Quote:
Originally Posted by bitontheslide
the moment universities and schools went back we have been on a downward spiral ever since, and it is so obvious to everyone that they are the root cause of infections we have today and yet the whole of the UK is saying that education should not be interrupted .... it's madness, pure and simple
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It isn't "obvious" at all - it's certainly a valid hypothesis but cases tanked to almost nothing in the summer months and we've been on a downward spiral into winter since the end of summer - exactly in line with any other respiratory-spread virus. The simplest and most obvious explanation is that it started spreading again as soon as the weather shifted. They also reopened a tonne of other things (non-essential shopping, bars and pubs, sit-in dining) at around the same time the schools opened and again - a statistic I keep repeating - the trends in Scotland and England
have gone in tandem every step of the way despite Scottish schools opening almost a full month earlier. If the major factor was schools, the graphs would reflect that, with cases north of the border starting to increase a month earlier than South. But they don't, the graphs overlap, thus whatever the variable is that caused the second wave, it's something that occurred
at the same time in Scotland and England.
That is simple deductive logic.
I'm not saying that cases don't spread in schools or even really making a case for them not closing for lockdown... I am saying though that the idea that not opening the schools back in August/September would have stopped the second wave or really had much of an impact on case numbers at all is at best "dubious" and in my opinion "wishful-thinking nonsense".
"If only we had done this, if only we had done that, maybe if we do THIS or THAT now..."
.... no, it's a seasonal virus that upsurged in October/November. This is not a mystery.