Schools are unsafe and will infect 1 million by half term

Schools out for winter? This is now a real possibility as Government, local authorities and school head teachers choose not to introduce safety measures and refuse to share data that would slow infection rates and save lives in the community.

If you're thinking that high infection rates in schools do not matter - as children are not affected, this was thought to be the case very early in the pandemic - but was soon shown to be an incorrect assumption, as we can see from real life experiences that Long Covid does hit children very hard.

Schooldays are supposed to be the happiest days of your life, but due to the inadequate government guidance which ignores the science - for tens of thousands they will be the sickest.

This is currently a best case scenario, as all we really know about Long Covid is that we don't know how long it lasts. With so many unknowns, children have the most to lose if the condition persists for a lifetime.

Today there is no cure and no effective treatment. As a parent, take a few minutes to consider what family life would be like: If your child was in pain, suffering from multiple debilitating symptoms every day.

The uncertainty, will they ever be themselves again - the helplessness of not being able to do anything to make it better.

The only way to be sure your children will not suffer with Long Covid is if they don't catch COVID-19.

Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer for England has resigned himself to the fact that with so few measures in place to slow the spread - all children will be infected, referring to a child as an individual, he said there is "a near certainty that child will get covid". This means that all children, vaccinated or not, will be at risk of long term chronic illness.

Looking at the current minimal mitigation measures in schools in combination with levels of infection and in-school transmission data, Colin Bellamy, director of the Open Data for Safer Schools project said:

"When did a 'considered approach' that puts every child at risk become acceptable?"

Please email odss@70p.co.uk for more information about figures and data reports shown here and on the ODSS website (70p.co.uk).

Please see the Coronavirus spread (England) in school age children (5-14) Autumn 2021 term report for a detailed breakdown of how the headline figure used in this article was calculated.