SCHOOLS: Belgian Prime Minister says that schools are a hotbed of contamination and that children transmit the virus to their parents.
As result? 50% of all #COVID19 hospitalizations in 🇧🇪 are now under age 48 (parents of school children). This is affirmed by the Belgian leader.
2) Belgium 🇧🇪 Prime Minister also says: “The track & trace analysis shows that infections occur mainly in two places: in school and at work,” De Croo said at a press conference at the end of the Consultative Committee meeting.
brusselstimes.com/news/belgium-a…
3) “It has therefore been decided, where schools are concerned, that “the ministers of education need to come up by Monday with a list of measures to limit, to the maximum, the risk of infection,” he explained.”
4) “The Committee has already decided on a number of elements that need to be on the list:
📌face masks must be compulsory for fifth-graders and sixth-graders
📌postponing 100% in-person education for the upper secondary classes to the end of Easter Holidays.
5) ... so no, kids are **not** like vaccinated adults, no matter what some out there may claim. Belgium data makes it pretty clear.
6) “The return to 100% in-person education for all secondary classes cannot be envisaged before the end of the holidays, the Committee said, adding that this has to be accompanied “by regular testing of teachers and, in a second phase, of students.”
7) ““Reopening schools after the Easter Holidays remains a priority, which justifies limiting contacts in the coming month as much as possible, the De Croo said.
8) ““We absolutely want schools to be able to open after the Easter Holidays for all children and with in-person attendance every day,” but “if we wish to succeed, we need not only to remain particularly careful up to the end of Easter, but also to take strong measures.”
9) “Vandenbroucke declined to say whether the holidays could be extended. “It’s now up to the Ministers of Education to reflect” on the various solutions, he said.
US CDC has laid out safety measures for school reopenings meantime—indoor air refresh / disinfection is key. See 🧵
10) Indeed, lots of reports in many countries showing increasing infections in kids in the new wave in 2021, likely due to #B117 variant. bmj.com/content/372/bm…
11) the household kids/adult infection effect is seen in a 3,000,000+ person study! The more kids in house, the greater the risk to adults in the household. This matches the phenomenon reported by the Belgian PM above.
12) In England 🏴, schools were open for only some children before March 8th—yet already there was shift towards higher prevalence of #COVID19 in kids age 5-12 in February, whenever that wasn’t true in January.
13) Belgian contact tracing of the source of #COVID19 infections... orange = schools.
HT @CarlvKeirsbilck
14) Meanwhile... in another EU country.
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