‘Schools will be the very first places to reopen’
PRIME MINISTER IN PLEDGE TO PRIORITISE KIDS’ EDUCATION
PRIME Minister Boris Johnson has promised that schools will be the “very first” places to reopen, but it may not happen after the February half term.
Speaking in the House of Commons yesterday, Mr Johnson said although the government’s plan is to reopen primary and secondary schools after the half term break, he needs to be “extremely cautious” about reopenings.
If infection rates continue to rise, schools could stay closed, even after the half term break.
He said: “Schools were the very last thing to close as I’ve long promised that they would be and when we begin to move out of lockdown I promise that they will be the very first things to reopen.
“That moment may come after the February half-term although we should remain extremely cautious about the timetable ahead and as was the case last spring our emergence from the lockdown cocoon will not be a big bang but a gradual unwrapping.”
It came as he warned that lockdown 3 could stretch until the end of March, having said in a televised address on Monday that lockdown would end mid-february.
He said he needs to allow a “steady and slow” release from lockdown, which is why new leglislation runs until March 31. He said lockdown will be taken apart “brick by brick”, with a return to the tier system, and with not everything reopening at once.
Mr Johnson told the Commons that there was a “fundamental difference” in this lockdown though, because the hope of the vaccine rollout is on the horizon, which was “our means of escape.”
The Prime Minister also took the opportunity to defend his U-turn on closing schools, after schools reopened in some parts of the country on Monday, before he ordered them to close in his announcement later that evening.
“We’ve been doing everything in our power to keep them open,” he said.
“Because children’s education is too vital and their future’s too precious to be disrupted until every other option has been closed off.”
The PM insisted “for most children the most dangerous part of going to school, even in the midst of a global pandemic, remains I’m afraid crossing the road in order to get there.”
But he admitted schools are a “vector” to spread Covid to others in the community.
The new lockdown will be enforced through a new law called the Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (No. 3) and (All Tiers) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2021.
Legally speaking, the law puts all of England into Tier 4 and tightens up the rules for that Tier 4 - with police able to issue £200 fines. People must stay at home and may only leave if they have a “reasonable excuse” to do so.