COVID-19 and schools: #CovidUnknowns

Schools closures have been a controversial issue from the start of the COVID pandemic. Dr Fiona Godlee of The BMJ and Professor George Davey Smith of the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the Bristol University, plus their invited guests from leading institutions will discuss all aspects of the issue.

00:00:00 - Welcome and introduction

00:04:00 - SARS-CoV-2 prevalence/transmission/dissemination and role in community infection trajectories (Chaired by George Davey Smith)
• Alasdair Munro, Clinical Research Fellow Paediatric Infectious Diseases, University Hospital Southampton
• Muge Cevik, clinical academic fellow in infectious diseases and medical virology, University of St Andrews

00:32:20 - Clinical risk, severe disease and long covid (Chaired by Allyson Pollock)
• Risks to children - Elizabeth Whittaker, senior clinical lecturer in paediatric infectious diseases and immunology, Imperial College London
• Risk to teachers - Rachael Wood, consultant in public health medicine, Public Health Scotland and David McAllister, senior clinical lecturer, University of Glasgow

00:55:00 - Impacts of school closures (Chaired by Caroline Relton)
• Teachers' perspectives - Elisabeth Gilpin, headteacher, St Mary Redcliffe School, Bristol);
• Consequences for children - Sunil Bhopal, NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Paediatrics, Newcastle University
• Rights of the child - Bruce Adamson, children & young people's commisioner Scotland and Haroon Chowdry, director of evidence for Children's Commissioner England

01:28:30 - International perspectives (Chaired by Fiona Godlee)
• USA - Ibukun C. Akinboyo, assistant professor of pediatrics, Duke University Hospital
• Norway - Margrethe Greve-Isdahl, senior physician, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
• France - Arnaud Fontanet, director of the Department of Global Health, Pasteur Institute
• N America/Europe - Jennifer Couzin-Frankel, staff writer at Science Magazine

01:56:00 - Discussion (Chaired by Phil Hammond)

[maxflight]

Part of the joy of teaching is seeing pupils’ eyes light up as they learn things for the first time. No matter how good the webcam and internet link, watching a teacher demonstration is not the same thing.
But it’s not just the interaction with teachers that pupils are missing out on. Stuck at home,  every activity becomes an individual task. Yes, break-out rooms are useful for discussing specific questions, but for group work to work properly, people need to be present. Disembodied images and voices on a screen are a pale imitation.
While nobody has yet developed the square eyes that my grandparents warned me about forty years ago, neck aches, backaches and headaches are very real hazards – for pupils and teachers – along with a lack of exercise. At school,  moving around from one class to another was an important divider between lessons. It allowed pupils to reflect on what they’d learned and prepare for their next lesson. Now,  children can spend their whole day in the same chair.

[maxflight]

The actual content was very thought provoking and useful. Thank you for posting.

Let’s get our youngsters back to school. No seven year old can sit at home and focus on a computer screen. Let’s be honest about the real dangers school closures.

[merlijnxz]

“There are dashboards with all sorts of data. We also need a dashboard on the detrimental effects on children’s lives” - excellent statement by Haroon Chowdry, Director of Evidence for Children’s Commissioner England

[sheilasanderson]

I’m still confused. Older children (secondary) seem to be similar to adults in transmission of Covid yet risk of extended exposure in a room of 20+ teenagers is no greater than that of the general population. Some inconsistency between two if the presentations, or I am misunderstanding.

[tamsinwood]

Great discussion. My only point is that the lockdown is affecting many different cohorts within the population and not just children. For the vast majority of children in my class, it is the loss of socialising with friends that they regret. Not missing out on school work!