Second wave warning over schools opening

Programme must improve to allow schools to reopen or UK risks drastic spread of virus, researchers warn

Reopening schools without an improvement in “test and trace” could cause a second wave more than twice the size of Britain’s first Covid-19 peak, a Lancet study suggests. Researchers said that pubs may have to be closed, or millions of people urged to work from home, if significant progress is not made tracking the spread of the virus in the next month. The study found that if test and trace was more successful then the spread of disease could be held in check.

REOPENING schools without an improvement in “test and trace” could cause a second wave more than twice the size of Britain’s first Covid-19 peak, a Lancet study suggests. Researchers said that pubs may have to be closed, or millions of people urged to work from home, if significant progress is not made tracking the spread of the virus in the next month.

The study, by University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, simulated how the disease might spread when schools open in September. It found that if test and trace was more successful – so that 68 per cent of contacts of positive cases were traced – then the spread of disease could be held in check. Currently, just 50 per cent of contacts of positive cases were reached, researchers warned. One in seven infections in the country were being detected by the programme, compared with surveillance sampling. Without improvements, the opening of schools, and associated changes – such as the return of parents to work – could result in a second wave this winter two to 2.3 times the size of the original wave, researchers said.

On Friday the chief medical officer said that Britain had “probably reached the limit of opening up society” and would need to make “difficult tradeoffs” to allow schools to open on Sept 1.

Experts have warned that this could mean pubs closed, or orders instructing households not to mix, either on a national basis, or in areas seeing surges.

The study authors said it was “absolutely essential” that such measures were introduced, if major improvements are not seen in the effectiveness of test and trace.

Dr Jasmina Panovska-griffiths, the lead researcher, from the Institute of

Epidemiology and Health Care, UCL, said: “Our modelling suggests that with a highly effective test-and-trace strategy across the UK, it is possible for schools to reopen safely in September.

“However, without sufficient coverage of a test-trace-isolate strategy the UK risks a serious second epidemic peak, either in December or February.”

Researchers stressed that the modelling, published in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, was based on a number of assumptions – including the return of around 70 per cent of workers when schools return. Much of the increases in infections modelled were linked to these changes, rather than transmission within schools, they said.

A Government spokesman said: “We have rapidly built, from scratch, the largest diagnostic testing industry in British history.

“Plans have been put in place to ensure schools can reopen safely. Local health officials, using the latest data, will able to determine the best action to take to help curb the spread of the virus should there be a rise in cases.”