Coronavirus (OLD)

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by jfman

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...onavirus-study

Irresponsible headline from the Guardian here.

The actual study says school closures on their own have negligible effect. Of course not, if you let everyone else go about their daily business in offices, on public transport, gather at events, in pubs, clubs and other places to spread the virus then it stands to reason the difference is barely noticeable.

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)

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by spiderplant

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)

Seems to contradict itself then.

“While school closure as a measure on its own is predicted to have a limited effectiveness in controlling Covid-19 transmission, when combined with intense social distancing it plays an important role in severing remaining contacts between households and thus ensuring transmission declines.”

[jfman]

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.

Well it's all a little bit late..

[nomadking]

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.

[tweetiepooh]

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.

[downquark1]

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.

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

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by downquark1

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.

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

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by tweetiepooh

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.

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

More research is urgently needed on the effectiveness of school closures and other school social distancing practices to inform policies related to COVID-19. We also need more detailed knowledge about how COVID-19 affects children and young people, as the role of school measures in reducing COVID-19 transmission depends on the susceptibility of children to infection and their infectiousness once infected.

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

[heero_yuy]

Quote from The Sun:

"The moral question is how to weigh up what does the most harm," Michael Buerk, host of Radio 4's Moral Maze, tells Sun Online.

"Put crudely, is it worth blighting the lives of the many to save the relatively few, most of whom might not have much longer to live anyway?"

While he says it may be a "heartless calculation" to have to make at any time, especially when it's your own family member, he says it's something doctors face every day.

An interesting piece and well worth the read.

[denphone]

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

[jfman]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

An interesting piece and well worth the read.

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

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

An interesting piece and well worth the read.

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.

Originally Posted by Maggy

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

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 ----------

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

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.

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.