Look I am skeptical of the numbers the article cited as fairly small n and selection bias, but if one was to go by them working in a school LOWERS an adult’s risk compared adults who do not work in schools.
It may even be true as their jobs put them in less close adult to adult contact than other many adults face, and under strong mitigation behavior guidance. And IF a contributing reason for the lower rate of infection in children is more recent and frequent exposures to the other hCoVs, well like pediatricians, teachers are an adult group with such frequent and relatively recent exposures.
But what it most certainly does NOT support is that teachers and staffers go into work are at higher risk than other adults are.
Let’s look at it another way. Some crude rough math.
The average daily rate in the U.K. “between the end of August and mid-September” (roughly three weeks?) ranged from 16 to 53/m. Let’s pick a low middle number of 30. 30/m/d times 21d times .52 million total staff members = 328 expected confirmed cases among U.K. staff members in schools if they are at average risk for U.K. adults. Call that “between the end of August and mid-September” just two weeks and it’s down to 218. Total actually with confirmed infections was 128. A MUCH lower rate of confirmed infections among adults not working in schools. All the more shocking given that I would hope and expect that school staffers would be getting tested on lower suspicion than the average citizen and have fewer missed cases.
There is really no way to spin the numbers that article cited as other than reassuring for teachers that they are at fairly LOW risk compared to other adults. The fact that kids, even when likely being tested at the slightest sniffle or headache complaint, are much lower numbers, does not make their risk worse.