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The government is pushing plans for older elementary and middle school children to return to classrooms next week, despite requests for a delay following the discovery of the new variant of COVID.
Officials from Number 10 and the Department of Education were due to meet Monday to discuss the impact on schools following evidence that the new variant of the coronavirus is spreading faster than the original strain.
Millions more people in England entered Level 4 restrictions on Boxing Day after ministers acted to try to reduce infection rates, although schools may still remain open under the highest level of COVID measures.
Primary school students are among those who will return from January 4
There have been demands that the return of students after the Christmas break be delayed until the end of January, with scientists warning that just keeping schools and universities closed will reduce infection rates.
But Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove told Sky News that, for now, the government remained committed to its plan for students to return from January 4 on a staggered schedule.
“Our plan is for the primary schools to return, but with the secondary schools it will be the case that next week only the Year 11 and Year 13 children, those who are doing their GCSEs, their BTECs, their A-levels, will return, ” he said.
“And also the children of key workers and children who are vulnerable and need the support and care that schools can provide.
“Other high school kids won’t be back for a week.”
When asked if the government could be flexible in its plans for the return of schools, Gove reiterated the government’s plan to go ahead with the reopening of the schools starting next week with improved testing.
“We always keep things under review,” he said.
“But teachers and principals have worked incredibly hard over the Christmas period, since the schools were disbanded, in order to prepare for a new testing regimen – community testing to ensure that the children and all of us are safer.
“So we keep things under review, but that’s the plan.”
When asked if the government was still committed to conducting tests in England this summer, even though they were eliminated in Wales and Scotland, Gove said: “Yes, absolutely.”
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Dr. Bharat Pankhania believes more plans are needed to deal with schools and the spread of the coronavirus
A recent article on the new variant of COVID from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine warned that even action similar to the second national lockdown in November in England, in which schools remained open, is “unlikely” to reduce the infection rate to less than one “. unless elementary schools, high schools and universities are also closed.”
Without the R number falling below one, COVID infections will continue to increase.
Both London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Conservative mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey have called for schools to reopen later than planned in January.
Meanwhile, the Politico website reported that the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), led by Senior Scientific Advisor Sir Patrick Vallance, has urged ministers to keep high schools closed next month in a bid to curb the increase in infections.
And infectious disease expert Dr Bharat Pankhania, senior clinical professor at the University of Exeter, called on the government to draw up “contingency plans” in case the new variant of COVID is shown to be more infectious among groups younger age.
He said the issue was a “great concern”, adding: “If that is the case, we will find it when the schools open, we must have contingency plans now, in case this is true.
“This is how we are going to continue education remotely and keep kids safe and not increase the R number.”
The Labor Party called on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Sir Patrick and England’s Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty to appear at a press conference in Downing Street on Monday to address concerns about the return of schools.
Shadow education secretary Kate Green said: “The government is not honest with parents and students about the return of schools in January.
“Parents, students, and staff will be increasingly concerned about the drip transmission of media reports that scientists have warned of schools closing in January, but the prime minister has not been clear. about the advice you have received.
“Labor has made it clear that keeping students learning must be a national priority, but a litany of government failures, from a lack of funding for security measures to the delayed and chaotic announcement of massive tests, is putting the education of students at risk. Young”.
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Conservative MP Robert Halfon, chairman of the House of Commons education committee, has urged the government to do “everything possible to keep schools open.”
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he warned that “there is no panacea for educational deprivation,” adding: “Thanks to the genius of science, the march of new diseases like COVID can be stopped.
“But there will never be a vaccine against the lost opportunity and the ruined life chances of a generation.”
