I've almost given up on any balanced discourse about children, #COVID19 and schools, as everyone seems intent on either pretending children are not affected at all, or becoming borderline hysterical over the point
Case study: US daycares
1/6
This study from daycares in Utah has been amplified by high profile figures on twitter as a "big deal"
12 children infected (by staff) with 12 secondary cases, all in their homes, with no mention of transmission in the facility
Both of these studies show basically the same thing; children can catch it and transmit, but the rate seems pretty low
The way they've been packaged is different: one is balanced and says, "with careful measures, this seems ok"
The other: "OMG CHILDREN TRANSMIT"
5/6
Children need us to move past this slightly hysterical, polarised way of talking about the risks of schooling, how we can mitigate against them, and how these are weighed up against the harms of lack of education. Particularly where it's become political
We can do better
6/6
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Here is a totally uncontroversial thread about immunity to common pathogens as influenced by the pandemic
I will simply state facts
1. Rates of many commonly circulating pathogens almost completely vanished during the first 1 - 2y of the pandemic (eg Group A Strep)
1/
2. The reason these pathogens almost vanished was because transmission was reduced by the measures which were introduced around the world to reduce transmission of #SARSCoV2
This coincidently also reduced transmission of other pathogens, often even more successfully
2/
3. Because these pathogens commonly circulate, there is usually a relatively stable amount of population immunity to them, acquired by infection
4. Vastly reduced rates of infection will therefore result in lower levels of population immunity than prior to the pandemic
3/