Quote:
Originally Posted by jfman
It depends why infections are falling. All things being equal - yes. However the problem with the mass infections in school strategy is that while it’s easy for the figures to come down (there’s only so many susceptible schoolchildren left) the onward transmission into other age groups won’t be as easy to curtail and that’s where the hospitalisations and deaths are happening.
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They are clearly going to be (in the main):
- double-vaccinated adults for whom this protection isn't sufficient to stop them getting seriously ill, either because their immune system hasn't responded to it, enough, or because the vaccine just didn't work well enough
- adults who have had the opportunity to be vaccinated but have declined the offer
- adults who have been advised not to be vaccinated for various reasons but mainly medical (or else they will be in the above)
- kids with medical issues for whom getting covid would still be an issue.
You will see that the infection levels do seem to correlate with schools being open. When we had the first restrictions which eased over the summer then stayed low until the schools and universities went back, it then went out of control again, until the schools shut in January again and it went down again, but then when we got the delta in, along with schools reopening, it went up. You even saw it go down in Scotland first and then back up again and same with England a few weeks later with school holidays, and we're now seeing it go down again as it's half term.
You're right that it will eventually hit the buffers when it runs out of kids who haven't had it but we don't know how far this is and how much risk we have from spill over until it does.