Covid in Schools

TheValeyard

SpacialNeeds wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/CatrionaGolden/status/1343189627902062598

Absolutely scandalous.

Before I go off on a rant about this. Any actual Dept source of info on this?

khalessi

TheValeyard wrote: »

Before I go off on a rant about this. Any actual Dept source of info on this?

https://mobile.twitter.com/CatrionaGolden/status/1343202251641335808

There is this

km79

khalessi wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/CatrionaGolden/status/1343202251641335808

There is this

Reading that it states that cleaning grant is the same but PPE grant has been reduced as schools had a lot of upfront PPE costs initially ?

Will Yam

amacca wrote: »

+ theres a very significant lag period...the numbers you are looking at now are a result of changes in behaviour up to two weeks ago if Im not mistaken

The figures have rocketed since schools closed. It must be clear by now that schools are not a major contributor.

deiseindublin

relentless simplistic one dimensional 'logic'. Good and entertaining though, well done.

khalessi

Will Yam wrote: »

The figures have rocketed since schools closed. It must be clear by now that schools are not a major contributor.

Nothing to do with the new strain being more infectious or that they could not get numbers down while schools open to 50 per day. Interesting ANthony Staines thinkns numbers in schools incorrect and they are spreaders.

deiseindublin

Will Yam obviously not following news updates so could be excused for simpleton like replies.

Will Yam

khalessi wrote: »

Nothing to do with the new strain being more infectious or that they could not get numbers down while schools open to 50 per day. Interesting ANthony Staines thinkns numbers in schools incorrect and they are spreaders.

If cases sky rocketed immediately after schools reopened you can bet your bottom dollar that many people would say oh look the cases have gone up since the schools reopened, let’s shut them.

And as for Staines I don’t think national policy should be determined by what Staines “thinks”

Will Yam

deiseindublin wrote: »

Will Yam obviously not following news updates so could be excused for simpleton like replies.

So do tell me. Did the cases sky rocket after schools closed?

A simple yes or no will suffice?

SpacialNeeds

Cases from when schools were open are only just about being detected now.

Factor in all the family mixing over the Christmas holidays, people coming from abroad, new more infectious strain. Now they're taking off big shtyle. No one factor, but schools obviously didn't help at all.

1000th post

Rosita

Will Yam wrote: »

The figures have rocketed since schools closed. It must be clear by now that schools are not a major contributor.

Exactly. By the same token they should also open wet pubs immediately as they have contributed precisely zero cases since 15th March.

deiseindublin

Will Yam wrote: »

So do tell me. Did the cases sky rocket after schools closed?

A simple yes or no will suffice?

Your simple posts prove one of one things:

1. You're an absolute simpleton
Or
2. You're a troll.

I have no intention of engaging with either. (Oh, and if it's #2, feel free to FO to after hours for yourself, I'm sure there's somebody there you could try antagonising).

Will Yam

deiseindublin wrote: »

Your simple posts prove one of one things:

1. You're an absolute simpleton
Or
2. You're a troll.

I have no intention of engaging with either. (Oh, and if it's #2, feel free to FO to after hours for yourself, I'm sure there's somebody there you could try antagonising).

As you are incapable of having a discussion without hurling personal abuse, I will, with respect answer the question for you.

The answer is yes.

And regardless of how much personal abuse you hurl, that fact will not change.

What is open for discussion is whether opening (or closing) schools increases or decreases transmission. The increase in cases since schools closed may be purely coincidental. Or it may be a causal effect.

Rosita

Will Yam wrote: »

So do tell me. Did the cases sky rocket after schools closed?

A simple yes or no will suffice?

The answer here is 'no'. The national figure stood at 248 on 12 December. By 19 December it had increased to 527. By 23 December (which counts the last day schools were open) it had jumped to 938. Clearly there was a strong pattern of increase already established even though schools were open with the figures, on average, doubling every four/five days.

Given the self-generating nature of infection-spread (the more that's out there the more efficiently it'll spread) the current rate is to be expected. So while cases have skyrocketed recently this pattern was established in the week before schools closed. So logically 'a simple no' answers your question.

P. S. I was tempted to answer your question with the old Logic 101 advice about confusing 'causation' with 'correlation' but on examination of the figures I couldn't really find evidence of the latter anyway.

Will Yam

Rosita wrote: »

The answer here is 'no'. The national figure stood at 248 on 12 December. By 19 December it had increased to 527. By 23 December (which counts the last day schools were open) it had jumped to 938. Clearly there was a strong pattern of increase already established even though schools were open with the figures, on average, doubling every four/five days.

Given the self-generating nature of infection-spread (the more that's out there the more efficiently it'll spread) the current rate is to be expected. So while cases have skyrocketed recently this pattern was established in the week before schools closed. So logically 'a simple no' answers your question.

P. S. I was tempted to answer your question with the old Logic 101 advice about confusing 'causation' with 'correlation' but on examination of the figures I couldn't really find evidence of the latter anyway.

Picking an isolated day here or there doesn’t really make an argument.

NPHET use a 5 day rolling average as a key metric (I think, but am not sure it’s because 5 days is incubation period).

Anyway, the 5 day average the day the schools closed was 527. 5 days later it was 920 - a 59.% increase since closure.

There are many variables that contribute to the numbers, and I’m not sure if anyone, including nphet, can fully disentangle them.

But a lot of play has been made. - both here and elsewhere - that schools were a major source of Covid becuse cases rose after schools reopened in September.

Those who made that argument now have to accept that if cases went up after schools opened and this meant schools were the cause, then they cannot ignore the fact about what happened after the schools shut.

Rosita

Will Yam wrote: »

Picking an isolated day here or there doesn’t really make an argument.

.

You are the one who picked the isolated day i.e. the day the schools closed, as a time/even to which an specific and demonstrable subsequent increase could be attributed. Now you seem to be resiling from that. That's fine but you cannot hold both positions. Either the schools closing represents a measurable watershed or it doesn't. If it doesn't your argument is dead in the water.

Will Yam

Rosita wrote: »

You are the one who picked the isolated day i.e. the day the schools closed, as a time/even to which an specific and demonstrable subsequent increase could be attributed. Now you seem to be resiling from that. That's fine but you cannot hold both positions. Either the schools closing represents a measurable watershed or it doesn't. If it doesn't your argument is dead in the water.

Regardless of how you look at it, it is a fact that cases have rocketed since schools closed.

That was my essential point. But there are those who seek to deny that fact.

As for the other part - did the schools closure actually drive the increase? I don’t know.

But if I had argued in September that the schools reopening then drove the increase then (and then, by extension that they should be closed) I would have to accept that shutting them should have brought the figures down. But it didn’t.

So the only thing we know for sure is that taking the kids out of school has not been followed by a reduction in cases.

gaiscioch

Will Yam wrote: »

So do tell me. Did the cases sky rocket after schools closed?

A simple yes or no will suffice?

Actually it won't "suffice" for the very obvious reason that the statistics are intentionally distorted because schools must be kept open. Or, to give an example, one of my students was recently confirmed with Covid-19 but nobody in the school was told. Nobody - teachers, principal, fellow students - had a right to know, even though some of us knew he was being tested because he divulged that information.

While that lack of transparency about a teacher's absence of a right to know if they have a confirmed Covid case in their classroom should shock most teachers (especially those of us at secondary who have up to, or more than, 200 students in our small classroom on our busiest days), the most relevant part, however, for your simplistic question is this: his positive diagnosis is conveniently not recorded on the school statistics, with the excuse being it was a "community case" (a parent had it) so even though he was in school with it, his case is recorded elsewhere as he was not tested in school. If this practice is being replicated with the statistics across the state, the official statistics on Covid in schools aren't worth a penny candle.

Covid rates in schools: comparing like with like?

Will Yam

gaiscioch wrote: »

Actually it won't "suffice" for the very obvious reason that the statistics are intentionally distorted because schools must be kept open. Or, to give an example, one of my students was recently confirmed with Covid-19 but nobody in the school was told. Nobody - teachers, principal, fellow students - had a right to know, even though some of us knew he was being tested because he divulged that information.

While that lack of transparency about a teacher's absence of a right to know if they have a confirmed Covid case in their classroom should shock most teachers (especially those of us at secondary who have up to, or more than, 200 students in our small classroom on our busiest days), the most relevant part, however, for your simplistic question is this: his positive diagnosis is conveniently not recorded on the school statistics, with the excuse being it was a "community case" (a parent had it) so even though he was in school with it, his case is recorded elsewhere as he was not tested in school. If this practice is being replicated with the statistics across the state, the official statistics on Covid in schools aren't worth a penny candle.

Covid rates in schools: comparing like with like?

I can’t quite understand your post.

Are you saying that your student was, or was not, included in the overall reporting for Covid cases?

gaiscioch

Will Yam wrote: »

I can’t quite understand your post.

Are you saying that your student was, or was not, included in the overall reporting for Covid cases?

They were not recorded as a school case, but rather as a case from the wider community. Consequently, claiming school cases are "low" when students who test positive in centres outside of schools are excluded from those same school statistics is silly because you're excluding very many students.

The graph posted in this thread earlier where some 10,000 people between the ages of 4 and 19 have tested positive would be a far more accurate reflection of the positivity rate among students.

Rosita

Will Yam wrote: »

Regardless of how you look at it, it is a fact that cases have rocketed since schools closed.

That was my essential point. But there are those who seek to deny that fact.

As for the other part - did the schools closure actually drive the increase? I don’t know.

But if I had argued in September that the schools reopening then drove the increase then (and then, by extension that they should be closed) I would have to accept that shutting them should have brought the figures down. But it didn’t.

So the only thing we know for sure is that taking the kids out of school has not been followed by a reduction in cases.

For someone who seems to be pursuing a particular line of argument persistently (even if it is often implicit) I am surprised to see that you have more questions than answers yourself.

Will Yam

gaiscioch wrote: »

They were not recorded as a school case, but rather as a case from the wider community. Consequently, claiming school cases are "low" when students who test positive in centres outside of schools are excluded from those same school statistics is silly because you're excluding very many students.

The graph posted in this thread earlier where some 10,000 people between the ages of 4 and 19 have tested positive would be a far more accurate reflection of the positivity rate among students.

Accepting the misclassification you describe, it doesn’t take from the overall thrust of this which is what happens when schools are open or not.

Will Yam

Rosita wrote: »

For someone who seems to be pursuing a particular line of argument persistently (even if it is often implicit) I am surprised to see that you have more questions than answers yourself.

Not at all. I never claim to have all, or even many answers.

And just for your information I fully support the governments policy in keeping schools open. And hopefully they will stick to their policy.

gaiscioch

Will Yam wrote: »

Accepting the misclassification you describe, it doesn’t take from the overall thrust of this which is what happens when schools are open or not.

Clearly, the existence of unreliable statistics actually does undermine claims based on such statistics. It's, at best, disingenuous of you to contend otherwise.

MayoAreMagic

Will Yam wrote: »

Regardless of how you look at it, it is a fact that cases have rocketed since schools closed.

That was my essential point. But there are those who seek to deny that fact.

As for the other part - did the schools closure actually drive the increase? I don’t know.

But if I had argued in September that the schools reopening then drove the increase then (and then, by extension that they should be closed) I would have to accept that shutting them should have brought the figures down. But it didn’t.

So the only thing we know for sure is that taking the kids out of school has not been followed by a reduction in cases.

Well cases have skyrocketed in the month of december also. That is a fact. Maybe the virus just likes months that begin with D? It cant be dismissed, because of the preceeding fact, right?
The schools stayed open in the previous lockdown, they didnt in the one before. They couldnt get the cases down like they did in the one before. Therefore there is a strong suggestion that the schools played a big part in the numbers refusing to move any lower.
Id imagine if the schools were still open the numbers would be even higher.

Also, I think people should be far more annoyed at the way schools are being run at present. People keep comparing teachers to front line workers and saying to basically suck it up, but it isnt the same. If someone has covid in a hospital, they are treated for it by professionals and cured. In schools it just spreads around and goes into peoples homes. People are undoubtedly dying because of this attitude.

wirelessdude01

Seemingly the figure to close schools is 2500. That's reported by the news at one on Radio 1.

Will Yam

gaiscioch wrote: »

Clearly, the existence of unreliable statistics actually does undermine claims based on such statistics. It's, at best, disingenuous of you to contend otherwise.

The only statistics I am relying on are the daily cases published by nphet, and the consequential rolling averages.

I’m surprised you would describe these as unreliable. In what way are they unreliable?

Will Yam

MayoAreMagic wrote: »

Well cases have skyrocketed in the month of december also. That is a fact. Maybe the virus just likes months that begin with D? It cant be dismissed, because of the preceeding fact, right?
The schools stayed open in the previous lockdown, they didnt in the one before. They couldnt get the cases down like they did in the one before. Therefore there is a strong suggestion that the schools played a big part in the numbers refusing to move any lower.
Id imagine if the schools were still open the numbers would be even higher.

Also, I think people should be far more annoyed at the way schools are being run at present. People keep comparing teachers to front line workers and saying to basically suck it up, but it isnt the same. If someone has covid in a hospital, they are treated for it by professionals and cured. In schools it just spreads around and goes into peoples homes. People are undoubtedly dying because of this attitude.

So would you argue for the schools not to reopen in January?

wirelessdude01

See it's being reported today that SAGE in the UK have pleaded with Boris not to reopen schools next week.

khalessi

Will Yam wrote: »

So would you argue for the schools not to reopen in January?

At the moment the plan is for schools to reopen, but facing into a new term with rapidly rising numbers and a 40% cut to the cleaning budget will be an interesting experience. This along with Dr. Staines stating numbers are wrong in schools and they are a source of spread.