Headlines By James Saunders 6th November 2020
Welcome back everybody. I hope you all managed to spend time in the company of others over the half term break ahead of the further restrictions. And so we are faced with a feeling of deja-vu. Another lockdown. The same, but different. It seems that however hard we try to retain some semblance of normality we keep turning a corner to be faced with a new challenge. I am sure you will all be feeling anxious about the current state of affairs as you cast your mind back to how things were back in the summer. However, after spending some time grounding myself I have realised that we will not be repeating the summer term lockdown and business is, from what I can tell, pretty much as it was before half-term for schools. However, this always comes with a caveat, as I am sure there will be a few u-turns as the weeks progress and that we will inevitably have to modify our approach. I have a hunch that we are not far from a blended approach that will require the use of a rota alternating between two weeks on and two weeks off for half the school - we will see what the DfE do over the coming weeks. In the meantime we will be completing the planning for this so that should it happen, we are fully prepared. As things stand now, education continues face-toface. You may have some reservations or anxiety about this which I am sure won’t be helped by the media - my only advice is to not believe what you read or hear until it actually happens. I had a chat with a friend the other day about the fact that there is pressure to close schools. I asked him if he thought they should close before half term. I think you will agree that there was little appetite for it then - nothing like there is now. And yet prior to half term pubs, restaurants, gyms and shops etc were all open. Now I know cases have been rising but I am hoping that as a result of the measures that have been put in place we are able to keep our schools safely open because of the changes elsewhere. So what is the rationale for schools remaining open when other aspects of life/work are shutting down? There is clear evidence at a national level that schools
do contribute to the spread of Covid-19, as does going to the pub, to the shops, meetings with friends, travel to work on public transport, etc. All these things lead to increased contacts and so increase the likelihood of the virus spreading. Data indicates that secondary aged children have been seeing an increase in positive cases since schools reopened. Does this mean schools are to blame? Most definitely not. The situation is far too complex to pin down to one single measure or element as being responsible for the change - contrary to the stance taken by most media outlets and commentators. As long as we understand that we are part of a multidimensional problem that’s solution is, by definition, multivariate, then we will understand that there is no single solution - it's a case of many things in combination. Unfortunately, it is the case that closing schools will not suddenly solve the problem. I do however agree that it will help to reduce the R number more quickly but I am not PM and nor would I want that job right now. The view of public health advisors (and the government) is that the huge benefits schools provide means that schools are the last things that should be closed. All other methods to bring the R rate down should be tried first. The aim is always to bring the R rate below 1 as this means that case numbers will decrease. In a meeting with the Essex Public Health team just after we went to Tier 2 before half term, their view was that: 1. Working from home probably will reduce R by at least 0.2 2. Stopping household mixing will probably reduce R by at least 0.15 3. Things have now gone further with the closure of pubs, shops and entertainment and each of these will also have an impact on the R rate. Overall, these should compensate for schools remaining open. As a parent, I was dreading another lockdown and school closure. I am very relieved that schools are remaining open as I know just how much my own children and their friends need to be in school both for their education and to support their mental health - my son is still recovering from the damage of the first lockdown.