A short on school-age cases.
Firstly to say testing has changed dramatically over the last 6 weeks.
Lateral flow tests shot up prior to the return to schools stayed level for a while and then dropped a little before Easter and have risen since.
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Cases (per 100k) in the under 20s saw big rises upon the return to school in all regions. In fact some cases seemed to stop falling before schools went back consistent with lateral flow tests catching more cases as testing ramped up before the return.
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Drilling down further, roughly the same trend appears in 5-9s, 10-14s and 15-19s.
It wasn't seen in preschool children, but since January they had been attending nursery/pre-school as normal.
So how much of the rise in cases was a result of testing?
Definitely some of it, but...

The rises in positivity in the ONS survey (which uses randomised testing, so takes increases in LFDs out of the equation) illustrate that rises in school age children were genuine and not just a function of testing.
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Rises in school age children didn't cause rises in parental-age adults (20-59) although cases did seem to flatten off somewhat over the period when schools returned and then fall again during Easter. Whether as a result of more testing or a genuine levelling off is hard to say...

But it doesn't seem to be there in quite the same way in the ONS positivity rates.
Levelling off is perhaps most evident in 35s-49s the bracket into which the majority of parents of school age children will fall.
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The good news is that, as more adults get vaccinated the less likely we are to see rises in cases in these cohorts even while schools are back.
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Overall its clear that the return to school had an impact on case numbers and positivity in school age children. Fortunately we had Easter as a handy fire-break 3 weeks in.
We'll keep an eye on what's happening over this next 6 week term.
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