The statement by the 12 most senior medical officers – including Professor ChrisWhitty – is a major boost to Boris Johnson. He plans to fully reopen schools for the new academic year which begins next month. The Prime Minister has made the project “a national priority” and even returned early from his holiday last week to maintain the push to get children back into the classroom. He has even vowed to close down all other parts of the economy including pubs, shops and restaurants in localised lockdowns before contemplating shutting any schools again. While Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has backed the Prime Minister’s plan, teaching unions, some schools and Labour councils have been resisting reopening schools properly because of the risk of children and staff getting coronavirus.
In what amounts to an unofficial national risk assessment for the four nations of the UK, the senior doctors have stated that children face long-term harm if they continue to stay away from school.
In an interview to be broadcast today, Prof Whitty says: “What is important to lay out is the chances of children catching Covid and then getting long-term serious problems as a result of it, solely due to going to school, are incredibly small.They’re not zero but they’re incredibly small.
“The chances of many children being damaged by not going to school are incredibly clear and therefore the balance of risk is very strongly in favour of children going to school – because many more are likely to be harmed by not going than harmed by going, even during this pandemic.”
The assessment in the letter took into account British and international studies, and summaries of the scientific literature from Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), the DELVE Group of the Royal Society, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, and data from the Office for National Statistics.
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The chief medical officers also accepted that there are no risk-free solutions.
But they stated: “We are confident that multiple sources of evidence show that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues. School improves health, learning, socialisation and opportunities throughout the life course, including employment.
“It has not been possible to reduce societal inequalities through the provision of home-based education alone. School attendance is very important for children and young people.”
This follows the recent exam results debacle, where an algorithm used to assess potential grades appeared to downgrade children from poorer backgrounds much more than wealthier sections of society.
Earlier this month, Prof Whitty noted that the limits of the benefits of lockdown in controlling the spread of coronavirus compared to the harm done by the measures appeared to be close to being reached.
This came amid concerns about the economic impact of lockdown, with hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, a 20 per cent fall in GDP and Britain’s debt hitting the £2trillion mark.
But the effects on the nation’s children and teenagers in terms of their education and future job prospects have been deeply concerning Mr Johnson and his government, and fuelling their strong desire to reopen classrooms.
Prof Whitty and his colleagues have also made it clear they think the risk of the disease to young people and of them causing a spike in the rate of infection is low.
The letter noted: “We are confident that there is clear evidence of a very low rate of severe disease in children of primary and secondary school ages compared to adults, even if they catch Covid-19.
“The percentage of symptomatic cases requiring hospitalisation is estimated to be 0.1 per cent for children aged 0-9 and 0.3 per cent among those aged 10-19, compared to a hospitalisation rate of over four per cent for the general population. Most of these children make a rapid recovery.
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“We are confident that there is clear evidence that the great majority of children and teenagers who catch Covid-19 have mild symptoms or no symptoms at all.”
On the risk of children spreading the disease to their parents and grandparents, Prof Whitty said: “Obviously there is an increased risk if people are mixing and joining households together by whatever means and children may catch it in schools.
“But it looks as if, and the evidence here is weaker so we want to be clear about that, there is much less transmission from children to adults than from adults to adults. “But there obviously is a small risk that might happen but it is not probably going to substantially increase the risk for families directly from children catching it at school and passing it on.
“Now there are other ways that schools are connecting households together. Parents meeting at the school gate, for example, and the fact that people who have got schoolaged children, because their children are at school, they can then go to work and they will meet up with other people. The fact of schools being open will probably lead to some increase in transmission but much of that is indirect.”
He admitted that the evidence on spreading of the infection is less clear with teenagers and also agreed that it posed some risk to teachers. “As in all workplaces there is some risk of staff acquiring transmissions of Covid in schools.
“It now looks as if what happens is that staff spread it to other staff members. So it’s much like any other workplace.
“That re-emphasises the importance of maintaining social distancing, not only in the classroom but also in common rooms, the places people meet and other environments outside the classroom.”
However, he added: “There is no evidence we have seen that teachers are at higher risk than other working-age adults.” Asked whether there might be restrictions in society affecting people’s social lives in order to keep schools open, Prof Whitty said: “That is certainly possible. We are left with a large number of situations where we have to make difficult choices.”
He said that any restrictions would be tailored to the specific problems in each area. “If it is shops in a particular area we would need to look at shops, if it is hospitality, we would need to look at hospitality. “We’re trying to do things that keep transmission rates low, that also do the least social and economic damage.”
But Prof Whitty warned: “We’re going to have to do this through the winter, which is likely to be more difficult time to achieve it than now.”
