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Kids face schools postcode lottery as some stay shut after lockdown under ‘regional approach’, medical chief warns
KIDS are set to be hit by a postcode lottery for schools reopening, the deputy chief medical officer admitted yesterday.
Dr Jenny Harries said schools look set to stay shut in some parts of the country even after lockdown 3 is lifted - as revealed in The Sun yesterday.
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Dr Harries refused to deny that schools will stay shut nationally until Easter, saying it is impossible to put a “fixed date” on the return.
Her comments pile yet more misery on kids and parents, who will be hit by a year of massively disrupted education and home-schooling.
It comes as the lockdown in Scotland was extended this afternoon, with kids to continue learning from home.
Dr Harries told the Education Select Committee: “I think it's likely that we will have some sort of regional separation of interventions.”
She added: “It is highly likely that when we come out of this national lockdown we will not have consistent patterns of infection in our communities across the country.
"And therefore, as we had prior to the national lockdown, it may well be possible that we need to have some differential application.”
Schools in London - which was hit first by the second wave but now is seeing infections and hospitalisations fall - could open first, she said.
In bombshell evidence to MPs, she also admitted that medics do not believe schools fuel Covid infection rates.
But she said ministers were left with no choice but to press the nuclear button and order the shutdown because “hospitals were becoming overwhelmed”.
She said: “Schoolchildren definitely can transmit infection in schools - they can transmit it in any environment.
“But it is not a significant driver as yet, as far as we can see, of large-scale community infections.”
Downing Street said Boris Johnson wanted schools to open ";as soon as possible".
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Johnson has previously stated "the priority is to get schools open as soon as possible, but whether that is after the half-term break depends on a number of things" including progress in the vaccination programme and the possibility of a new coronavirus variant emerging which resists the jab.
The spokesman said: "You have got the Prime Minister's desire and intention to try and open schools as soon as it is safe to do so and that remains our position."
It comes after fresh stats from the Department of Education showed the number of kids going to school during lockdown is five times higher than in the first shutdown.
In state primary schools, 21 per cent of kids were in classrooms - compared to four per cent in May last year.
Far fewer kids were going to state secondary schools, which had an attendance rate of five per cent last Wednesday - but that is up on one per cent in May 2020.
It comes amid concerns that attendance is not dropping enough as many 'key workers' are told to keep going into the workplace.
Boris Johnson has said reopening schools is his “number one priority” when lockdown can be eased.
But teachers and education bosses reckon the schools shutdown will drag on until at least Easter.
Dr Harries backed schools reopening ahead of all other parts of the economy and social life.
She said ministers are considering easing restrictions only very gradually, so the country is effectively returned to a November-style lockdown which would let schools reopen but keep everything else shut.
Professor Russell Viner, head of the Royal College of Paediatrics, warned the school shutdown is having a devastating impact on kids' lives.
Eating disorders and mental health problems are rocketing among school-aged kids, he warned.
He told MPs: "When we close schools we close their lives - not to benefit them but to benefit the rest of society.”
He added: “The most important thing we can do for our children is get schools reopened again.”
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Eating disorders and mental health problems are rocketing among school-aged kids, he warned.
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He told MPs: "When we close schools we close their lives - not to benefit them but to benefit the rest of society.”
He added: “The most important thing we can do for our children is get schools reopened again.”
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