From the National Education Union
Four
prominent members of the Government’s own scientific advisory body have broken
ranks to express worries about the safety of wider primary school opening on
Monday.
SAGE members Professor Peter Horby, who is chair of the
Government's New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group
(NERVTAG); Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Institute; John Edmunds,
professor of infectious disease modelling at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine and Calum Semple, professor in Child Health and Outbreak
Medicine have all expressed fears about the easing of lockdown.
On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Professor Horby agreed with
Professors Edmunds' and Farrar’s concerns, saying that SAGE has always been
very clear that test, trace, isolate must be fully running BEFORE lockdown is relaxed. The system needs
to be tracking most new cases, he said, following them up within 48 hours.
Professor Horby added that SAGE does not have a good handle on
the role of children and schools in transmission and stated that returning to
another lockdown would be much worse than delaying another two or three weeks
until contact tracing is fully up and running.
Professor Edmunds said “There are still 8,000 new infections
every day in England without counting those in hospitals and care homes… If you
look at it internationally, it’s a very high level of incidence.
“I think many of us would prefer to see the incidence driven
down to lower levels because that then means that we have fewer cases occurring
before we relax the measures.”
Professor Farrar tweeted: “Covid-19 spreading too fast to lift
lockdown in England. TTI [test, trace and isolate] has to be in place, fully
working, capable [of dealing with] any surge immediately.”
Professor Semple said: “Essentially, we’re lifting the lid on a
boiling pan and it’s just going to bubble over… We need to get it down to
simmer before we take the lid off, and it’s too early.”
He also said that levels of transmission and hospital admissions
are still too high. "I think a political decision has been made to tie in
with when school was due to start, were everything normal, but it’s not
normal."
National Education Union joint general secretaries Kevin
Courtney and Mary Bousted said: “This public break by four prominent of the
Government’s SAGE committee changes everything.
“No-one can now confidently assert that it is safe to open
schools more widely from Monday.
“All four of these members of SAGE agree that there must a lower
number of cases and an efficient system of contact tracing working before there
is a relaxation of lockdown measures. Both these measures are included in the
NEU’s Five Tests.
“Opening schools more widely runs the risk of increasing the R
rate and therefore the level of risk to staff and to parents.
“That risk can only be mitigated if contact tracing is running
successfully.
“We have made that case strongly to Government – and we have
been supported by the BMA and by the Independent SAGE group in our concerns.
“Government replies that it is following the science. But this
public break by senior members of SAGE, including by the chair of the NERVTAG
committee, undermines that claim.
“School leaders, their staff and pupils’ families deserve better
than this.
“Even at this late stage, we call on the Government to draw back
from wider opening of primary schools from Monday.
“Instead we urge them to engage in talks with the profession and
the unions, including the NEU, about how to open schools more widely once the
contact tracing system is shown to be working.”
