Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

That isn't what it's saying.
"The University College London team says keeping pupils off has little impact, even with other lockdown measures."
(from the BBC's reporting of it)

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Seems to contradict itself then.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

The problem is the BBC haven't interpreted the research correctly and published a line based on that.

Now, more than ever, we need to ensure messaging is right on this. Yet the average person reading that article could reasonably decide to let their kids play with other kids in the street/neighbourhood (doesn't really matter does it?) completely undermining the monumental effort that the NHS, Government, police and everyone else involved are putting into this.

Less compliance = longer lockdown because the figures won't support weakening measures. I want to get to the pub as much as the next bloke, preferably sooner.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Well it's all a little bit late..

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

A central problem with these studies is that they use very different types of societies to make comparisons. This study uses schools in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Not sure behaviour of schoolkids in China is going to be comparable to those in the UK.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

There is a big difference in the UK between primary schools where parents congregate to pick up their children and secondary where kids wouldn't be seen dead with their parents and make their own way home.
Also primary kids tend to sit closer and group closer than secondary who probably keep social distancing as a norm (until the happy hormones kick in).

More detail is needed to look at transmission between kids and the carrying to others of their interactions. If it can be proven that children (in a certain age group) don't act as good vectors for the virus MAYBE some options can be given but it's always the outliers that can cause problems and it's better to err on the side of safety.

Prayers going up for our PM.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Seeing some good theories on how the virus works starting to fit together. They think it causes the red blood cells to dump their iron in the lungs (which is very toxic) and this can be mitigated with vitamin c or prevented with the Malaria drug Trump keeps recommending.*

*All early days theories so far.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

All I know is that trying to socially distance an entire school would be impossible. There's no classroom big enough.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Some interesting theories regarding cytokine storms and they part that may be playing.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

That's pretty much what the original paper said in their conclusions;

Original paper link

The original paper is pretty good at saying what s not currently known as well as what is known. The big issues seem to be that schools are not shut in isolation, other things tend to be shut at the same time either deliberately or by consequence of people having to stay at home to look after their kids.

A lot of the data in that paper are from studies of SARS as COVID-19 is just too new. If COVID-19 behaves like SARS, then it appears that transmission in children is low as they are generally asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms and so are less likely to spread the disease (R0<1) unlike influenza infections that are rapidly spread by children.

Epidemiologists will be looking very closely at countries that are starting or will shortly start to open their schools again such as China and Denmark

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

An interesting piece and well worth the read.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Michael Gove is now reported to be self-isolating because a member of his family has displayed symptoms of coronavirus.

https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status...64344151089155

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Yeah let's pull the plug on Boris now and just open the pubs.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Sorry, that's utter gutter journalism from the Sun as usual.

Pretty much all of those scenarios are answered in a black and white manneer when the answers to most of those questions are a grey cloud.

Re: Coronavirus: PM Boris Johnson in Intensive Care
 

Missus is absolutely fuming at the story on the BBC this morning (here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52180783 ). Professor Viner, it seems, hasn’t visited a school since he passed his A levels, if he thinks social distancing can be enforced with even half the kids in attendance or by “banning playtimes”. Even I know that banning playtime just makes the kids harder to control as the day progresses.

It’s a classic example of research by scientists who are great with statistics but don’t have much clue how humans (and especially children) actually behave.

---------- Post added at 11:21 ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 ----------

To be fair, an essay on the relative merits of deontology and consequentialism as ethical schemes would be a bit pointless in your Soaraway Sun.