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Originally Posted by 1andrew1
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The actual figures don't back this up so much though.
If you look at the stats from the ONS, which given that T&T managed to tell around 40k people who had covid they didn't recently, is probably more accurate than the official figures right now, you'll see:
- most age groups are relatively static (and low) in terms of infections
- there is a slight uptick in the last few weeks in 35-50 (which is likely the group who are working in schools and parents of school age children)
- Age group of below year 7 (i.e. primary age kids) was higher but is now declining
- Age group of year 7 to 13 (i.e. secondary age kids) is accelerating rapidly, after being high until the end of July and then going up again from the middle of September.
So, it's clear what we're seeing now is something which is mainly related to the schools being open (given that secondary age kids would be freely socialising with their friends over the summer) and possibly related activities from the schools being back such as after school clubs, scouting etc without restrictions, contact sports etc. Along with a bit of overspill into their presumably AZ-vaccinated parents whose immunity isn't as good or they haven't been vaccinated.
Presumably other countries are doing this too, so what makes it different here? Do the schools in France and other places have restrictions, distancing, face coverings etc? Or is it just that they're way ahead of us at vaccinating kids, not doing it through the schools as we seem to be, and not up against resistance from as many parents about vaccinating their kids? Sure thing it isn't as effective at stopping the infection kids tend to get, but even if it was only 10% effective at that, that's 3 kids in a typical class size of 30 who would have no effects of getting the virus plus effects on onwards transmission. Unless this roll out speeds up, we're now going to be looking at high figures as it rips through the schools until either everyone's had it (who hasn't already) or they catch up with the vaccines. But the encouraging thing from the data is that it doesn't appear to be causing a major issue in other age groups yet, or hospitalisations, which it clearly was by this time last year with the schools and universities open. (Though that was mainly seeming to be the universities, and you'd expect the majority of students to be double jabbed or to have already had covid).
He is probably right about the sick pay issues making it less advantageous for people to isolate (and get tested knowing they will have to if it's positive if they have something which could be covid, and dismissing it as a cold, which also has onward transmission implications) but this is in a group who have long since been offered jabs and either are double jabbed or refused it.
Mask wearing has little effect in a population where over 80% of adults have been vaccinated. It only ever had a chance of working where people had covid and didn't realise, and with this, first of all asymptomatic and presymptomatic spread is less common with delta than alpha or wild type covid, and your susceptible population is much reduced by the vaccination, in any case a cloth or paper face mask as opposed to a surgical N95 type is unlikely to have more than a minimal filtering effect anyway, so the effect is likely masked (pun not intended) in the other countries by their wearing of masks being somewhat unnecessary, given that people with symptoms which could be covid, should be staying at home and getting a test.
As for gatherings, surely this (in clubs, concerts, theatres, sports grounds etc) is necessary economically, and to get back to normal after some time of such things being banned or restricted, and again, it's only an issue if people turn up who actually have the virus - basically see above. And really, people should turn their nose up at people meeting their friends (when double jabbed, and unlikely to have the virus) because it's making things worse when kids have covid?
For now at least, it's clear where the issue is. And the measures should be targeted there, or at least probed first to see what's happening. I don't necessarily agree they should close the schools, but they could restrict to online lessons for some things, face covering use, more distancing, stopping after school activities, whilst they accelerate getting jabs into the secondary age kids (plus year 7s who aren't 12 yet) to try and reduce it. As it's just this age group why should the general population have more restrictions when they're vaccinated, and don't have the virus anyway?
This whole making healthy people behave as though they're ill may have had value about a year back, but really needs to stop now, or at least calm down.