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It’s now just over a week before we can all mix up our coronavirus Christmas bubbles.
People moving between levels, families huddled inside, the young embracing the old.
It is the perfect Petri dish for a virus that thrives on social contact.
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And the person most likely to bring COVID-19 at home it is not the student returning from college, but his younger brother who is still in school.
Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that roughly one in 50 high school students is infected, twice the rate of adults 25 and older.
And while the lockdown slowed the spread of the virus in older groups, it had little impact on the rates of children, who continued to attend school.
There seems to be little doubt that transmission occurs at school or later through social interaction.
It is worth saying that the rates in primary-age children are much lower. They seem less susceptible to the virus, although social distancing is much more difficult to impose on young children.
If they only passed the virus on to their mates, there would be few problems – they are highly unlikely to become seriously ill unless they have a serious underlying health condition.
But they do spread the virus inside the home, putting older members of the household, perhaps grandparents, at risk.
There is a broad consensus that the closure of schools in the first national closure caused enormous damage to the development and education of children. Some will never catch up.
Therefore, schools have become a priority this period, even if that has meant other parts of society and the economy are hit harder to try to balance the general spread of the virus.
The question is what to do now.
The government is deploying mass tests to schools in areas of London, Essex and Kent with high infection rates.
Testing reduces risk, but does not eliminate it. Liverpool’s experience is that they contract some, but not all, asymptomatic infections.
So while they can shut down some transmission routes if people isolate themselves, they can also provide false security to those mistakenly told they are negative.
The Mayor of London Sadiq khan – who has told Sky News that a decision on move London to Level 3 It could be done today – it has gone further, urging the capital’s schools to close early for Christmas to reduce the risk of transmission between children.
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Level 3 ‘possible’ for London today
That makes good scientific sense, and the government accepted the principle with university students.
They were told to go home in early December, after undergoing a COVID test, so they would have at least two weeks to isolate themselves before mingling with their extended family.
If schools stay open until the end of the week, children could be at their peak of infectivity just as the Christmas travel window opens.
Districts like Greenwich and Islington are moving online learning this week, and others are sure to follow.
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If children have access to computers, that seems like a good compromise between education and health.
The vaccine hasn’t come soon enough to protect older generations this Christmas.
But closing schools early could help.
