If coronavirus leads to mass school closures in Scotland, it may not result in a uniform approach.
Different parts of the country could be advised to take different measures, first minister Nicola Sturgeon said today.
At the same briefing, Scotland’s chief medical officer, Catherine Calderwood, said that school closures would have to last at least three months to be effective.
Coronavirus: 5 handwashing tips for younger children
Coronavirus: 8 tips from closed international schools
Coronavirus: 5 lessons from a school in lockdown
Ms Sturgeon and Dr Calderwood once again stressed that there is no immediate plan to close all schools in Scotland.
Tes Scotland asked if the choice facing them was a binary one to close all schools or keep them open, or whether there might be other ways, such as the idea of keeping schools open with a skeleton staff so that certain groups - such as senior students preparing for exams or children of healthcare professionals - could still attend.
In response, Ms Sturgeon said: “These are things that are absolutely under consideration if we get into the realms of a more blanket approach to school closures.
“So you’re absolutely right, it is not necessarily a binary choice.”
She added that “it could be a situation where there’s a different approach in different parts of the country, if our monitoring tells us that that is necessary”.
Ms Sturgeon said there were already “ad hoc closures” of schools in Scotland and that “we are not ruling out a blanket approach to this at a later stage, if that is advised as something that would be effective”.
She pointed to Shetland, where most schools are closed this week, which is ensuring “there are arrangements in place to try to look after children of key workers”.
Ms Sturgeon added that “all of these things are under discussion with [local authorities body] Cosla and education authorities”.
She also stressed that “if we are taking a step like closing schools, we will seek to give people as much advance notice as possible”.
Dr Calderwood said there were several reasons “why the decisions about schools are so difficult”.
She said: “First of all, we think, from data that we have from other countries, that, actually, children are not very severely affected. So, if we’re talking about reducing the pressures on our NHS, actually children having this virus - they’re not going to be hospitalised in big numbers.
“Secondly, if you’re going to introduce these types of measures - as the science would help us understand - you need to do that for very many weeks to months, so a minimum of three months in order to really suppress the spread of the virus, in these types of institutions.
“The thought that children will not mix together for three months is impossible, I would have thought, if you, like me, have a 13-year-old.
“And we therefore risk having children congregating in other areas together, the virus is spread among them - so you actually have measures which are ineffective in keeping the virus from those groups of children.”
Another “very important issue” was childcare, said Dr Calderwood, with “very significant numbers” of “key workers who are keeping the country running” having to look after their children, which entailed “not just healthcare workers” but also, for example, “police [and] the people who run the nuclear industry”.
Dr Calderwood added that, in reference to talk of closing schools for about two weeks, it was “very clear from the science that that is not a scientific way to either prevent the spread of this virus nor indeed to protect vulnerable people”.
