Government scientists are drawing up plans to vaccinate secondary school pupils in England in a bid to curb the spread of the new Covid strain, according to reports.
Ministers have vowed the keep schools open after the Christmas break, saying children’s learning was suffering due to the impact of Covid-19.
But experts are growing concerned that the new variant may infect children more effectively than the earlier strain.
Government scientists have also been told that keeping secondary schools open during the recent national lockdown helped drive the spread of the new variant in badly hit areas such as Kent and London.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation – the UK’s vaccine authority which is responsible for deciding who gets access to Covid jabs first – has now been asked to model plans for immunisation in schools, according to the i.
The early-stage plans were discussed at a meeting of the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), it adds.
The reports come as ministers today vowed to push on with plans for a mass-testing roll-out in schools after January, something which unions have slammed as ‘undeliverable’.
Meanwhile, Matt Hancock last night fuelled speculation over school closures in Tier 4 areas by saying he would ‘not to rule anything out’.
Government scientists are drawing up plans to vaccinate secondary school pupils (pictured: Library image) in England in a bid to curb the spread of the new Covid strain, according to reports.
In a bid to combat the spread of the new strain, the UK’s vaccines (pictured: Carol Patrick receives her Covid-19 jab in Bodmin) authority has now been asked to outline modelling requirements on immunisation in schools, according to the i
It comes as Matt Hancock (pictured) last night refused to rule out keeping schools closed after the holiday in the parts of England under the toughest restrictions
Plans to model a mass vaccination programme in secondary schools follow last week’s announcement by the Government about its proposals to roll-out mass coronavirus testing to secondary schools and colleges as part of a staggered return after Christmas.
From January 4, staff in secondary schools will have access to weekly rapid anti-gen tests.
Students and staff will be eligible for daily testing for seven days if identified as a close contact of someone who has tested positive. Primary schools are expected to follow from April.
As a result, GCSEs, A-levels and vocational students in England will return to school as planned in the first full week of January, while other secondary pupils will have online classes for the first week of term, before returning to school from Monday, January 11.
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Primary school pupils will return as normal.
Schools in Scotland and Wales will also have a staggered return, while schools in Northern Ireland will return as usual in January.
But Matt Hancock last night fuelled speculation of a possible change when he refused to rule out keeping schools closed after the holiday in the parts of England under the toughest restrictions.
Asked to guarantee if schools in Tier Four areas would remain open, the Health Secretary said: ‘I’ve learned not to rule anything out in this pandemic.’
Today education chiefs reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to keep schools open despite tougher restrictions.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education told MailOnline: ‘Our huge expansion of rapid testing will support secondary schools to stay open to all pupils as well as reduce the risk of transmission within local communities.
‘The Chief Medical Officers have been consistently clear about the importance of children being in school for their mental health, wellbeing and development.
‘As such, there are no plans for schools to close and it has rightly been a national priority for all pupils to return to school full-time.’
The spokesperson added: ‘Schools, colleges and early years settings across the country have worked tremendously hard to put protective measures in place that are helping reduce the risk of the virus being transmitted and the Department will continue to support local authorities and schools to open and reman open next term.’
Meanwhile, Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London, who is also a member of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats advisory group (NervTag), today said experts will use the Christmas break to monitor the impact of schools on the spread of the virus.
The epidemiologist, who quit his role as a Government adviser after breaking rules to see his married lover, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘So undoubtedly increased transmissibility limits our options for manoeuvre even more, and there is a hint from the data that this variant may infect children slightly more effectively than the previous variants, so it’s very difficult to prove causality.
Meanwhile, Professor Neil Ferguson today said experts will use the Christmas break to monitor the impact of schools on the spread of the virus
‘I think what we’ll see in the next two weeks though, whilst schools are closed, is probably all the variants of the virus in circulation at the moment declining.
‘We’ll be tracking very carefully whether we can see differences in that rate of decline and really it’s the data which is being put together now and unfortunately over the Christmas break which is going to inform policy measures in January.
‘It’s just too early to tell. It is going to be difficult no doubt about that… but it’s too early to say precisely what additional measures might be needed.’
He added: ‘The faster we can get the vaccine into people’s arms, the quicker we’ll be able to, not go back completely to normal, but at least to be able to relax restrictions.’
At the weekend union leaders said the return of secondary schools should be delayed for two weeks to give time for infection rates to fall.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), said: ‘Delaying secondary school opening until January 18 would be the right thing to do. The latest figures show that the highest rates of infection are now among secondary schoolchildren.’
But Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield has warned that this could mean sacrificing children’s learning and wellbeing.
Meanwhile, Mr Hancock said: ‘Our goal is to bring schools back in January with a big testing regime, and that means we need a staggered start in order to test people with the coronavirus test.’
Responding to claims that the testing plan had been announced too late, the Health Secretary said: ‘There are three weeks between now and the start of term and like so many people in the NHS there is going to have to be some work over the Christmas break.’
It comes after teaching unions hit out at the government’s plans to roll-out mass coronavirus testing to secondary schools and colleges and told members not to work on them over Christmas.
The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) said the ‘last minute’ announcement of the testing proposals before the festive break made the scheme ‘undeliverable’.
Furthermore, another education sector body warned the plan could see headteachers working on Christmas Day in order to put everything in place.
The four main teaching unions and the National Governance Association urged staff in a statement to put off preparations until term starts again in the new year.
It added that they should also refuse to work on the scheme while on their days off over Christmas.
‘It is our view that due to the chaotic and rushed nature of this announcement, the lack of proper guidance and an absence of appropriate support, the government’s plan in its current form will be inoperable for most schools and colleges,’ the statement said.
‘Schools and colleges simply do not have the staffing capacity to carry this out themselves. As such, most will not be in a position to carry this out in a safe and effective manner.’
Mass testing reveals 1.24% of pupils and 1.29% of staff tested positive for coronavirus in study of England’s schools during first fortnight of November’s lockdown
By Sam Blanchard, Senior Health Reporter for MailOnline
A mass testing study in England’s schools revealed that one in every 79 people tested positive for coronavirus without knowing they had it in November.
Office for National Statistics data showed that 1.24 per cent of pupils and 1.29 per cent of staff were carrying the virus while in school during the lockdown.
And the programme picked up one or more cases in 58 out of the 105 schools involved in the research between November 3 and 19.
The same number of schools found one case as found multiple – 29 in each category (27.6 per cent of the total).
Infection rates were highest among secondary school pupils in the study, and lowest in primary school staff, the report found.
Although teenagers have had some of the highest infection rates in the country during the second wave, closing schools is no longer included in lockdowns because of the long-term damage experts fear it could do to youngsters.
The ONS survey was conducted on 9,662 staff and pupils in 63 secondary schools and 43 primaries.
Two thirds of the schools were in areas with relatively high rates of coronavirus – the statisticians said the survey results were not fully representative of the whole of England because choosing high prevalence areas meant there was bias, likely to the North.
One of the study’s lead investigators said it showed ‘a significant number of students and staff who were attending school had coronavirus infection’.
But they admitted the results of the study were not statistically significant, meaning they are not strong enough to prove differences between the groups.
The ONS survey found that in the worst-affected parts of the country 1.47 per cent of school pupils and 1.5 per cent of staff tested positive for coronavirus.
This is equal to around one in every 67 people.
In areas that had lower rates of officially diagnosed coronavirus the survey found 0.79 per cent of pupils and 0.87 per cent of staff were infected without knowing – around one in 124.
In those area, secondary school staff were more likely to test positive than their pupils, the survey found.
No cases were found in primary schools in ‘low prevalence’ areas.
Schools are a major focus for scientists and officials because they have the potential to be hotbeds for transmission as proper social distancing is impossible – but for some reason they haven’t been conclusively linked to outbreaks.
Children and teenagers are significantly less likely to develop Covid-19 or any symptoms of viral infection than adults, scientists have found.
And they believe this may also make young people less likely to spread the virus, and the better immune response might mean they’re less likely to catch the illness in the first place.
Dr Shamez Ladhani, lead investigator on the study and a Public Health England epidemiologist, said: ‘While there is still more research to be done, these results appear to show that the rate of infection among students and staff attending school closely mirrors what’s happening outside the school gates.
‘That’s why we all need to take responsibility for driving infections down if we want to keep schools open and safe for our children.’
He said this was the ‘clearest picture to date’ of how coronavirus affects schools.
His colleague Professor James Hargreaves, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, added: ‘These findings show that, in November, a significant number of students and staff who were attending school had coronavirus infection.
‘With this crucial collaboration between the scientists, school staff and pupils, and their parents, we hope to answer questions to ensure children’s education can continue in the safest way possible.’
Separate Public Health England data shows that some of the highest rates of infection during the second wave have been among teenagers.
In the most recent week, ending December 6, 10 to 19-year-olds had 193 positive tests per 100,000 people across England.
This was a higher per-person rate than any other age group except people in their 40s, among whom it was 196.
The highest rate for teenagers was 295 per 100,000 in the week ending October 11, when it was lower only than people in their 20s at 302.
