Parents won’t be forced to send their children back to school
PARENTS who refuse to send their children back to school are unlikely to face fines.
First Minister Mark Drakeford said he was “not attracted” to compelling parents to send their kids to schools once coronavirus lockdowns are lifted in Wales.
Speaking at yesterday’s government daily press conference, he said: “I am not attracted to the idea of compulsion, we will move by persuasion. We will succeed in bringing parents and children along with us.”
And Mr Drakeford said that schools would only reopen when it was deemed safe, adding this was not imminent.
He said: “We will not be reopening schools until we are satisfied we can protect your child’s health and well-being.
“It will be done in a careful and measured way with safeguards built into the system.”
Over the weekend, the Welsh Government said even when it was decided schools could be reopened, it would take around three weeks before they would be ready to receive students.
During the press conference, Mr Drakeford said the lockdown had helped move Wales “past the peak” of the virus, with the number of people with coronavirus reducing consistently.
The daily number of confirmed cases by Public Health Wales is now consistently fewer than 200, while the number of people in hospital with Covid-19 has fallen from 1,300 on April 23 to just over 1,000 on Sunday.
The restrictions currently in place on people’s movements will be reviewed at the end of this week, and Mr Drakeford said he believed any changes should be made across the UK.
And he added that in some ways Wales was already in a “better position” compared with other parts of the UK because rules requiring firms to allow two metres between employees had already been introduced.
On whether face coverings will be recommended in public, the First Minister said the chief medical officer for Wales Frank Atherton was going to “formalise his advice”. “What we are talking about are not masks of the sort that are worn in hospital,” Mr Drakeford said.