Schools closed until February? (part 3)

Thats me

BTW, should not teachers have their salaries doubled for working in higher-risk environment?

kippy

Thats me wrote: »

BTW, should not teachers have their salaries doubled for working in higher-risk environment?

Do nurses?
Shop assistants?

meeeeh

JP100 wrote: »

The above is exactly why I repeatedly used 'identified' and 'known' when describing outbreaks in schools as it's quite clear there's alot of shenanigans going on around schools and to the health risk of all of our children, their extended families and all school staff. That is something I could never defend or stand over but it is something quite a number of posters in this thread are quite willing to do.

You mean public health followed the advice of a teacher and decided to test more kids than they first thought it was necessary. If that's masterminding the cover up I wouldn't worry about it because it was not very effective one.

And this is with the usual caveat that if it's on Twitter it obviously must be true.

Lillyfae

Thats me wrote: »

OK, please feel free to share your calculations. Lets compare how different they are.

I haven't made any calculations, you have! You took the figures I had posted from the Irish Times, completely misunderstood them, made a nonsensical calculation then doubled down and made another nonsensical calculation.

wirelessdude01

Smegging hell wrote: »

https://twitter.com/dlooney/status/1318940496975233027

Nothing to see. We only raise issues because we want school to close, not that we want to keep them open.

blanch152

Smegging hell wrote: »

https://twitter.com/dlooney/status/1318940496975233027

Quite obviously the teacher knew that the pods had not been implemented properly.

If they have been implemented properly, such situations shouldn't arise.

JP100

meeeeh wrote: »

You mean public health followed the advice of a teacher and decided to test more kids than they first thought it was necessary. If that's masterminding the cover up I wouldn't worry about it because it was not very effective one.

And this is with the usual caveat that if it's on Twitter it obviously must be true.

Teachers are effectively parents in absence and have a great duty of care to their students. That story if accurate shows a teacher who showed a great duty of care and a lot of compassion for their pupils and by extension their families and your immediate esponse is to belittle and slag off the teacher. Well done you.

JP100

blanch152 wrote: »

Quite obviously the teacher knew that the pods had not been implemented properly.

If they have been implemented properly, such situations shouldn't arise.

Everything you post in here acutely shows you have no clue whatsoever as to the realities and workings of school life.

Thats me

Lillyfae wrote: »

I haven't made any calculations, you have! You took the figures I had posted from the Irish Times, completely misunderstood them, made a nonsensical calculation then doubled down and made another nonsensical calculation.

What i not understood? You wrote it was taken some 12500 adults and children related to schools, tested and found 2.8% of them, surprise, are covid-positive.

Basing on this stats you have declared "That's not a huge rate of positivity"

I took nation-wide stats to show 2.8% is huge.

You corrected me that tests were collected for over 8 weeks, and i corrected my calculations as well to show 2.8% is still huge.

Tthan you started blaming that i'm wrong with no presenting any calculations to support your statement.

I do not see much sense in prolonging this discussion.

blanch152

JP100 wrote: »

Well yes, as we're also constantly told that schools are low risk, controlled environments in which the virus has less leeway to take hold. Latest figures suggest otherwise.

Eh, no they don't.

20% of our population are in schools most of the day.

Around 10% of outbreaks were in school. That means schools were lower risk than the community as they should have seen 20% of outbreaks if they were the same risk and a higher number if they were greater risk.

Those are the issues that arose with nursing homes and meat factories - they had higher rates of outbreaks than the community.

khalessi

blanch152 wrote: »

Quite obviously the teacher knew that the pods had not been implemented properly.

If they have been implemented properly, such situations shouldn't arise.

Non of the pods are implemented properly.

Teachers have been saying this since the documents were released, if you look at the documents sent out to schools, in some drawings there is 40cm between children on the plans, the tables are shoved up against radiators and to acheive 1metre social distancing between students they measured from nose to nose. Even professionally trained draughtsmen/architects couldn't get the kids to fit.

So it is not the teachers fault if pods dont work we have all followed guidelines issued by Dept of Ed.

The kids are close enough that there have been headlice outbreaks in schools.

blanch152

Thats me wrote: »

What i not understood? You wrote it was taken some 12500 adults and children related to schools, tested and found 2.8% of them, surprise, are covid-positive.

Basing on this stats you have declared "That's not a huge rate of positivity"

I took nation-wide stats to show 2.8% is huge.

You corrected me that tests were collected for over 8 weeks, and i corrected my calculations as well to show 2.8% is still huge.

Tthan you started blaming that i'm wrong with no presenting any calculations to support your statement.

I do not see much sense in prolonging this discussion.

They didn't test everyone in schools, did they?

But you are taking the figures for the community as if they tested everybody in the country.

Apples and oranges. This is basic maths you are getting wrong.

wirelessdude01

Thats me wrote: »

BTW, should not teachers have their salaries doubled for working in higher-risk environment?

Why should we? I don't anyway. I just want to get on with my job in a sustainable manner that keeps our schools functioning to the highest possible level. Constant changing of the definition of a close contact within a school setting makes me think however that they are trying to hide something. I could be wrong but anecdotal evidence doesn't look great.

HerrKuehn

Thats me wrote: »

What i not understood? You wrote it was taken some 12500 adults and children related to schools, tested and found 2.8% of them, surprise, are covid-positive.

Basing on this stats you have declared "That's not a huge rate of positivity"

I took nation-wide stats to show 2.8% is huge.

You corrected me that tests were collected for over 8 weeks, and i corrected my calculations as well to show 2.8% is still huge.

Tthan you started blaming that i'm wrong with no presenting any calculations to support your statement.

I do not see much sense in prolonging this discussion.

Well the issue is you were comparing the following:

positive cases in school/total number of tests carried out in schools

to: total number of positive cases/entire population of ireland

I think for it to make any sense you would have to compare:
total number of positive cases/total number of tests

meeeeh

JP100 wrote: »

Teachers are effectively parents in absence and have a great duty of care to their students. That story if accurate shows a teacher who showed a great duty of care and a lot of compassion for their pupils and by extension their families and your immediate esponse is to belittle and slag off the teacher. Well done you.

No need to get your panties in a twist. I didn't belittle the teacher. I said health professionals followed his advice. I don't know where I belittled anything but the fact that someone would imply intentional cover up from tracers. If it was they are not very good at it.

That being said it's Twitter rumour (which I actually believe) and it was not tweeted by teacher involved. It's not the most reliable conclusion for anything.

Thats me

blanch152 wrote: »

They didn't test everyone in schools, did they?

But you are taking the figures for the community as if they tested everybody in the country.

Apples and oranges. This is basic maths you are getting wrong.

Country-wide stats is not result of testing verybody. Why you think i'm using percentage to compare nation-wide stats with the stats for specific domain kindly provided Lillyfae.

Lillyfae

Thats me wrote: »

What i not understood? You wrote it was taken some 12500 adults and children related to schools, tested and found 2.8% of them, surprise, are covid-positive.

Basing on this stats you have declared "That's not a huge rate of positivity"

I took nation-wide stats to show 2.8% is huge.

You corrected me that tests were collected for over 8 weeks, and i corrected my calculations as well to show 2.8% is still huge.

Tthan you started blaming that i'm wrong with no presenting any calculations to support your statement.

I do not see much sense in prolonging this discussion.

You took the whole population of the country, not the number of people who were tested. You can’t compare 2 totally different sets of numbers and expect any information. You need to find the total number of tests carried out in the 8 weeks.

wirelessdude01

blanch152 wrote: »

Quite obviously the teacher knew that the pods had not been implemented properly.

If they have been implemented properly, such situations shouldn't arise.

Of course it's the teachers fault. Let us just ignore the fact that even the official guidance document from the dept had diagrams with 40cm between children. That isn't social distancing.

s1ippy

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1318944963888119809?s=20

JP100

meeeeh wrote: »

No need to get your panties in a twist. I didn't belittle the teacher. I said health professionals followed his advice. I don't know where I belittled anything but the fact that someone would imply intentional cover up from tracers. If it was they are not very good at it.

That being said it's Twitter rumour (which I actually believe) and it was not tweeted by teacher involved. It's not the most reliable conclusion for anything.

Away troll... Shooo...

JP100

blanch152 wrote: »

Eh, no they don't.

20% of our population are in schools most of the day.

Around 10% of outbreaks were in school. That means schools were lower risk than the community as they should have seen 20% of outbreaks if they were the same risk and a higher number if they were greater risk.

Those are the issues that arose with nursing homes and meat factories - they had higher rates of outbreaks than the community.

As I've said already, outbreaks and that's just known outbreaks almost doubling in a week doesn't strike me as low risk. I would also suggest that if you were around some of those 46 outbreaks, you wouldn't be describing them as low risk.

JP100

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Of course it's the teachers fault. Let us just ignore the fact that even the official guidance document from the dept had diagrams with 40cm between children. That isn't social distancing.

Exactly.

Theboinkmaster

s1ippy wrote: »

https://twitter.com/gavreilly/status/1318944963888119809?s=20

Schools account for just 7%* of cases? Yeah that's grand - happy to leave them open.

Jog on.

* 7% are school attendees, who didn't necessarily get it in school so even 7% is probably way too high

Thats me

HerrKuehn wrote: »

Well the issue is you were comparing the following:

positive cases in school/total number of tests carried out in schools

to: total number of positive cases/entire population of ireland

I think for it to make any sense you would have to compare:
total number of positive cases/total number of tests

My rough evaluation was done in relation to this evaluation:

Lillyfae wrote: »

12,500 adults and children linked to over 500 schools and childcare facilities have so far been tested for Covid-19, with 352 positive cases recorded. That's not a huge rate of positivity

My understanding country-wide stats comprises new cases found as result of selective testing "healthy" people (like in example referred by Lillyfae) AND clinical cases when patients were tested because they already developed symptoms. My expectation in the latter case percentage "positive cases/total number of tests" should be much higher, so even if i'd be able to obtain stats for tests of asymptomatic people, difference would be only higher.

Thats me

Lillyfae wrote: »

You

I am not the person to be discussed under topic Provide your calculation and lets discuss it.

irishblessing

meeeeh wrote: »

Why? Do you have evidence of significant clusters in schools overwhelming the system. If not why close schools before stopping amateur sports where players can travel half the country on Sunday and then go to work on front line next day.

Funny you should ask that- email just landed in from RTE highlighting an article entitled: "Virus outbreaks in schools rise for second week."

"There has been a sharp rise in the number of weekly Covid outbreaks being detected in schools for a second week running, according to the latest public health data."

GAA should not be going ahead imo.

meeeeh

JP100 wrote: »

Away troll... Shooo...

So anyone who challenges you is a troll. Lovely.

mvl

Have heard just recently that in Germany lockdown for community may mean ... schools are only open for emergency care:
Schools and daycare centres (Kitas) will only be open to provide emergency care. Leisure facilities, bars and restaurants will close, and events will not be permitted. Hotels will only be able to accommodate business travellers. The measures will initially be in place for two weeks from Tuesday midday. It comes after the district recorded 272.8 coronavirus infections per 100,000 residents in seven days on Monday night – the highest value in Germany by a wide margin. There have been 57 new infections since Sunday alone.
It sounds to me there should be a number everywhere, just that Ireland hasn't reached it yet // the number of cases after which the governants might be forced to close schools for majority of students.
Fingers crossed that doesn't take as long !

JP100 wrote: »

Teachers are effectively parents in absence and have a great duty of care to their students. That story if accurate shows a teacher who showed a great duty of care and a lot of compassion for their pupils and by extension their families and your immediate esponse is to belittle and slag off the teacher. Well done you.

can only note respective poster is not representative for many other sensible parents working in the private sector. but I am sure you know that.

JP100

meeeeh wrote: »

So anyone who challenges you is a troll. Lovely.

No, you throwing out juvenile insults in your replies is just trolling and doesn't deserve to be seriously engaged with. Now, as told before...

wirelessdude01

Interesting to see Fergal Bowers referencing the FB group cluster numbers and contrasting them with the official numbers with the caveat if you believe the official ones.

blanch152

irishblessing wrote: »

Funny you should ask that- email just landed in from RTE highlighting an article entitled: "Virus outbreaks in schools rise for second week."

"There has been a sharp rise in the number of weekly Covid outbreaks being detected in schools for a second week running, according to the latest public health data."

GAA should not be going ahead imo.

Thats me wrote: »

I am not the person to be discussed under topic Provide your calculation and lets discuss it.

Thanks Irishblessing for the mention of the RTE report, here it is:

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/1021/1173019-coronavirus-schools-figures/

"However, it said that it was reassuring that the positivity rate for schools – at 2.3% - was considerably lower than the national positivity rate which is in excess of 7%.

It said that while the increase of Covid-19 cases in the community was leading to more cases in schools, it is important to note that "these cases are not amplified within schools themselves".

The HSE added that mass testing has taken place in a total of 414 schools following public health risk assessments, with more than 10,500 students and staff tested and 246 cases of Covid-19 identified."

The figures show that the problems in schools are less than those in the community.

blanch152

mvl wrote: »

Have heard just recently that in Germany lockdown for community may mean ... schools are only open for emergency care:
Schools and daycare centres (Kitas) will only be open to provide emergency care. Leisure facilities, bars and restaurants will close, and events will not be permitted. Hotels will only be able to accommodate business travellers. The measures will initially be in place for two weeks from Tuesday midday. It comes after the district recorded 272.8 coronavirus infections per 100,000 residents in seven days on Monday night – the highest value in Germany by a wide margin. There have been 57 new infections since Sunday alone.
It sounds to me there should be a number everywhere, just that Ireland hasn't reached it yet // the number of cases after which the governants might be forced to close schools for majority of students.
Fingers crossed that doesn't take as long !


can only note respective poster is not representative for many other sensible parents working in the private sector. but I am sure you know that.

I can't believe we have someone looking for an increase in cases so that schools will be shut down. Incredible.

ruwithme

The irony of the thread title,when it's clear the threads being used by some to get school's closed.

Thankfully i doubt anyone on here doing that has influence with decision making officials.

irishblessing

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

See the GPs have been told to hold off on referring all these close contacts for testing. Saw a GP say it on twitter.

WTF!!!

JP100

ruwithme wrote: »

Thankfully i doubt anyone on here doing that has influence with decision making officials.

I'd take the people who are at the coal face of what's going on in schools day in day out much more seriously than government mouth pieces and career politicians such as the likes of Stephen Donnelly and his inherently dangerous trampolines.

Lillyfae

Thats me wrote: »

I am not the person to be discussed under topic Provide your calculation and lets discuss it.

I haven’t made any calculation, it’s not an example, I’m not estimating anything. You’re using a different metric. If you can’t understand when it’s been pointed out to you multiple times I can’t make you.

meeeeh

JP100 wrote: »

No, you throwing out juvenile insults in your replies is just trolling and doesn't deserve to be seriously engaged with. Now, as told before...

Sorry I'm not a dog for you to shush me.

wirelessdude01

irishblessing wrote: »

WTF!!!

Yeah they have heard nothing at all from the HSE so have been told by their representative body to hold off until they are given official guidelines and criteria to use.

blanch152

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Of course it's the teachers fault. Let us just ignore the fact that even the official guidance document from the dept had diagrams with 40cm between children. That isn't social distancing.

Teachers do need to consider their role in all of this.

From September, the teacher unions at both second and third level were absolutely adamant that there could be no simulcasting of their lessons. The unintended consequences of this is that parents and students will come to school and college by default, and only opt out if they have symptoms. This increases the risk to teachers of asymptomatic transmission. If the option of tuning in from home to a class was available, it would have been much better.

Secondly, there are responsibilities on teachers to own the compliance within their own classroom. From my experience, the vast majority have done so. However, the small minority who don't, who don't enforce the mask rule, who are lax on social distancing etc. are the ones who will create the problems within the schools.

Neither of those issues are on governments or school management.

irishblessing

blanch152 wrote: »

Quite obviously the teacher knew that the pods had not been implemented properly.

If they have been implemented properly, such situations shouldn't arise.

You've GOT to be joking. Implemented properly, how? Should they turn themselves into builders and build a whole new school with bigger classrooms and then turn themselves into government and lower the pupil to teacher ratio by providing extra funding to get themselves out of the category of teaching in a country in which it has one of the highest class sizes in the EU? Then they can mandate masks for primary students as well.

I honestly can't believe this nonsense I'm reading.

joe40

My opinion on this is that I believe there is a very high likelihood that transmission will occur in schools. The numbers make it inevitable. I hope govt will be honest.

However as a parent and teacher (secondary) it is important that schools are kept open. Predicted grades are not suitable and would be even harder this year. Education is vital for our society. Teachers and everyone working in schools should be given whatever protection is required but schools must be kept open.
The virus is going to be with us for months/years closing school is not viable.

niamh247

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/education/covid-outbreaks-in-schools-doubled-again-last-week-39651863.html

The number of weekly Covid outbreaks recorded in schools doubled again last week, according to latest data from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).

There were 46 outbreaks in the week-ending October 17 - last Saturday - compared with 25 the previous week.

The figures for the week-ending October 10 were, itself, a doubling of 12, 13, 11 and 12 in each of the preceding four weeks.

It brings the total since term began to 119, out of 4,000 primary and post-primary schools.

jimmytwotimes 2013

blanch152 wrote: »

Teachers do need to consider their role in all of this.

From September, the teacher unions at both second and third level were absolutely adamant that there could be no simulcasting of their lessons. The unintended consequences of this is that parents and students will come to school and college by default, and only opt out if they have symptoms. This increases the risk to teachers of asymptomatic transmission. If the option of tuning in from home to a class was available, it would have been much better.

Secondly, there are responsibilities on teachers to own the compliance within their own classroom. From my experience, the vast majority have done so. However, the small minority who don't, who don't enforce the mask rule, who are lax on social distancing etc. are the ones who will create the problems within the schools.

Neither of those issues are on governments or school management.

When are the results of your comprehensive study on covid in schools being released?

wirelessdude01

blanch152 wrote: »

Teachers do need to consider their role in all of this.

From September, the teacher unions at both second and third level were absolutely adamant that there could be no simulcasting of their lessons. The unintended consequences of this is that parents and students will come to school and college by default, and only opt out if they have symptoms. This increases the risk to teachers of asymptomatic transmission. If the option of tuning in from home to a class was available, it would have been much better.

Secondly, there are responsibilities on teachers to own the compliance within their own classroom. From my experience, the vast majority have done so. However, the small minority who don't, who don't enforce the mask rule, who are lax on social distancing etc. are the ones who will create the problems within the schools.

Neither of those issues are on governments or school management.

You do know that the depts official position is that children have to come to school. I'll take the IoE as an example of one institution who wanted to provide children with the option to stay at home if they so wanted and access live streamed classes. They were told u Der no circumstances was they allowed. Also the Kerry school that was providing support to anxious children who opted to stay at home and who were told to immediately stop the practice.

Stop trying to paint teachers and schools as the baddies in this situation. We aren't.
If a student refuses to wear a mask or social distance when requested there is no mechanism to properly remove that student. Yes they can be removed that day but will present again the following day and time and repeat.

Inquitus

https://twitter.com/dlooney/status/1318940496975233027

irishblessing

blanch152 wrote: »

Thanks Irishblessing for the mention of the RTE report, here it is:

https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/1021/1173019-coronavirus-schools-figures/

"However, it said that it was reassuring that the positivity rate for schools – at 2.3% - was considerably lower than the national positivity rate which is in excess of 7%.

It said that while the increase of Covid-19 cases in the community was leading to more cases in schools, it is important to note that "these cases are not amplified within schools themselves".

The HSE added that mass testing has taken place in a total of 414 schools following public health risk assessments, with more than 10,500 students and staff tested and 246 cases of Covid-19 identified."

The figures show that the problems in schools are less than those in the community.

Mass testing has not happened. Contact tracing and testing has failed and collapsed. Those numbers in light of that is absolutely meaningless. I posted the article to highlight the fact that it's being acknowledged now in the media that outbreaks in schools are rising. I do not agree with what you pulled out.

8k71ps

joe40 wrote: »

My opinion on this is that I believe there is a very high likelihood that transmission will occur in schools. The numbers make it inevitable. I hope govt will be honest.

However as a parent and teacher (secondary) it is important that schools are kept open. Predicted grades are not suitable and would be even harder this year. Education is vital for our society. Teachers and everyone working in schools should be given whatever protection is required but schools must be kept open.
The virus is going to be with us for months/years closing school is not viable.

I don't see the problem with having remote learning for a little while whilst a proper hybrid model is developed by the department. For the most part transmission is far too high to get it to the lows they want for Christmas already from what I can see , so something somewhere is going to budge and I don't see it being retail or whatever else is currently open.

khalessi

Pay attention Dept of Ed had role in making compliance impossible and despite this school staff have done their utmost to ensure safe schools

blanch152 wrote: »

Teachers do need to consider their role in all of this.


Secondly, there are responsibilities on teachers to own the compliance within their own classroom. From my experience, the vast majority have done so. However, the small minority who don't, who don't enforce the mask rule, who are lax on social distancing etc. are the ones who will create the problems within the schools.

Neither of those issues are on governments or school management.

khalessi wrote: »

Non of the pods are implemented properly.

Teachers have been saying this since the documents were released, if you look at the documents sent out to schools, in some drawings there is 40cm between children on the plans, the tables are shoved up against radiators and to acheive 1metre social distancing between students they measured from nose to nose. Even professionally trained draughtsmen/architects couldn't get the kids to fit.

So it is not the teachers fault if pods dont work we have all followed guidelines issued by Dept of Ed.

The kids are close enough that there have been headlice outbreaks in schools.

irishblessing

wirelessdude01 wrote: »

Yeah they have heard nothing at all from the HSE so have been told by their representative body to hold off until they are given official guidelines and criteria to use.

I'm almost speechless. This is so dangerous. Thank f-k schools are almost out for a while, my nerves need a break.

Thats me

Lillyfae wrote: »

You’re using a different metric.

You have taken percentage for specific domain, i've compared this with all cases found countrywide. I agree, this is not perfect comparison because country-wide stats including not only random tests done within population but also tests done on patients with symptoms where percentage is definitely higher by obvious reasons. If we could exclude latter segment difference would be only higher.

If you not agree - provide your, proper, calculation. If not - don't waste time.