Schools closed until February? (part 3)

Deleted User wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/education/2020/1030/1174784-schools-coronavirus/

Yet here it is those who express what is quickly becoming the internationally accepted scientific view, that are painted as the contrarians on this thread

This article is garbage. No one gives this any credit not because we're contrarians, but because we know better than this propaganda rubbish.

There is data worldwide that has shown schools to be hotspots and very problematic. These links to articles and the data in them have already been posted all over this thread here on board. The one thing missing in this article you posted? Links, to ANYTHING backing up absurd claims.

I found the article on Nature, and here's what it says that RTE conveniently omits:

But “we don’t actually understand the natural history of transmission in children, because we mitigate against it”, says paediatrician Fiona Russell at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who was involved in the Victoria school-outbreaks study. Children aren’t in a typical school environment — instead, they’re social distancing, wearing masks and following other precautions.

“The potential to transmit increases” with age, and adolescents are just as likely to transmit the virus as adults, he says. Teenagers and teachers should be the focus of mitigation measures, such as wearing masks or a return to online lessons when community transmission is high, says Haas.

Evidence gleaned from national COVID-19 statistics also has shortcomings. In the United States, for example, asymptomatic infections are still being missed because of policies that only people who develop symptoms are tested.
“There’s no such thing as zero transmission or zero risk,” says Russell. But the risk of infection at school is low, especially when community transmission is low, she says.

So, we are at the highest levels of transmission here, and there are no masks for older primary students, and there is no "return" or indeed even a plan for remote learning here in Ireland. The article was quite clear that schools are SAFEST when there are mitigation measures in place.

Yet RTE article says this: He advises that when community transmission is high, teenagers and teachers should take additional protective measures such as the wearing of masks.

This is a measure that is already in place in Irish schools.

Conveniently leaving out the fact that the article mentioned remote learning when community transmission is high, but we don't have that here, and older children who can also contract and spread the virus in primary ages are wearing no masks at all and with no s.d. possible in the school setting.

Funny, I didn't see anything mentioned at all about ventilation though other researchers have said it's a very important element.

And here's the absolute highlight of the rubbish in this propaganda spin of an article: Again, this mirrors the picture in schools here where, according to HSE data, transmission of the virus within schools is estimated to have taken place in just 1.5% of all schools, with an average of just three students or staff infected in these cases.this mirrors the picture in schools here where, according to HSE data, transmission of the virus within schools is estimated to have taken place in just 1.5% of all schools, with an average of just three students or staff infected in these cases.


There have been over 1,100 reported cases in the schools according to data from the fb group. 10.6% of primary schools reported cases to this group. 41.1% secondary. This is just the amount that have been recorded. The HSE figures fall FAR short of that and they've been asked to account for that discrepancy yet no answer has yet been forthcoming. So the data that the HSE/government are using in articles like these are absolutely FAULTY. The Irish government aren't the only ones spinning an agenda. It's a massive scandal in the US because of how trump changed the reporting of them to the CDC. I just saw an article on Nature.com about it in fact, regarding problematic data in countries. And also because the fact that children tend to be asymptomatic and therefore going untested and untraced. This has been noted in many other articles I've seen. And it's certainly what is happening here. "Mass testing" my eye. And why do they refuse to release more data on schools, instead choosing to obscure it and underreport.

At the end of the day Irish schools are not safe, we do not have the best mitigation measures whether community transmission is low, or high like it is now. Largely, we don't have social distancing, we don't have much ppe in the schools (masks, perspex, working hand sanitiser) or any in the primary setting. We have overcrowded classrooms and a teacher shortage which I think strongly points to why we have changed the working definition of a close contact unlike in any other setting. We don't have remote learning as a tool whatsoever, for high risk people or in times of high community transmission. And the testing/tracing system has spectacularly failed.

What has the Irish government done about any of this? F-K all. Yet they still have the absolute neck to say schools are safer than anywhere else and will be opening Monday, even without a working sanitiser and in times of high case numbers. Not even an extra week closure to try and cut numbers down. This government are a complete and utter disgrace.

meeeeh wrote: »

So leave your kids out. You have a choice. Most of us as shown by the amount of kids in schools are perfectly happy to leave kids in school.

Omnishambles is just nonsense assessment that's not based on any available information. It's pure scaremongering.

And btw those who think the whole class should be closed contacts, do you want your kids home for 2 weeks every time that happens?

Oh? So the fb group of 117k people lends credibility to your statement that most of us are "perfectly happy" to leave kids in the schools? :pac::pac: There are tons of unhappy-or stressed, worried, people out there on the radio daily, on twitter, on fb, on here- not happy at ALL with the situation and lack of remote learning choice. The unions are speaking out and on the verge of strike.

It's just YOUR opinion. Don't go dragging in this invisible army called "most of us" to try and leverage your own opinion to a higher place than it is.