Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The evidence on school re-openings is being ignored

Photo: Getty Images

One of the benefits of the UK exiting lockdown so slowly is supposedly that evidence from other countries can help mould our decisions. If liberalising parts of society in other countries doesn’t cause a Covid-19 flare-up, the UK can proceed with cautious optimism. If lockdown easing leads to a spike in infection rates, the UK can row back its plans before its too late, or put off making changes for a while longer.

Around 50 per cent of people polled oppose the partial re-opening

Based on this logic, the return of Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to school today should be warmly embraced, as reports from Denmark over the weekend (which reopened daycare and schools for kids aged two to 12 in mid-April) confirmed that doing so has not led to an increase in infections. Over a month’s worth of official data shows that sending kids back to school has not caused any kind of Covid spike.

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