We ask: should our schools re-open during covid peak?
The government has stated that schools will be returning next month, with primary schools and secondary school exam years to go back on January 4 and other secondary pupils to return on January 11. As ever, the plan may change but the decision is causing controversy.
On the one hand, taking young people out of school and teaching online could be hugely damaging to not only their intellectual development, but also their mental health. Being cooped up in a bedroom is not an ideal environment to learn and study.
Moreover, for those with fragile relationships with their parents, the situation is delicate.
However, if the worsening pandemic means families cannot see each other, how does it make sense to allow hundreds of children and teachers to mix at a school? Put simply, it doesn’t.
But a disturbed education could lead to stunted emotional development, with a whole generation of children being denied challenges and settings which teach them vital life experience.
Dr Stefan Flasche, an associate professor at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, suggested secondary school-age children are a source of community transmission, with recent estimates from the Office for National Statistics highlighting the prevalence of infection with Sars-CoV-2 – the virus that causes Covid-19 – is highest among that age group.
If this new Covid variant is more transmissible than before, how do we expect to get the infections down if large numbers of students gather in a classroom or assembly hall?
We have surpassed the April peak of Covid cases and at that point, schools were closed.
Mass testing in schools is fine in theory, but the logistics of it have clearly not been thought out. Where would teachers or pupils find the resources, time and manpower to conduct it?
The government has to find the lesser of two evils with this dilemma. The clock is ticking, with less than a week to go before a scheduled return to school. But I fear this is a lose-lose situation for Whitehall.