Opening up all schools could risk a second spike in the coronavirus outbreak, the government has warned today.
Speaking at the daily Downing Street press briefing, first secretary of state Dominic Raab said the latest evidence was that there would be a “very real risk” that the transmission rate would increase.
His comments came on the day that union leaders representing almost 1 million teachers and education staff wrote to education ministers warning of the “very real risk of creating a spike in the transmission of the virus by a premature opening of schools”.
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Earlier in the briefing, the government’s deputy chief scientific adviser Professor Angela McLean warned of “uncertainties” in the data about how likely children were to transmit the virus.
Mr Raab was asked: “What do you think the prospect of schools reopening are given the profound uncertainties that Professor McLean talked about and the fact that Scotland seems to be pretty clear they’re not going to be opening their schools any time soon?”
He said: “The crucial bit for us is the five tests and the risk of a second spike in relation to any new changes that we would make and that must of course include schools, so one of the things we have done is we have asked SAGE [the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies] to look at different options.
“I don’t think it’s binary and the one thing I can say with confidence is that, at least to date, the evidence has been that we wouldn’t be able to open up all schools without a very real risk that the R-rate - so the transmission rate - would rise at such a level that we would risk a second spike.
“But we have asked SAGE for the options on this and we will as ever continue to be guided by the Scientific Advisory Group.”
Professor McLean was asked her views on scientific research published by the Scottish government today stating that, if schools go back in Scotland, hospitals could “be overwhelmed in less than two months” and possibly be up to seven times oversubscribed.
She said she didn’t know the study and that there were “some profound uncertainties” in the underlying data about how likely children are to catch the virus and how infectious they would be if they caught it.
She added: “One of the things everybody is very clear about is that is that whatever we change we will make absolutely sure that we are monitoring the situation so that we don’t get explosive outbreaks - whether those started in schools or in workplaces - so I don’t imagine any country in the UK having an outbreak that would overwhelm their health system seven-fold.”
She said the government was watching “very carefully” the situation in those countries that had reopened schools to “see what happens there”.
She said: “That is one of several things we are doing in order to make a decision based on as much science as we can find about what is likely to happen [when schools reopen].”
