the decision by @GavinWilliamson to force schools in London to re-open last week is now looking unbelievably stupid

it’s one week since Gavin Williamson ordered schools in what are now Tier 4 to reopen against the advice of local public health https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55406939

interim REACT round 7 published on 30 November showed unexplained big spikes in secondary school age children in London and smaller but steady new growth in the South East and East of England (see last page of the report) https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/institute-of-global-health-innovation/imperial_react1_r7_interim.pdf

looks like the significance of this wasn’t appreciated and the final REACT report didn’t break down the data by region AND age for some reason, but even the national level data shows a gradual rise in school-age children whilst all other age groups drop https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/84879

there are also reasonable biological reasons to think the new virus’s ability to bind human ACE more effectively, and generate higher viral loads make it more adaptive to transmission in children, given they express less ACE in their respiratory tract than adults

it’s been only days since the national Schools Infection Survey reported that infection rates in schools mirror those in the rest of the community, but these results are now of historical interest only, the new virus likely behaves differently https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/covid19schoolsinfectionsurveyround1england/november2020

if schools have turbocharged this new outbreak and Gavin Williamson actively prevented the first people who spotted this from taking action, surely he has to go