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’s 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 Dr 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 independent 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 Government 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.”
2020-096-NEU
EDITORS NOTES
The National Education Union’s 5 Tests:
https://neu.org.uk/press-releases/5-tests-government-before-schools-can-re-ope