Is ‘new’ Covid a greater threat to children?

THE mutated variant of Covid19 may have caused ‘explosive outbreaks’ in schools, MPs were warned yesterday.

Recent data showed a ‘statistically significant increased proportion of cases’ among the under-15s, a government adviser said – raising fears that the strain is spreading in classrooms.

The Department for Education wants most pupils to remain at home until January 11, in order to set up mass-testing in schools. Faceto-face learning will only resume on January 4 for those taking GCSEs and A-levels in the summer, the children of key workers and those in vulnerable situations.

Professor Neil Ferguson – who quit the Sage advisory panel after breaking lockdown rules to visit his lover, but remained on its subgroup Nervtag – told MPs on the Commons science and technology committee that structural changes

‘More susceptible’

in the virus could mean children are ‘more susceptible’ to it. He added there was still ‘very little’ definitive evidence – but cited ‘anecdotal reports that the last few weeks have seen more explosive school outbreaks in London and the South East of England’.

The professor also fears the strain is already present throughout Europe despite frantic attempts to contain it. More than 40 countries banned flights from the UK after the strain was found.

However, following more discoveries on the continent, Professor Ferguson told MPs: ‘The fact they have picked up ten cases... in a country as small as Denmark, with a relatively low infection rate would suggest... that this virus has been introduced into the great majority, if not all, of European countries at the current time.’