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Schools may have to remain closed until ministers know exactly how children can transmit the coronavirus, said professor Chris Whitty.
England’s medical director said yesterday it was “very important” to decide whether the government will keep schools closed in the long term.
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In a Gresham College online conference yesterday, he said: “It is important that we do not know how much children contribute to transmitting the virus and this is very important, for example, in deciding whether school closings are a critical part of our response to long term “.
He said there was an “extremely difficult balancing act” to keep the pandemic under control at this time.
The Sun revealed this week that ministers are eager to get some schools back before the summer break.
Professor Whitty said knowing how easily or if children transmit the virus is one of the many unknowns that scientists face.
He warned that experts may not know more about the virus for years to come.
He also said: “We cannot guarantee when we will find the medicines or a vaccine … that means we can start to launch some of the most problematic social measures.”
Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said they will reopen as part of a “phased approach” and that younger children in reception may return first.
Professor Whitty’s comments come after a review of the evidence found that no child is known to have transmitted Covid-19 to an adult.
The researchers analyzed 78 studies from around the world, mainly from China, in a review compiled by the pediatric blog Don’t Forget the Bubbles in association with the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
They found that there has not been a single case of a child under the age of 10 transmitting the virus, including through contact tracing by the World Health Organization.
According to an IPSOS Mori survey, Britons are afraid to return to mass meetings, but are less cautious about reopening schools.
There was a uniform division of Britons who favored reopening or schools, compared to two-thirds fearful of attending sporting events or concerts.
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Swiss grandparents can now hug their grandchildren because the new findings found that “young children do not transmit the virus.”
Clinical investigator Alasdair Munro led the new study and concluded: “COVID-19 appears to affect children less frequently and less severely, including frequent asymptomatic or subclinical infection.”
The study used an example of a nine-year-old boy in the French Alps who tested positive for the virus and had symptoms.
But even after attending three schools, exposing 112 different people, the boy did not transmit COVID-19 to another person.
One of the heads of Public Health England also said that the children do not appear to transmit the virus.
Dr. Ebere Okereke, PHE’s global public health consultant, said earlier this week: “The evidence suggests that particularly younger children are less likely to be affected, less likely to have a serious infection, and from the point of view from the standpoint of public health control, the less likely they are transmitters. “
She said in a Royal Society of Medicine webinar: “At the moment, the evidence seems consistent across different populations that children appear to be protected and are not transmission vehicles that, from a public health point of view, it’s a very good thing. “
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