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Debates rage in Britain as some children go back to school
LONDON, June 1, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Britain partially reopens schools on Monday
and allows the most vulnerable to venture outdoors despite warnings that the
world’s second worst-hit country is moving too quickly out of its coronavirus
lockdown.
A death toll that now officially stands at 38,489 has piled political
pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was elected in December with a
big majority.
Johnson spent much of the past week stamping out a scandal sparked by his
chief adviser’s decision to drive to a picturesque castle with his family
while everyone was under orders to limit outdoor exercise to an hour a day.
Dozens of members of Johnson’s own party joined a failed effort by the
opposition to get Dominic Cummings fired for undermining the government’s
public message on health.
The furore over Cummings appears to have abated but concern about Johnson’s
handling of the crisis remains.
His public support has suffered the sharpest fall for a Conservative party
leader in 10 years — nine points in a YouGov poll and 21 points in a survey
for the Daily Mail.
– ‘Spreading too fast’ –
Yet the mood in Britain is clearly improving as the number of daily deaths
drops. Parks and beaches have been filled for two successive weekends in what
has been one of the driest springs in over 100 years.
Johnson has set out a timeline that will see younger children start
returning to school on Monday and older ones on June 15.
The government is also allowing those most at risk of suffering serious
consequences from the virus to spend time outdoors for the first time in two
months.
“I do not underestimate just how difficult it has been for you,” Johnson
told the 2.2 million Britons who fall into the extreme risk category.
The UK government has also been encouraged by the positive experience of
other European countries that have started to return to something resembling
the old way of life.
But critics argue that the so-called R rate of transmission — estimated
nationally at between 0.7 and 0.9 — was still dangerously close to the 1.0
figure above which the virus’s spread grows.
The R rate estimates the number of people one infected person passes the
virus to.
Several members of the government’s scientific advisory group have warned
that restrictions were being lifted prematurely.
“COVID-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England,” scientific
advisor Jeremy Farrar said on Twitter.
The group has more than 50 members and disagreements are to be expected —
although public criticism of the government’s policies from its own advisers
is relatively rare.
– Hurting the poor –
The scientists are not the only ones to express concern.
National Education Union co-leader Mary Bousted said the government has had
to revise its school reopening guidance 41 times since mid-May.
There were “things they had forgotten, things they didn’t know, and things
they got wrong (and that) had to be added in”, Bousted told Sky News.
“We have a government who (teachers) think is just making it up as it goes
along.”
The schools will only start reopening in England because each of Britain’s
four nations follows its own health guidelines.
Scotland is waiting until August and Northern Ireland is eyeing September,
while Wales is still making up its mind.
A poll by the Early Years Alliance education charity found that only 45
percent of the parents whose schools are opening are ready to send their
children to class.
But communities minister Robert Jenrick said a return to school was
essential because a lack of classes and lunch provision was hitting
disadvantaged families especially hard.
“All of the evidence suggests that it is children from the most deprived,
the poorer households who are losing out,” Jenrick said Sunday.
“I don’t want that to continue.”
BSS/AFP/MMA/0915HRS