It’s been known since early in the pandemic that children’s risk of death from COVID-19 is extremely low. However, proponents of school closures have long argued that keeping schools open would put teachers at significant risk.
Back in January, six teaching unions urged the Government to “pause” school reopenings. They argued that returning pupils to classrooms while the virus was still spreading would expose education workers to “serious risk of ill-health”.
However, figures published by the ONS later that month cast serious doubt on the unions’ claims. Between March and December of 2020, the COVID-19 death rate among education workers – adjusted for age and sex – was “significantly lower” than that among the general population.
The highest death rates were observed among taxi drivers, machine operators, security guards, restaurant workers, and social care staff – i.e., in working class professions.
One potential criticism of the ONS report is that the researchers took an average over ten months, and schools were closed for much of that time. Perhaps the risk for teachers would have been much higher if schools had stayed open?
A new study published in The BMJ confirms that Scottish teachers were not at elevated risk of severe COVID-19 even when schools were open.
The authors analysed a large dataset comprising all the confirmed cases in Scotland up to June 2021, as well as a large sample of controls matched for age, sex and location. This dataset included over 25,000 teaching staff.
The authors’ main finding is shown in the figure below. Periods of interest are the autumn term of 2020 and the summer term of 2021, since this is when schools were open. In both periods, teachers’ risk of hospitalisation was not significantly higher than that of the general population.
The authors also estimated more complex models that controlled for a range of demographic characteristics, and confirmed there was no significant difference between teachers and the general population during the periods when schools were open.
This is consistent with the Swedish study which found that keeping primary and lower-secondary schools open had little impact on the spread of COVID-19.
One could reasonably argue that in-person teaching qualifies as an ‘essential’ service, especially if we’re talking about younger children. Given that teachers were at no greater risk than the general population, the unions’ case against in-person teaching falls apart.
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Oh well, as long as he says sorry, that is all right; as long as you apologise, hurty speech is permitted.Perhaps he ought to make that clear to the Met.
I would consider an “apology” from the Khant as a downright insult. What an appalling stain on humanity and the world this creature is.
Off -T.
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/eco-terrorists-blight-on-the-countryside/
There is an eco nutter march in London coming up on Saturday 22nd June. I look forward to the Merry Met Mice bashing a few heads on the day.
Well, it’s something to look forward to.
I don’t think we need to keep saying ”two-tier policing” because the jury’s in, it’s an undeniable fact now. More footage than you can shake a stick at. But here’s a short clip highlighting the contrast nevertheless. Shall we see how many police horses we can count tomorrow, when the hate marches hit the streets again? St George’s flag-bad, Palestinian/Jihad flag-good. It’s just how it is;
https://twitter.com/dannyroscoe7/status/1783206781734564264
Thanks for the link Mogs
Someone mentioned the way to deal with Horses is marbles, this lady has some ideas:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNiP-AXMMdY&t=600s
They won’t bash their heads, they await the ‘Far Right’.
Muslim sounding name
it couldn’t sound any more Muslim 
+ Mehdi Hasan !! Dear me , have a listen to an old clip of him blarting over some thousand year old misdemeanour involving He who can’t be named 
So according to Khan’s way of thinking people only despise ULEZ because a Muslim implemented it.
An ‘apology’ – really?
Apologise?
Sad dick will win! London is not English anymore….leave!
Sadiq Khan is totally venerated!
London is lost, live with it!
Slimy little turd! Nothing more to add.