A. A leading social scientist said the new emphasis of Covid-19 has “changed the game” of getting children back to school.
Dr Zubaida Haque, former deputy director of the Runnymeade Trust’s race equality thinking group, told Good Morning Britain: “Children need to be in school but they must be in a safe school.”
“We now have a new variant and, just as vaccines are coming around the corner, this variant has changed the game; not only is it 70% more portable but, with children, it explains why disease rates were so high just before Christmas. “
“With children, we think (the new strain) is making them more contagious. Now, that’s a big problem because the schools of the toddlers are mixing factories – there are a lot of children in small buildings, in classes small. “
Dr Haque also accused the Government of failing to make schools safe despite a coronary virus condition.
“The key question is are schools safe enough right now? Has the Government made schools safer and, by making them safer, can we then keep schools open?”
“Right now we have an emergency situation – yesterday we had the highest number of daily Covid cases, more than 41,000 cases of coronavirus in this country.”
“Before Christmas Day we had more people in hospitals than at the peak in April this year, so we are in a state of emergency now. The government has delayed opening parliament because we are in a state of emergency but yesterday we had Michael Gove say ‘No, it’ s good, we will have schools open next week and we will have an amazing return ‘and, in fact, that is not appropriate, and it is not. that’s not safe. “