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The angry opposition, the indecisive chief scientific adviser, the education minister busy with a mishap in awarding grades, and the prime minister on vacation: It was a turbulent week in Britain, filled with accusations and political turns.
A few days before schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland fully reopened for the first time since the start of the crown crisis, it was unclear how things would turn out for the nearly nine million students at the start of the week. .
“I want to see the children back in school and I hope the Prime Minister keeps this promise,” Labor leader Keir Starmer told Boris Johnson angrily recently. However, “after weeks of chaos, confusion and incompetence on the part of the government,” he sees this target “in grave danger.”
So far, not all schools are open, participation in classes is not mandatory, and only about 18 percent of students show up in person. Fear of infection and the spread of the virus divides parents into almost equally large camps of supporters and opponents of compulsory attendance. The lack of clear safety guidelines contributed significantly to the uncertainty.
Education Minister Gavin Williamson, who is actually responsible for the matter, recently had to grapple with a technical issue over incorrectly calculated final grades, causing many Britons to question his competence. The question of starting school temporarily fell into the background.
Now the prime minister has made the decision a top priority to restore the population’s confidence in the government, because that suffers considerably in light of the diffuse crown measures.
A few hours after top health officials read a joint statement last Sunday, Johnson confirmed the future course: It is far more dangerous than the virus for students to stay away from class for longer. “It is vital that our children go back to school so they can study and be with their friends,” Johnson said.
The course seems to be set shortly before the first gong, but what about implementation? The directors’ association recently criticized unclear government guidelines. Many decisions were left to the directors, which in the worst case would result in weekly planning.
Professor Mattew Snape, a professor of pediatric medicine and vaccination at the University of Oxford, knows what the risk is to students and called for the avoidance course to be ended before the government relented.
SPIEGEL: Professor Snape, in the UK, politics is debating whether and how schools should open after the summer break. Restaurants and shops have reopened a long time ago. How does that fit in?
Snape: I think it can’t go on like this. Children and adolescents rarely contract Covid-19, but suffer disproportionately from the measures, especially when it comes to their education. Before the summer holidays, 18-year-olds could go to a pub, but not to school. That’s absurd.
SPIEGEL: Is it the fault of schools that are closed too long or pubs and shops that were allowed to reopen too early?
Snape: As for the proper balance, arguably there is no perfect answer. But we know for sure that adults are more symptomatic than children.
SPIEGEL: According to their study, children are significantly less affected than the rest of the population.
Snape: We investigated the percentage of children who have or have had a Covid 19 infection. In June and July it was a maximum of four percent in all cohorts up to 14 years, that is, almost as much as other studies found in the general population. However, children are much less likely to show devastating symptoms. A study by Public Health England had previously shown that only one percent of people with symptoms are children; the results are mutually supportive.
SPIEGEL: But even if the virus does not usually pose a threat to children, they could spread to each other and to teachers, infiltrating new homes. What do we know about it?
Snape: Sweden’s comments are interesting in this regard. One of the crucial questions is whether schools will become hotspots for the spread of the virus. We have to look at the infection figures among teachers and monitor them carefully. According to a Swedish study, their infection rates are not higher than in other occupational groups. I find it a really useful find.
I want to see students in Scottish schools again – Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon
Photo: ANDY BUCHANAN / AFP
SPIEGEL: The summer holidays are over in Scotland and Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon hopes that all students will be back in school. The safety concept does not provide for face masks for students, but it does provide distance from teachers and other adults. It’s enough?
Snape: It would be unrealistic to expect elementary school students to keep their distance and wear masks. I don’t think that works. In secondary schools, on the other hand, we have to continually look at what is required and what is possible.
SPIEGEL: Especially since their study found significantly higher infection rates among teens 15 and older.
Snape: Yes, a higher proportion of them were infected than children. Among young people aged 20 to 24, the proportion was already over 16 percent, although we are still awaiting more accurate statistical confirmation. This age group does not seem to take the rules of distance so strictly and could be responsible for a large proportion of the spread of the virus.
SPIEGEL: They consider that the risks of opening schools are manageable. What is important?
Snape: I think contact tracing will play a very important role in understanding how infections reach a home. About the children, about the school? Or from the adults, from their work? So far, it appears that the majority of adults are the ones who transmit the virus and only 10 percent comes from children. But studies suggest that they were conducted under great stress during the first wave. Now, with better planning, we can get more information.
SPIEGEL: “Test, track and trace” was the strategy of the British government, that is, test, track and trace corona infections. However, the application developed for this does not work and there were always bottlenecks in testing.
Snape: So far it has been the case that employees of the health services reconstruct the chains of contagion and telephone those affected. There has been talk of routine testing in schools, but complexity and cost seem to be the problem.
SPIEGEL: What other challenges are there?
Snape: The real test for managing a pandemic is imminent in the fall, when it is colder and again there is more activity in closed rooms. It will be a much bigger challenge than the summer situation.
