How the UK suppressed data during the Delta wave while removing masks from schools

Downing Street "managed" PHE data

The UK's complacent approach to covid infections in children led the way for other countries to adopt similar policies. This was in part due to the influential role key paedatricians working with the UK government had on WHO advisory groups.

In 2021 the emergence of the Delta variant in India threatened to derail the UK's roadmap to normal. A roadmap with infection acquired immunity in younger age groups built into the strategy to reach herd immunity in time to prevent a lockdown during winter.

The government’s response to Delta was to supress data in order to remove masks in secondary school classrooms which had been introduced for the first time in February 2021 when students returned from lockdown.

On 10 May Boris Johnson confirmed face masks would no longer be required in secondary school classrooms in England after 17 May.

It was a controversial decision, the Delta variant had emerged in India where it was having a devastating impact while spreading across the globe. Delta proved to be the most pathogenic variant to achieve global dominance, bringing a sustained wave with considerable impact on health. In the US, despite having had months to roll out vaccination, Florida's Delta wave proved to be the state’s deadliest wave of the pandemic after the authors of the Great Barrington Declaration became Governor Ron DeSantis’ covid advisors.

Comments from a BBC article about the change.

Geoff Barton, leader of the ASCL head teachers' union, said of the announcement “any decision to this effect must follow the scientific advice, and it is very worrying that the government's decision appears to contradict the published evidence."

"We don't understand why the government is in such a rush over this issue," said Mr Barton.

"Parents, pupils and staff will want to understand why removing the requirement for face coverings in classrooms is considered appropriate when it is not for other enclosed spaces," said Paul Whiteman, leader of the National Association of Head Teachers.

John Simpson of Public Health England, said: "It's important to strike a balance between Covid-19 protection and student well-being" and that "scientific studies show that Covid-19 transmission in schools remains low".

England's Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said the latest steps meant people would be able to mix indoors again - and "in line with the latest data, we no longer need to recommend that face coverings are worn in the classroom.

In-between the announcement and the removal of masks from secondary school classrooms, the latest covid data drop due on 13 May, it wasn't released.

From Carole Cadwalladr in the Observer, published 22 May 2021

Downing Street leaned on Public Health England not to publish crucial data on the spread of the new Covid variant in schools, documents seen by the Observer have suggested. Scientists, union officials and teachers said that the lack of transparency was “deeply worrying”.

The focus of their anger concerns the pre-print of a PHE report that included a page of data on the spread of the India Covid-19 variant in schools. But when the report was published on Thursday 13 May, the page had been removed. It was the only one that had been removed from the pre-print. Days later, the government went ahead with its decision to remove the mandate on face coverings in English schools.

Evidence seen by the Observer suggests No 10 was directly involved in the decision not to publish it. The prime minister’s office acknowledged it was in correspondence with PHE officials about presentation of the data but vigorously denied this constituted “interference” or “pressure”.

Data on the spread of the new variant in schools has still not been published, despite calls from union officials and scientists who say teachers and families are being put at risk. In hotspots such as Bolton, cases involving the variant are rising fastest among school-age children.

Information seen by the Observer reveals that 164 cases of the new variant were linked to schools up to 12 May, or 12.5% of a total of 1,313 cases. Since then, the number of total cases of the new variant has increased to 3,424 cases, a rise of 162%. The number of cases now linked to schools is unknown.

On the morning of 22 May before the Cadwalladr piece was published a report on vaccines was leaked to the Financial Times.

This spread widely as a 'good news' story. It presented only aggregate results for efficacy - post-1 dose 33% (significant drop) & post-2 doses 81%, while this in itself was concerning, given 70% of the population had received 0 or 1 dose, the coverage was overwhelming positive

The Cadwalladr piece was then released, in the evening PHE published a report. Cadwalladr responded to the release, “Unbelievable. Public Health England has just dumped the very shocking data on spread of the Indian variant three days late on a Saturday night in the middle of Eurovision. And they *still* haven’t released schools data I reported on here. Wtf is going on??”

This wasn't the end of the story on 23 May Cadwalladr tweeted, “Look. There is something terribly wrong here.

The media received a press release on the ‘good news’ of vaccine embargoed until 10.30pm tonight. (Many experts think it is NOT good news).

At 10.30 tonight, PHE dumped the data it has been withholding since Thursday. Wtf??”

Epidemiologist Deepti Gurdasani said of the shenanigans the night before.

“Reports from PHE that many of us have been waiting on since Thursday (no reason given on website for delays) was released without notice late last night- with documents on variants along with the vaccine data that had been leaked.

In summary, 50% of all our sequences are B.1.617.2. It's been growing 2x faster than B117, and is likely dominant in many parts of England. And is 50% more likely to infect contacts.

- the data on vaccines also painted a less rosy picture than the reporting by FT appeared to suggest.

-disaggreated data suggested post-1 dose efficacy of ~33% for both vaccines & post-2 doses 60% for Astra and 80% for Pfizer.

-So ~17% drop post-1st dose & 6% post-2nd dose for sympomatic disease (similar for both vaccines)

- no data on efficacy for severe disease

-clear evidence of escape- as B.1.617.2 overrepresented among vaccinees (post 1 or 2 doses)

- no data by age group

Headlines today full of good news stories, while experts are seriously worried about what's happening. Only 30% of our population are fully vaccinated. We're being fed 'hopium' and spin while we are herded into yet another devastating wave

-So while SAGE, and several other experts have sounded the alarm, our media is not only full of stories that suggest that we're somehow at the end of this - there is no accountability for the way data release is being clearly controlled by govt- from public health bodies.

-why was PHE vaccine data leaked to the FT, rather than released publicly, where this could be adequately scrutinised by the public?

-why did no. 10 put pressure on PHE to not release school data (still not released yesterday!)?

-why did PHE bow to this pressure?

-why was a hugely important and concerning PHE report, that requires urgent action released late last night on a Saturday, without explanation (when it was due on Thursday?)

-I'm not aware that anyone, including journalists were given prior knowledge that this release was due.

All of this paints a fairly bleak picture for me. If our public health agencies are not independent, and data release (whether, when, how) is controlled by government, to rationalise certain policies or decisions - that is extremely serious!”

Government set the message and the press ran with it during Saturday, the narrative was set, but whats worrying is how most the media haven't changed course once the PHE report came out.

Headlines today (24 May) BBC and Royal family

"Vaccine just as effective against B1.617.2"

"Roadmap still on course"

Most don't mention missing school data, spread of B1.617.2 across the country, or that while 2 doses are good 1 requires more caution.

Another Guardian article on 23 May revealed the government had chosen not to act regarding at least one Delta hotspot, seemingly in order to allow the roadmap to proceed to the next step.

Early warning data in Bedford revealed a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases two weeks before the government acted on it, sources have claimed.

Tests of the town’s sewage – a potentially crucial early alert system – indicated Bedford had a rapidly escalating problem probably linked to the India variant, but no attempt was made by central government to intervene, the sources claim.

Public health officials in Bedford believe that the government chose, instead, to highlight rising cases linked to the India variant in the north-west of England to try to keep its roadmap out of lockdown on track.

By the time surge testing began in Bedford last week the town was recording the second-highest rate of Covid-19 in England, with cases doubling every five days.

Health secretary Matt Hancock confirmed last Tuesday Bedford was the “next biggest cause

of concern” after Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen in Lancashire. However, surge testing had started in Bolton 10 days earlier than in Bedfordshire’s county town, despite sources saying that government officials knew wastewater analysis at the time strongly suggested Bedford had a similar problem.

“Wastewater analysis certainly did show a problem two weeks before Hancock decided we were a priority. They were very slow to respond to Bedford’s situation at a government level,” said a source with knowledge of the situation.

On 10 June, the Byline Times revealed Number 10 was actively managing PHE's data releases.

Internal Government email correspondence seen exclusively by Byline Times suggests that Number 10 Downing Street, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and several other Government agencies are heavily involved in controlling the flow of information from Public Health England (PHE) to the public, despite the fact that PHE is supposed to be an independent agency.

On 6 June, the Joint Biosecurity Centre (JBC) received a request for data on behalf of Lord James Bethell, who has been a Health Minister at the DHSC since May 2020, for use in the House of Commons on Monday. Lord Bethell sought PHE data on the number of new variant cases, hospitalisations, vaccinations and other issues.

An email dated 7 June sent by the senior private secretary to the Director General of the JBC Claire Gardiner noted that “unfortunately this is PHE’s work/stats but in any case if we did have stats at our fingertips we wouldn’t update the briefing as they would need to have been already published.”

The civil servant went on to acknowledge the predominant role of Number 10’s in controlling PHE’s publication of data: “PHE operate a weekly publication schedule for these stats which is (euphemism intensifies) ‘very strongly managed’ by No. 10 owing to sensitivities around variant data – so ad hoc publications to support more data entering the public domain are very difficult to come by.”

A DHSC official, who spoke to Byline Times on the condition of anonymity, said that the email from the JBC, which was circulated to several DHSC officials and was eventually also sent to PHE, revealed how: “No. 10, the JBC and DHSC all seem to speak openly and brazenly about their suppression of PHE information. It meant that they are making fun out of the fact that PHE aren’t even allowed to manage their own data. But PHE is an independent agency. Prior to all this, there was no issue regarding publication of data which was entirely up to them, they could publish what they wanted.”

According to the DHSC official, the email is reflective of the fact that PHE is no longer functioning as an independent scientific agency. “In order of priority, this is who really has control of PHE and especially its publication of data: No. 10, Dr Jenny Harries, then Matt Hancock,” they said.

During 2020 the government was accused of following dates not data in regards to the roadmap out of lockdown, in 2021 the government appears to have managed the publically available data to fit the dates. Considering the bulk of the UK's media had been privately lobbying Johnson to remove measures, many outlets weren't worried about informing the public that data was being suppressed, and that the data released didn't support government decisions.

The UK's more relaxed attitude to transmission in children was used to support the removal of measures in other countries.

New York Times ran a piece in October 2021, “In Britain, Young Children Don’t Wear Masks in School. During the Delta surge, British schools emphasized other safety measures: quarantining and regular testing for the virus.”

“The U.K. has always, from the beginning, emphasized they do not see a place for face coverings for children if it’s avoidable,” said Dr. Shamez Ladhani, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at St. George’s Hospital in London and an author of several government studies on the virus and schools.

The potential harms exceed the potential benefits, he said, because seeing faces is “important for the social development and interaction between people.”

(Ladhani went on to co-author papers with Trump appointee Tracy Hoeg that claimed there was no evidence to support masks in school.)

The British school system is different than the American one. But with school systems all over the United States debating whether to require masking, Britain’s experience during the Delta surge does show what happened in a country that relied on another safety measure — quarantining — rather than face coverings for young children.

The Delta variant tested the guidelines. Starting in June, case numbers quickly increased before peaking in mid-July, which roughly mirrors the last few months of the school calendar. For the 13 million people in England under the age of 20, daily virus cases rose from about 600 in mid-May to 12,000 in mid-July, according to government data. Test positivity rates were highest among children and young adults — ages 5 to 24 — but they were also the least likely to be vaccinated.

It is difficult to pinpoint exactly how much spread occurred on campuses. But throughout the pandemic, government studies showed that infection rates in schools did not exceed those in the community at large, Dr. Ladhani said. In schools that experienced multiple virus cases, he added, there were often “multiple introductions” — meaning that infections were likely acquired outside the building.

(Ladhani is referring to the Schools Infection Survey which he led. The survey tested students in schools on a particular day and compared infection rates to the community rate, but it didn't count students from those schools who were already isolating due to having tested positive.)

The American conversation on masks is “so polarized,” said Alasdair Munro, a pediatric infectious-disease researcher at the University Hospital Southampton. “It seems to either be viewed as an essential, nonnegotiable imperative or a very harmful infringement upon individual liberty.”

Munro's comments to the New York Times comes across as taking the sensible middle ground, however his attitude towards those urging more caution was polarising, to the point where he was forced to make an apology in the BMJ.

The reality was that schools struggled through the summer term, partial closures with one or more year groups staying at home were a common occurrence for most schools. School leaders were constantly struggling to keep schools open due to staffing numbers, supply agencies ran out of cover teachers due to increased demand and those at higher risk declining to work in unsafe conditions.

At risk households were left to decide which was the lesser of two evils, increasing risk or keeping their children out of school.

Long covid cases also rose considerably amongst children and education workers, and unfortunately but predictably there were deaths. Grim statistics that could have been reduced by maintaining measures and waiting until the whole school population was fully vaccinated.

With masks removed after having only been in place for roughly forty school days, the pressure increased for the removal of testing and isolation.

If half the media time devoted to opposing masks had been spent on calling for cleaner air in schools then considerable harm over time could have been prevented.