The evidence points to a safe return to school for kids missing education – Steve Cardownie

Some pupils will return to school in Edinburgh today, with the remainder following tomorrow and Friday, which will be welcomed by the vast majority of parents throughout the city.

Children are returnng to school today (Picture: PA)

Although some have voiced concerns about what they term the risks involved, including teachers union the EIS, I for one will be glad to see my son don his school uniform and resume his ‘normal’ education.

I have formed the view that, having reviewed the evidence from throughout the world it is safe for him to do so, particularly as such evidence points to negligible pupil to pupil transmission.

In New South Wales, Australia, a study found that there was a virus ‘attack rate’ of just 0.3 per cent and in only two out of 649 close contacts was the virus passed between students.

Currently thee are no recorded cases anywhere in the world where it has been established that a pupil has passed on the virus to a teacher, so there appears to be no threat from them, although transmission from teacher to teacher is another matter entirely.

Professor Mark Woolhouse, head of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Edinburgh University, has said that while there are thousands and thousands of transmission events that have been inferred through contact tracing, “out of all those thousands, still we can’t find a single one involving a child transmitting to a teacher in a classroom.”

However, he warns: “The evidence so far is that the most dangerous room in the school is not the classroom, it’s the staff room. So schools need to pay attention to that and not take their eye of the ball.”

As a parent I have received an email detailing what is expected of pupils and parents when attending school premises, outlining the importance of using the hand sanitisers dotted throughout the school and adhering to the ‘one-way’ system that has been put in place, as well as advising that pupils who wish to use face masks in school can do so.

A whole raft of new practices have been put in place to ensure that pupils and staff can operate in as safe an environment as possible and I am content that my son will be able to do so.

Pupils’ enforced absence from school cannot have failed to have had a detrimental impact on their education and immediate steps should be taken to do all that can be done to bridge this education gap if it is not to have long-term effects on their future life chances.

Many readers have already expressed the view that to allow bars and restaurants to reopen while maintaining the closure of schools was an untenable position and the Scottish Government, having taken heed of parental concerns, has agreed and has deemed that it is now safe to do so, despite earlier fears that schools may have remained closed until some time next year.

So given all the relevant, reliable, evidence I could lay my hands on and after a family discussion, I am content that my son should immediately resume his school attendance and get on with his education.

It will, of course, be for others to reach their own decision but I am confident that the vast majority will reach the same conclusion.