Studies have found out that there have been 30 outbreaks of Coronavirus amongst schools that have been reopened this month in the UK. Teachers have held the government and the extreme negligence of the authorities in power responsible for these outbreaks.
As the national lockdown was eased in the UK, a number of schools were reopened without ensuring full safety and abiding by all the health regulations. According to the Public Health England, this had lead to 198 confirmed COVID-19 cases amongst which 70 were children and 124 were staff and teachers.
The decision for schools to reopen came after the chief medical officer of England, Chris Whitty warned about the long-term effects amongst the children for not attending schools. He ensured that “the risk of children catching the virus is very small” in comparison to the damage that is happening to their education for not attending schools for this long.
The National Education Union’s joint general secretary, Kevin Courtney shares the same views as Whitty but believes that the government is being extremely negligent in ensuring robust track traces and testing COVID-10 across the country.
He claims that the Government needs to come out with a plan in opening the schools in rotas or limited openings in possible contaminated schools. More teachers need to be employed to ensure a safe education. The government failing to ensure a safe learning environment will set the UK back in fighting the pandemic and will cost more lives.