Who's had their second jab?

[Oldjohnw]

I heard on R4 this morning that, contrary to what has been reported (and which I repeated earlier thread) the new Indian Variant outbreak areas do not have markedly lower vaccination stats than other areas. The issue is that this variant is currently spreading in that part of the population which is younger than the vaccination programme has yet reached.

I think the case that younger population is suffering because they are not vaccinated is an assumption. Whilst it is true that they are not vaccinated, it is also the case that they are more likely to be in pubs, at work, in Primark, in the cinemas, mixing with others which would mean greater exposure risk and thus they are more likely to become infected. I seem to remember that the previous wave/surge started in younger generations (before anybody was vaccinated) and later spread to older generations.

Undoubtedly vaccination will be playing a part but my personal opinion is that it is far more complex with many factors and a very dangerous for authorities to assume that because it is currently in younger generations it will stay in younger generations.

Ian

It has been proven without a shadow of doubt that the biggest factor in the spread of the virus is schools. Hundreds of families are mixing in one place day after day not just on a weekly pub / club visit. IOM track and trace proved that if you'd been following the covid briefings. A rich resource of info about the spread of covid was created from their data there.

Can you direct me to the evidence re schools. I am not disagrees but I was simply unaware that this was the undisputed case.

[Cowsham]

I think the case that younger population is suffering because they are not vaccinated is an assumption. Whilst it is true that they are not vaccinated, it is also the case that they are more likely to be in pubs, at work, in Primark, in the cinemas, mixing with others which would mean greater exposure risk and thus they are more likely to become infected. I seem to remember that the previous wave/surge started in younger generations (before anybody was vaccinated) and later spread to older generations.

Undoubtedly vaccination will be playing a part but my personal opinion is that it is far more complex with many factors and a very dangerous for authorities to assume that because it is currently in younger generations it will stay in younger generations.

Ian

It has been proven without a shadow of doubt that the biggest factor in the spread of the virus is schools. Hundreds of families are mixing in one place day after day not just on a weekly pub / club visit. IOM track and trace proved that if you'd been following the covid briefings. A rich resource of info about the spread of covid was created from their data there.

Can you direct me to the evidence re schools. I am not disagrees but I was simply unaware that this was the undisputed case.

If you look at this

viewtopic.php?t=141997&start=810

thread you'll see where I provided links to briefings relevant - plus a nice graphic from their dashboard showing the actual numbers of infections per age range -- not estimates or rates but the actual numbers themselves so you can see clearly what's going on.

- I'll try to find the links to the specific briefing that detailed the infection rates in schools after the one single steampacket worker brought the virus back onto the island. It was one of the early March ones.

Sad thing is after about 2000 infections and a few more deaths the steampacket workers are being treated badly in some situations.

The main fault the IOM government had was that they didn't shut down immediately after finding 2 unexplained ( untraced ) cases after the single infection. The SP guy had children at school or nursery. It took them a week or so to realise it had got into the community.

[Oldjohnw]

Just the IOM, then.

PS I was at school with Mary Williams former head of the island's civil service.

[Bonefishblues]

I understood that infections amongst teaching & support staff were consistent with that of the general population.

[Cowsham]

Just the IOM, then.

Yes because it's one of the only places maybe the only place where the track and trace worked to it's best effect since it is an almost completely closed in community -- borders were closed in March 2020 and also they could prove the lineage of the virus via lab testing.

The virus changes with each new infection so they could tell using lab profiling and with the aid of information from infected people who gave what to who.

That episode involved the Kent variant so it travelled fast.

[RickH]

I'm not convinced of the "driven by schools" argument except, possibly, in the recent spike in Bolton. I was going to post about the data available.

If you go to https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ and put your postcode in you get local data. In the "All cases data in Bolton" (in my case) at the bottom of Cases there is a link "Cases by specimen date age demographics" which gives you a zoomable heatmap (with a rolling rate for each age group & date if you hover your mouse over the heatmap, the data is also downloadable if you want to examine it in more detail).

This is the current Bolton one

Bolton COVID Heatmap (click to enlarge)

Looking at Bolton, other places may vary. If you Zoom in to round when the schools opened in September, rates were already rising in the 20s & 30s age groups and were then followed by the 15-19 year olds & later in Sptember4 by the 10-14s.

In the current spike there doesn't seem to be a clear age related cause - cases in schools aged children & adults in their 30s & 40s (presumably largely the parents of school aged children) seems to have gone hand in hand. Interestingly the ones who tend to get the blame for ignoring the rules, young adults in their 20s & early 30s have had a somewhat lower rate of cases so far. Regular testing in school will probably have picked up more cases that might otherwise have been missed.

The thing that seems to me to be very noticeable is the dramatic drop in cases in the older - & now vaccinated, at least with the first dose - age groups. Despite the rises in the younger groups.

Causes of the spike?

Initial import of the B.1.617.2 variant by people travelling is undoubtedly a factor in its appearance. Its apparent increase in transmissability is another likely factor. The mix of the areas affected is also in there - A high proportion of folk of Indian descent who are more likely to live in multi-generational households. Poor housing stock with quite a number of multi occupancy houses in some very deprived areas mixed in too. The edge of the area has a campus with the University, college & 6th form college all next to each other.

We do have a lower vaccination rate - Bolton has ~63% of all adults compared to Cheshire West & Chester at ~68% (chosen for no other reason than I know the postcode of a friend in Chester). The local press have quoted the highest rates of 80+% of eligible adults (so a subset with a slightly different age range) in some areas of Bolton compared to low 70% in the worst hit areas.

[Cowsham]

I'm not convinced of the "driven by schools" argument except, possibly, in the recent spike in Bolton. I was going to post about the data available.

If you go to https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ and put your postcode in you get local data. In the "All cases data in Bolton" (in my case) at the bottom of Cases there is a link "Cases by specimen date age demographics" which gives you a zoomable heatmap (with a rolling rate for each age group & date if you hover your mouse over the heatmap, the data is also downloadable if you want to examine it in more detail).

This is the current Bolton one

2021-05-19 COVID case heatmap.jpg

Looking at Bolton, other places may vary. If you Zoom in to round when the schools opened in September, rates were already rising in the 20s & 30s age groups and were then followed by the 15-19 year olds & later in Sptember4 by the 10-14s.

In the current spike there doesn't seem to be a clear age related cause - cases in schools aged children & adults in their 30s & 40s (presumably largely the parents of school aged children) seems to have gone hand in hand. Interestingly the ones who tend to get the blame for ignoring the rules, young adults in their 20s & early 30s have had a somewhat lower rate of cases so far. Regular testing in school will probably have picked up more cases that might otherwise have been missed.

The thing that seems to me to be very noticeable is the dramatic drop in cases in the older - & now vaccinated, at least with the first dose - age groups. Despite the rises in the younger groups.

Causes of the spike?

Initial import of the B.1.617.2 variant by people travelling is undoubtedly a factor in its appearance. Its apparent increase in transmissability is another likely factor. The mix of the areas affected is also in there - A high proportion of folk of Indian descent who are more likely to live in multi-generational households. Poor housing stock with quite a number of multi occupancy houses in some very deprived areas mixed in too. The edge of the area has a campus with the University, college & 6th form college all next to each other.

We do have a lower vaccination rate - Bolton has ~63% of all adults compared to Cheshire West & Chester at ~68% (chosen for no other reason than I know the postcode of a friend in Chester). The local press have quoted the highest rates of 80+% of eligible adults (so a subset with a slightly different age range) in some areas of Bolton compared to low 70% in the worst hit areas.

Some people are very resistant to the idea that infection is driven by school children especially secondary school -- I can't figure why. It's been obvious from day 1. I think it just because it's an inconvenient truth. The figures from the IOM research showed that very clearly if anyone was in doubt about that.

People don't want to believe it because that means teaching at home when parents are probably trying to juggle work with home schooling like I have done since March 2020 without complaint.

[RickH]

Some people are very resistant to the idea that infection is driven by school children especially secondary school -- I can't figure why. It's been obvious from day 1. I think it just because it's an inconvenient truth. The figures from the IOM research showed that very clearly if anyone was in doubt about that.

People don't want to believe it because that means teaching at home when parents are probably trying to juggle work with home schooling like I have done since March 2020 without complaint.

It isn't that I do or don't want to believe it. It is that the facts don't seem to bear it out, at least here in Bolton. Here is the heatmap for August to September 2020. The rise in infections started in mid August in the 20 to 40 years olds and was then followed by other age groups

[[XAP]Bob]

Some people are very resistant to the idea that infection is driven by school children especially secondary school -- I can't figure why. It's been obvious from day 1. I think it just because it's an inconvenient truth. The figures from the IOM research showed that very clearly if anyone was in doubt about that.

People don't want to believe it because that means teaching at home when parents are probably trying to juggle work with home schooling like I have done since March 2020 without complaint.

Secondary school home schooling was easy; primary was hard work, particularly with two primary aged kids (different year groups).

MiniBob's (secondary) school had a handful of cases, with no community transmission, last year, and have had no cases at all this term.

MicroBob's (primary) school have had no cases this term either, I can't recall the count of cases last year when they were back and I was away, but I don't believe they had any community transmission either.

I have no doubt that some schools have been locations for "super spreading" - indeed the one just up the road had most of the classes isolating for significant amounts of the last couple of terms, with plenty of community transmission - but to blame it all on schools is missing the mark.

The charts upthread clearly show that in school transmission wasn't preceding the rise in other age groups, and if it was all driven by schools then it should.

[Cowsham]

Some people are very resistant to the idea that infection is driven by school children especially secondary school -- I can't figure why. It's been obvious from day 1. I think it just because it's an inconvenient truth. The figures from the IOM research showed that very clearly if anyone was in doubt about that.

People don't want to believe it because that means teaching at home when parents are probably trying to juggle work with home schooling like I have done since March 2020 without complaint.

Secondary school home schooling was easy; primary was hard work, particularly with two primary aged kids (different year groups).

MiniBob's (secondary) school had a handful of cases, with no community transmission, last year, and have had no cases at all this term.

MicroBob's (primary) school have had no cases this term either, I can't recall the count of cases last year when they were back and I was away, but I don't believe they had any community transmission either.

I have no doubt that some schools have been locations for "super spreading" - indeed the one just up the road had most of the classes isolating for significant amounts of the last couple of terms, with plenty of community transmission - but to blame it all on schools is missing the mark.

The charts upthread clearly show that in school transmission wasn't preceding the rise in other age groups, and if it was all driven by schools then it should.

I wouldn't say it's completely driven by schools but they are a major factor as demonstrated in the IOM because they were one of the first to employ testing for school kids but did it in a well controlled situation unlike most places simply because they could.

The reason a lot of people don't believe it was spread more in schools is because kids are mostly asymptomatic so won't normally be tested. Families only know something is wrong when older members of the family are going down with it.

It's common to see many grandparents lining up to collect children from school in their cars cos the wanes parents are working. There you've got asymptomatic children in a closed metal heated box with very mature people for the whole journey home. Little wonder they got a heavy viral load and landed in hospital.

[Bonefishblues]

Am I missing the point when I look at teaching staff - who spend all day in close proximity with children - as an indicator?

Genuine Q, since available evidence doesn't show them to be at higher risk.

https://ieureka.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/202 ... m-covid19/. and others

[Cowsham]

Am I missing the point when I look at teaching staff - who spend all day in close proximity with children - as an indicator?

Genuine Q, since available evidence doesn't show them to be at higher risk.

https://ieureka.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/202 ... m-covid19/. and others

Not here that's for sure -- the children have to keep a safe distance from teachers behind a screen etc -- even from last September but the wanes didn't have to wear masks and sat next to each other. Funnily enough the head master went down with a dose -- but guess what ? -- he was about 40 and had wanes at school.

Most teachers escaped the bug but I wouldn't want their jobs.

[Psamathe]

Interesting (but all to familiar) report

UK’s Indian Covid variant surge fuelled by test-and-trace failures, report finds
Eight local authorities starved of full data on positive tests in their areas - for three weeks
...
Eight local authorities did not have access to the full data on positive tests in their areas for three weeks in April and May, it says.

The number of missing cases was highest in Blackburn with Darwen, in Lancashire –where a recent surge in infections was linked to the Indian variant.

The other areas affected by the apparent technical glitch were Blackpool, York, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock, the BBC revealed.
...
The “rapid spread of Indian variant cases... may be partially or largely attributable to risks in the international travel control system”, the report states.

But it adds: “These were exacerbated by the sporadic failure of the national test and trace system.”
...

Ian

[[XAP]Bob]

But our test and trace system is world leading....

We just don't know what it leads in... maybe the ability to pay politicians wives for doing sweet FA?

[Cowsham]

But our test and trace system is world leading....

We just don't know what it leads in... maybe the ability to pay politicians wives for doing sweet FA?

They're second to us that for sure -- we give politicians a 3 year holiday on full pay!