Scrutable

We're starting two weeks later than planned to allow teachers time to prepare, and our town is fully remote learning.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-54005621

This happened quicker than I expected. There's been lots of pointing out in previous cases in schools that apparently transmission had nothing to do with the school, but these clusters are different.

School run today, my son and partner and I were the only people in masks, some parents with their poxrats right behind me in the schoolgate queue (right next to the "please keep two metres apart" sign, not that the teachers appeared to be wearing masks either). I saw a mum who I know has diabetes hugging her friends because "there's no covid in Shepperton".

I'm so pissed off argh. Going to watch something with spaceships in now

warumich wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 02, 2020 7:25 pm

School run today, my son and partner and I were the only people in masks, some parents with their poxrats right behind me in the schoolgate queue (right next to the "please keep two metres apart" sign, not that the teachers appeared to be wearing masks either). I saw a mum who I know has diabetes hugging her friends because "there's no covid in Shepperton".

I'm so pissed off argh. Going to watch something with spaceships in now

There was a lot of lack of social distancing between parents who knew each other at ours too. They were pretty good at distancing from everyone else though, as if you can't catch Covid from your friends. Quite a few masks though, including on kids. No masks on teachers, but they kept well distanced from us and the drop off set up is pretty well thought out.

The National Education Association (aka the teachers union) is building a database to track outbreaks in US schools. Because, you know, who else is there who ought to be tracking that?

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... eeps-count

bolo wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 02, 2020 10:15 pm

The National Education Association (aka the teachers union) is building a database to track outbreaks in US schools. Because, you know, who else is there who ought to be tracking that?

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... eeps-count

Indeed. Shockingly important too.

Talking to my allotment neighbour yesterday, it seems this "children can't get it/transmit it" "facts" is beginning to stick in people's minds. He quite clearly couldn't see any problem with the schools going back and any concerns are unfounded. Except there's no real sound evidence either way.

The responsible thing would be to gather data, but the US and UK government (amongst others) aren't interested as it interferes with their economic plans to reopen and un-lockdown.

Mr Bagpuss reports utter chaos at the bagkitten's school at drop off this morning. Y5 kids (which is bagkitten's year) are supposed to go in main front door at 8:40. At 8:42, everyone still milling round with no-one going in. Mr Bagpuss wasn't sure if they just weren't letting anyone in yet or if no-one was attempting to go in but as there's a locked-with-keypad door inside, then unless someone was standing holding the door open (and if they were, surely they'd have been beckoning people in), they wouldn't be able to go in anyway, so I'm guessing the former. So there's a not-really-enough 10 minute stagger between two halves of the school arriving and they threw nearly 3 of those minutes away by not opening the door on time which also therefore gathered large numbers of people in an area that's too small for them to safely distance.

Add to that: no signs or people outside directing anyone so those who hadn't properly read the instructions in Tuesday's email didn't know which door to go in; confusing markings painted on the ground which Mr Bagpuss (who's quite bright really ) couldn't fathom; and a one-way system which doesn't really work, although that's the fault of the people who planned and built the site not foreseeing the need for a workable one-way system 30-50 years in the future, and it's all a complete mess.

I realise that this is mainly down to the utter f.cking uselessness* of the head teacher at the bagkitten's school, with a little bit of unhelpfully laid out school site thrown in, and not all schools will be this rubbish but I'm sure plenty of others will be.

I am not looking forward to pick up this afternoon.



*That assessment may seem a little harsh based on what's written here but he's proved it over and over again during this whole crisis. He's an acceptable head under normal circumstances for normal kids who fit into his nice neat boxes and rules and systems without problem. But when the whole world goes tits up (or just if a child has different needs), he's totally lost. The (absolutely incredibly amazing) head of the adjacent infant school was reportedly tearing her hair out trying to deal with him during lockdown - this from the reliable source of our next-door-neighbour who works at the infant school.

Just seen a short vid of a classroom at my kid's primary. They are all facing the front, but in desks of 4 chatting very close together, and with no real space between rows either. There seems to be an area at the back of the classroom with no desks (it's an unusually large room for a British school). If anything, the kids look much closer together than previously, albeit facing the same direction. The question is, when the kids are so close together, and social distancing for <11's is no longer mandatory, can there be any benefit in the forward-facing desks, from a covid point of view? I appreciate there may be other benefits for at least some children.

It's just for show, isn't it?

Seagull wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 10:53 am

It's just for show, isn't it?

It sounds a bit like "pandemic theatre" - lots of complicated stuff designed to give a sense of security, but with little practical impact.

Much like all the "put your toothpaste in a plastic bag and get your Tablet out and take your belt and your shoes off" palaver at airports, which is much more effective at getting grannies to bin their knitting needles than at stopping people getting weapons through.

Seagull wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 10:53 am

Just seen a short vid of a classroom at my kid's primary. They are all facing the front, but in desks of 4 chatting very close together, and with no real space between rows either. There seems to be an area at the back of the classroom with no desks (it's an unusually large room for a British school). If anything, the kids look much closer together than previously, albeit facing the same direction. The question is, when the kids are so close together, and social distancing for <11's is no longer mandatory, can there be any benefit in the forward-facing desks, from a covid point of view? I appreciate there may be other benefits for at least some children.

They should be showing you the airflow. That seems to matter more than phyiscal distance. Presumably 95% of schools get their airflow from opening windows, which is going to be a problem when the heating goes on...

Degree of chaos and lack of social distancing outside minibadger's primary this morning. Attempts to drop kids by year group at school gate in 5 minute time slots jiggered by siblings. Therefore lots of milling in smallish space between slots. The school knew this would happen, but relying on parents to self-organise is...optimistic. The residential estate in which the school sits will be complaining, I'm sure.

Pick up allows parents into school grounds to collect from classroom at staggered times. One-way system around the site. All classrooms have external door. Will see how it works in practice very shortly, but think that it would work better for drop off too... I guess it allows a load of potentially infectious adults on to the site in the morning, where as end of the day is just before the deep clean.

The last More or Less discussed the return to school (and Uni). Featuring Grange Hill theme tune and Kraftwerk in this episode, for extra bonus points.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08q807b

Apparently we have very little to worry about in Primary schools (or more accurately, for under 10 year olds), in terms of infection, disease or transmission. While the evidence suggests they are infected at the same rate, they are "very low risk" in terms of disease and transmission (even in their own households).

It will be interesting to see how many primary teachers get it, and whether it can be discerned how many got it from school versus outside. Are there any studies on school outbreaks that have a crack at this? Shame on Sweden if they're not collecting data...

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:46 am

Much like all the "put your toothpaste in a plastic bag and get your Tablet out and take your belt and your shoes off" palaver at airports, which is much more effective at getting grannies to bin their knitting needles than at stopping people getting weapons through.

I used to subscribe to that view (especially Bruce Schneier's idea that if you want to kill a lot of people who fly in aircraft, just blow up the queue to go through security --- cf also a couple of Palestinian attacks (was one in Rome?) at airports in the 1980s which were basically just drive-by shootings), but I think there are other benefits to airport security besides stopping jihadis, or those clever motivated government employees who are tasked with sneaking weapons past the scanners and dine out on it afterwards ("although it gives me no satisfaction"). I read somewhere about how many guns the TSA takes of people at US airports every year and it's quite impressive --- in the hundreds, IIRC --- even though these are just guns that people left in their holdall last time they went to the gym (tooled up, as you do). I also wonder how many "air rage" incidents involving pissheads on the way to Eyebeefa would escalate into something a lot more serious if people were allowed to take sharp objects with them.

That said: I think most of the measures being taken in schools are for show, either knowingly (with resignation to the situation of the people implementing them), or simply de facto in practice (because teachers, not unreasonably, have no idea how to do bio-security, and because kids will still fight, snog, lose or sell or have someone steal their masks, etc etc etc).

I'm amused by my daughter's secondary school's plans (she's back in tomorrow).

Each year group has a staggered arrival time - except that time is 5 minutes apart. How they expect the 240-odd pupils in each year to manage to arrive in a 5-minute window without overlap is boggling...

In corridors and assemblies they have to wear a mask, but not sitting side-by-side in classrooms. This is going to involve a lot of mask handling and putting on and taking off - and I doubt students will have sufficient numbers of masks, so that will be one mask being repeatedly handled.

Then, as lpm says, there's the issue of ventilation - which is apparently bl..dy awful.

It's just theatre to get pupils back in.

3 days at school last week and tonight miniocrity has a fever and a sore throat. Shockingly quick! Hopefully just a cold.

mediocrity511 wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:17 pm

3 days at school last week and tonight miniocrity has a fever and a sore throat. Shockingly quick! Hopefully just a cold.

Wishing you luck

Fingers crossed

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/samuel-ward ... -1-6824901

Samuel Ward School in Matt Hancock's constituency closes due to covid cluster

mediocrity511 wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:17 pm

3 days at school last week and tonight miniocrity has a fever and a sore throat. Shockingly quick! Hopefully just a cold.

Really hope it's just a cold. I have everything crossed for you.

mediocrity511 wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 06, 2020 8:17 pm

3 days at school last week and tonight miniocrity has a fever and a sore throat. Shockingly quick! Hopefully just a cold.

Hope it's nothing serious.

1 of 2 dropped off this morning. It felt pretty quiet but that's because they're staggering everything with only half the school in today and different classes starting 10 mins apart. 2 of 2 starts tomorrow, which will be the bigger test with twice as many people around.

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:46 am

Seagull wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 10:53 am

It's just for show, isn't it?

It sounds a bit like "pandemic theatre" - lots of complicated stuff designed to give a sense of security, but with little practical impact.

Much like all the "put your toothpaste in a plastic bag and get your Tablet out and take your belt and your shoes off" palaver at airports, which is much more effective at getting grannies to bin their knitting needles than at stopping people getting weapons through.

Whatever people say, there has been a large and sustained reduction in hijackings since 2001. Of course its difficult to be certain about the causes, but absent any obvious decline in motivation by extremists, aviation security seems to be doing something right. Even if it is all theater, maybe the smoke and mirrors is effective.

The school plans will never be able to eliminate transmission, but if they make the difference between, say, a 3 day versus a 7 day doubling time by limiting the number of contacts, that's still a huge difference in how quickly a cluster of cases spreads, and how hard it will be to stamp it out.

jimbob wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 07, 2020 5:58 am

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/samuel-ward ... -1-6824901

Samuel Ward School in Matt Hancock's constituency closes due to covid cluster

The school has apparently been closed for a "deep clean". Does anyone really still think that a substantial amount of transmission of the virus is taking place via contaminated surfaces? And wouldn't closing the building for 72 hours, doing nothing else, eliminate 99.99% of any virus concentration anyway?

sTeamTraen wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 07, 2020 11:50 pm

jimbob wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 07, 2020 5:58 am

https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/samuel-ward ... -1-6824901

Samuel Ward School in Matt Hancock's constituency closes due to covid cluster

The school has apparently been closed for a "deep clean". Does anyone really still think that a substantial amount of transmission of the virus is taking place via contaminated surfaces? And wouldn't closing the building for 72 hours, doing nothing else, eliminate 99.99% of any virus concentration anyway?

But about 80% of what schools are doing is focused on surface transmission. They're wiping desks, cleaning toilets a lot more, quarantining books before being used, asking for uniform to be clean everyday, some only allowing lunch to be brought in a disposable bag etc.etc.

Their strategy against airborne transmission is to face the front (if they can, miniocrity's school has decided they can't, so she faces other children across 1.5m of desk) and crack open the windows if they havent been painted shut. Then theres the madness of in local lockdown areas there's masks in communal areas, but somehow classrooms aren't communal areas. You'd have thought spending prolonged time in a group of people bg would be more of a risk than fleeting corridor contact.

mediocrity511 wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 08, 2020 6:45 am

But about 80% of what schools are doing is focused on surface transmission. They're wiping desks, cleaning toilets a lot more, quarantining books before being used, asking for uniform to be clean everyday, some only allowing lunch to be brought in a disposable bag etc.etc.

I guess it comes down to the usual "Something must be done, and this is something". It's difficult to imagine them saying "actually it's not necessary to quarantine books", for example, because some parent would complain they Aren't Taking The Problem Seriously. And maybe it helps, given that they can't do the things that would really help, like having classes outdoors.