Blanket reopening of schools next month would be ‘far too risky’, says Dominic Raab as he warns over second wave of the coronavirus

• Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said reopening schools would risk another peak
• He outlined the government’s phased approach to opening UK schools again
• It came after Nicola Sturgeon said Scottish schools wouldn’t open anytime soon
• Here’s how to help people impacted by Covid-19

A blanket reopening of schools next month would risk a deadly second wave of coronavirus, Dominic Raab warned last night.

The Foreign Secretary dashed hopes of a widespread return after half-term, warning that it was too soon to even consider the move.

Speaking at the daily No 10 press briefing, Mr Raab said evidence from scientists indicated that opening all schools would lead to a ‘very real risk’ of a steep rise in transmission rates. 

Pictured: foreign secretary Dominic Raab arriving at last night’s press conference where he warned the UK against opening schools

The warning came just hours after Nicola Sturgeon said schools north of the border were unlikely to reopen in the foreseeable future.

Scotland’s First Minister said reopening now would ‘most likely’ see hospitals north of the border ‘overwhelmed’ with coronavirus cases within two months. She warned it ‘might not be possible at all ahead of the summer holidays’. Education Secretary Gavin Williamson told MPs there would be a ‘phased approach’ to reopening.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said schools north of the border were unlikely to reopen in the foreseeable future

Welsh schools could reopen at the start of June, First Minister says

Schools in Wales could be allowed to reopen their doors next month in a phased approach, the first minister has said.

Mark Drakeford said the earliest point schools could resume would be the beginning of June, with a minimum of three weeks needed to prepare from the time it was decided it is safe for pupils and teachers. 

Some groups could return earlier than others, he said, using examples of year-six children who are due to move up to secondary school, and Welsh medium pupils who may not have had opportunities to use the language at home during lockdown. 

Mr Drakeford also said work was under way to make sure social distancing guidance was followed and to persuade parents, teachers and pupils that the school environment was safe, saying ‘you certainly can’t have schools reopen as they did before’. 

He said: ‘We will take a phased approach in terms of reopening schools and we will always aim to give schools, parents and, of course, critically importantly, children the maximum notice in terms of when this is going to happen.’

Mr Raab said that it would not be a ‘binary’ situation where schools were either fully open or fully shut.

He added: ‘At least to date the evidence has been that we wouldn’t be able to open up all schools without a very real risk that the R rate – the transmission rate – would rise at such a level that we would risk a second spike.’

He said he had asked the Government’s scientific advisers for the best options and would be guided by them.

Sources last night said ministers were still hopeful that some children could go back to school after half-term at the beginning of next month. However, they have ruled out making any return compulsory.

Sources told the Mail parents would not face fines if they refuse to send children back. 

What are schools across Europe doing?

In April, France revealed plans to begin easing its coronavirus lockdown and begin opening schools from May 11

France, education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer said pupils would return gradually over a three-week period starting from that date 

Under the new plans, classroom will have a maximum of around 15 children per class

Meanwhile children in the Netherlands will also start to return on a ‘part-time’ basis from May 11

In Germany, authorities have prioritised older children who are preparing for summer exams, with students seen returning to schools in Berlin and the eastern state of Saxony last month 

Other states in Germany will delay the resumption of teaching until May 4

Austria is planning to resume teaching for school leavers in early May and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said other children would start returning to classrooms in a step-by-step process beginning on May 15 

In Norway, the youngest children have started returning to pre-schools  

Meanwhile Spain has yet to authorise a return to schools

Road map for exiting coronavirus lockdown 

A leaked draft has revealed more details of the shape of the next phase of coronavirus curbs – due to be unveiled by Boris Johnson on Sunday. 

Key points include: 

• Flexibility around the two metre ‘social distancing’ rule as long as firms are taking other steps to protect workers.
• Installing screens, strict hygiene procedures, and ensuring people are not close together very long are touted as alternative safeguards. 
• Offices will be ordered to overhaul their rotas, staggering start, finish and break times.
• Hot desking will need to end and sharing equipment kept to an absolute minimum. 
• Staff considered vulnerable who cannot work from home should be put in the ‘safest possible roles’. 

Any return is likely to involve only some year groups going back to school at first to allow for greater social distancing in the classroom. Under normal circumstances schooling is compulsory, with parents facing £60 fines if they fail to send their children to school without good reason. Fines double to £120 if not paid within 21 days, and parents can face prosecution if they refuse to pay after 28 days.

Teaching unions have asked for guarantees that fines will be suspended during any back-to-school transition, when many children will still be told to stay at home.

Teachers yesterday warned they ‘must not be used as an experiment’, amid fears that resistance to returning to classrooms could render the reopening of schools impossible.

Yesterday, ten teaching unions in the UK and Republic of Ireland warned ‘of a very real risk of creating a spike in the transmission of the virus by a premature opening of schools’.

 In a letter to education ministers, they urged ‘significant caution in any consideration of reopening schools’.

The unions also say that without established ‘test trace and isolate’ capacity, schools restarting would ‘be catastrophic to the rate of infection’.

Experts in infectious diseases urge government to allow children to go back to school because they have less chance of catching coronavirus and are not ‘super spreaders’

Two experts in infectious diseases in children have called on the Government to allow children to go back to school.

Dr Alasdair Munro and Professor Saul Faust say it is time for classes to re-open as evidence from around the world shows that children have less chance of catching Covid-19 and are not ‘super-spreaders’ of the virus.

In an article published by BMJ Journals online, the pair point out that not only are children less likely than adults to catch Covid-19, they are less likely to spread it.

They quote the results of widespread testing in Iceland and South Korea which showed that children were ‘significantly underrepresented’.

And testing of 86 per cent of the population of the town of Vo, Italy, showed no children under 10 were found to be positive compared with 2.6 per cent of the general population and despite a number of children living with adults who had Covid-19.

Their article points out that other studies have shown that children have not been responsible for spreading the virus.

They quote a cluster in the French Alps which included a child with Covid-19 ‘who failed to transmit it to any other person, despite exposure to more than 100 children in different schools and a ski resort’.

And in New South Wales, Australia, none of 735 students and 128 staff contracted Covid-19 from nine child and nine adult initial school cases despite close contact.

The pair say that analysis of school closures has shown it to be ‘ineffective’ in reducing the spread of the virus and they add: ‘Governments worldwide should allow all children back to school regardless of comorbidities.

‘The media highlight of a possible rare new Kawasaki-like vasculitis that may or may not be due to Sars-CoV2 does not change the fact that severe Covid-19 is as rare as many other serious infection syndromes in children that do not cause schools to be closed.’

Prof Faust, a professor of paediatric immunology and immunology in Southampton, said: ‘The information and evidence about Covid-19 transmission is telling us that the risk to children and the public of reopening the schools is low – but this needs to be done carefully with full surveillance to make sure the transmission stays low.

‘If schools re-open, schools and public health agencies should be considering strict checks on temperatures and symptoms for everyone at the start and end of each day, and in some schools and areas detailed ‘track and trace’ contact tracing should be carried out.’

Dr Munro, a specialist in paediatric infectious diseases at Southampton Children’s Hospital and a clinical research fellow at the NIHR Clinical Research Facility at University Hospital Southampton (UHS) said: ‘Even since submission of this article, four further pieces of research have been published which have confirmed children acquire the infection less easily than adults, including the major international journals Science and in Clinical Infectious Diseases.’

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