Thread by @apsmunro

I often see people sharing newspaper articles about clusters of #COVID19 infections within schools

Here are a few important things to consider when seeing or reading them (thread)

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1. The very fact that these clusters are rare enough to be newsworthy despite at least tens of thousands of schools being open in countries with active COVID is actually more informative

2. It is no surprise that it occurs sometimes - it would be astonishing if it didn’t

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3. We often don’t know who was the index case, but often appears to be an adult staff member

4. If children are silently bringing infections into schools (as feared) but failing to spread, no one would ever know. Non-events don’t make news

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5. The few actual studies of schools and COVID have shown remarkably little spread amongst students

6. Few children have ever been found to be an index case in a household even when schools were open at the start of the pandemic

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7. We would do well to focus on the evidence and data rather than select newspaper stories, which are essentially just anecdotes

More on paediatric transmission to come...

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