Schools closed until February? (part 3)

HerrKuehn wrote: »

The parent was a health care worker in the case I know of.

So not outside training in a strict pod?

Boggles wrote: »

I'm not going to say doorbells, because I will be accused of being aligned with Trump or Mary Lou.

But where in the name of fúck are all those kids picking it up from?

Mummy / Daddy / Guardians no longer can go to the pub / restaurant / gym / hair dresser, etc.

Everywhere else they wear a mask.

It's a very curious situation that would at least warrant even the most courtesy of investigation by public health.

I probably should have quoted your original post. The fact is that people can choose to follow rules or not. A lot of people have lost the fear and let their guard down. Other people have jobs where they have to come into contact with people, health care workers being one example. I don't think anyone is saying that transmission will not happen in schools, of course it will as it would in any situation where people are coming into contact. But the risk is acceptable.

HerrKuehn wrote: »

I probably should have quoted your original post. The fact is that people can choose to follow rules or not. A lot of people have lost the fear and let their guard down. Other people have jobs where they have to come into contact with people, health care workers being one example. I don't think anyone is saying that transmission will not happen in schools, of course it will as it would in any situation where people are coming into contact. But the risk is acceptable.

Indeed but the vast vast majority of the population are not health care workers.

And apart from health care, I'm not aware of any major significant outbreaks in any other workplaces, are you?

So I think my pertinent question still stands.

Boggles wrote: »

It is indeed magically the vast vast vast majority of infections for school aged children happen outside school and are unknown.

I agree.

OK let's say all child infections happen in school (clearly not true, because most are part of household transmissions but anyway) what is your suggestion? All the time you are implying that there is some massive cover up, so what should we do? Should we close schools tomorrow and continue GAA training because that is safe?

meeeeh wrote: »

I don't know some county stuff or something (I'm not sure it was training but it was team mates). If you want to ban GAA because of that you are welcome.

Do you mind me asking what county this was in?

Boggles wrote: »

I'm merely asking a pretty pertinent question, you are the only one who suggested banning outdoor training for children, I still think it's a bizarre suggestion in the extreme.

One thing might help though is if they publish how many of the 625 children that tested positive last week were the index case.

That would require a journalist actually doing their job though and asking that quite simply question.

No you are insinuating that there is some sort of cover up because you don't like the number of transmissions in schools. Which is fine but until some solid data is provided that numbers are wrong it's just conspiracy theory.

The **** will hit the fan come Jan in schools. Imagine having 2 weeks where every one of the students and their families are mixing, out for dinners, visiting family, shopping, all indoor stuff possibly back open.

Boggles wrote: »

I love the numbers.

I just not convinced by them.

In the example you gave transmission occurred outside at training with strict protocols.

That itself should raise your own questions.

In the example I gave transmission was between two county or club players. I never said any of the cases were kids because I know of none. I said that transmission among people I actually know were socialising and something to do with GAA. I worded it wrongly saying training in the first post on the subject. I apologise if I created wrong impression but my knowledge of gaa is very limited.

Boggles wrote: »

I'm not going to say doorbells, because I will be accused of being aligned with Trump or Mary Lou.

But where in the name of fúck are all those kids picking it up from?

Mummy / Daddy / Guardians no longer can go to the pub / restaurant / gym / hair dresser, etc.

Everywhere else they wear a mask.

It's a very curious situation that would at least warrant even the most courtesy of investigation by public health.

Don't forget, a third of the workforce are still working as normal - i.e. not furloughed and not working from home. So a huge chunk of parents are still working in factories, distribution centres, supermarkets, health care workers, teachers, call centre and bank branch workers etc etc,

I'm not saying that the majority of kids who test positive are catching it from their parents, but that has to count as a proportion of the infections.

Having said that, I absolutely agree that schools are not magical places where covid does not occur. I think if the HSE changed their policy to carry out these three steps:
- Test the entire class when a positive case is identified;
- Ensure that siblings are kept home the minute their brother and sister shows symptoms and/or their brother or sister is identified as a close contact, rather than waiting for the brother or sisters positive result; and
- speeding up the time between a positive test and identifying close contacts;

Then I think we would have much less infections at the moment, and shops and restaurants and pubs would be able to open fully on the run up to Christmas.

I know that's lots of disruption for a school. You could have one positive case in 1st class, and all of a sudden 25 children from that class are sent home, along with every sibling of each of those 25 students. So you could have 50 children sent home for two days because of one positive test. If you have three positive cases in the school that have come in in different classes, well that would shut down most small schools entirely. I think this is why the HSE have been quite restrictive in how they have defined close contacts within schools.

On balance though, it seems like a better idea to widen the close contract criteria if we want to keep infections in the community to a minimum, and open the rest of the economy as much as possible.

I am the first to say that a child's education is hugely important, and more important than opening restaurants and pubs, even considering the damage to the economy and to people's livelihoods. But I think some school disruption is worth it if it makes a significant difference in stopping community spread. There is a balance to be struck here, and I think we have tilted a little too far in the direction of protecting education, to the detriment of every other part of our economy.

Boggles wrote: »

Club players are not allowed train, so it was inter county?

Which county?

Why does it matter? As for club, county it's all the same to me I'm afraid. (I'm not Irish and even OH who is only Googles results when talking to customers that follow it).

How many children do you have?

meeeeh wrote: »

Why does it matter? As for club, county it's all the same to me I'm afraid. (I'm not Irish and even OH who is only Googles results when talking to customers that follow it).

How many children do you have?

Why won't you say what county this occurred in?

meeeeh wrote: »

Because it's where I'm from and I don't like to say that. My nationality, county and some other data that I too freely share could identify me fairly easily. I do know that there were soma gaa matches canceled all over the place so it's not exactly rare.

That is understandable.

Maybe tell us what province so?

As already said club players aren't allowed to train so has to be county level.

Boggles wrote: »

Ahhh. It's your personal experience that you chose to share, which pretty much fell completely apart when you were asked a pretty simple question.

No in dept knowledge of the GAA required to answer it.

But to recap.

It was nothing to with training or the GAA.

You kinda of know someone who tested positive but you have no idea really where that person picked it up?

Would that be accurate?

Given that you are looking for another poster to share personal information, do you care to answer how it is that you "partly" work with schools? What exactly is your involvement with schools. I am sure we would all like to know.

HerrKuehn wrote: »

Given that you are looking for another poster to share personal information, do you care to answer how it is that you "partly" work with schools? What exactly is your involvement with schools. I am sure we would all like to know.

I'm not asking for any personal information, I was just curious which inter county team had a breakout, that would be in the national interest if true.

The particular poster volunteered her tale.

I am no longer interested for pretty obvious reasons.

https://twitter.com/corkbeo/status/1332289847697043457