By Gabriel Princewill
Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson has debunked speculations in some segments of the British press that plans are on schedule to open primary schools, after various news outlets published anonymous sources in government, suggesting timetabled plans to re-open schools early in May.
Those claims now reflect badly on the publications who are left without evidence to substantiate the flawed presumptions that has already upset many teachers.The British government had consistently pointed to scientific evidence as the fundamental determinant of any shift in the current lockdown position, rendering all claims to the contrary unreliable. Both the anonymous ministers and the publications that openly courted their views should have been more judicious than to contradict the government’s stance openly without being absolutely sure.
Implicitly dispelling the erroneous speculations , the Education Secretary highlighted five stipulated requirements that must be fulfilled before the re-opening of schools. Williamson’s
Gary Williamson insisted there was no set date for the re-opening of schools as he laid down the imperatives which will determine the next step forward. Williamson highlighted the NHS’s ability to cope and be assured of its capacity to continue to provide critical care and specialist treatment right across the whole of the UK. He then said he needed to see the daily death rates from coronavirus coming down and additionally have ”reliable data that shows the rate of infection is decreasing to manageable levels.
A fourth criteria mentioned was the management of testing capacity of PPE in relation to supply to meet both present and future demand. He said this must be achieved prior to any re-opening of schools. The short supply of PPE has been a flashing point in the debate surrounding the apportioning of the limited supply of PPE equipment, one that has become quite poignant in light of the number of Nhs workers on the frontline who have lost their lives to Covid-19
Last but not least, he said the government would need to be confident that any changes we do make will not risk a second peak of infections. Projections of multiple peaks for the foreseeable future has been made by various experts, but are all conjectures at best, based on scientific understanding of how viruses normally respond to stimuli. This strain of the coronavirus is not fully understood, and expert opinion that it mutates makes future outcomes all the more difficult to accurately predict.
The summation of his speech is that a return to normality will hinge on an aggregation of all these factors, thereby ascribing an open level of transparency to the process.