Gavin Mackintosh-
British prime minister, Boris Johnson, has emphasised his plans to stick to the planned March 8 opening date for schools in England, brushing aside pressure from his own MPs to speed up the process.
The Prime Minister said the proposed date was three weeks after the most vulnerable should have been vaccinated, and will for immunity to kick in.
Schools in the UK have been closed since January 4, with all academics moving online. Many pupils have predictably regressed academically, especially those who have no access to laptops to keep up with work assigned from their school.
The British PM said he “understands people want to go further” and get back to normal as quickly as possible – and insisted: “I share that urgency.”
He insisted schools cannot open schools too soon to avoid a huge risk the nation could be “forced into reverse” and would have to turn on the brakes once again.
The PM added: “This is the cautious approach, its much better to stick to that.”
The levels of infections were still “alarmingly high”, the PM insisted, and Professor Whitty warned the numbers were not likely to come down significantly for weeks to come.
Boris said March 8 would be the “earliest” the Government think any lockdown rules can be relaxed – as he said last week.
Hopeful
He added: “I am very hopeful we will be able to do that” and promised the Government would make judgments about the effectiveness of the vaccines in bringing down the death rates next week.
Professor Whitty said tonight that many of his medical colleagues “think we are passed the peak” now and cases and deaths will only go down.
But in Scotland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said schools will begin a phased reopening from February 22.
Elsewhere, the Welsh Government is due to make a decision by the end of the week on whether to reopen schools after the February half-term.
We think this is the prudent and cautious approach. I think it is much better to stick to that
“What we don’t want to do now that we are making progress with the vaccine rollout and we have got a timetable for the way ahead, we don’t want to be forced into reverse,” he said.
Chief medical officer for England Professor Chris Whitty said schools in England had been managing to “hold the line” and remain open up until the new, more transmissible variant of the virus hit.
“The rates are now coming down but they are still incredibly high,” he said.
“If we were to start take-off again from the very high levels we are at the moment, the NHS will get back into trouble extraordinarily fast.”
He said it was up to ministers to decide the opening dates for schools but that he was confident the risk to children of getting Covid-19 is “incredibly low”.
Earlier on Wednesday, former chief whip Mark Harper, chairman of the Covid Recovery Group, reiterated his call for the Government to ease lockdown restrictions as soon as possible.
Tory MP Mr Harper said in a statement: “The Prime Minister said last week that reopening schools was a ‘national priority’.
“Now that Scotland has indicated that schools are likely to return from February 22, there needs to be a very good reason for keeping English schools shut for so much longer.”
He urged the Government to start easing all restrictions from March 8, adding: “We’ve got to demonstrate to the public how the good news about the vaccination rollout translates into a return to normal life.”
Ms Sturgeon announced on Tuesday that schools in Scotland would begin a phased reopening from February 22, and said this date would be subject to final confirmation in two weeks’ time.
Phased Return
In Wales, a phased return to the classroom, starting with primary school children, could begin after the February half-term break if Covid-19 cases continue to fall in Wales.
Ms Morgan, minister for mental health, wellbeing and Welsh language, said: “We are absolutely determined to reopen schools as early as possible and that’s why there will be intensive discussions with unions this week to make sure that we can put all of the things in place so that we can ensure the safety, as far as possible, of the students and teachers.”
Ms Morgan told a Welsh Government briefing that First Minister Mark Drakeford has already said he wants to give parents, pupils and teaching staff two weeks’ notice before a phased return begins.
Parents have had the task of home schooling their children, with children from uneducated backgrounds suffering most