Britain Medical News: Many Upset As Some Schools Reopen In England Despite COVID-19 Danger To Children
Source: Britain Medical News Jun 01, 2020 4 years, 6 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 20 hours, 27 minutes ago
Britain Medical News: The official number of individuals infected with COVID-19 in UK stands at 274,781(1st June 2020) and the total number of deaths caused by the coronavirus is 38,489 (although may medical experts claim it could be as high as more than 47,000 as a result of under-reporting by authorities and also the failure to take into consideration deaths at nursing homes and institutions for the aged and also those who died from the symptoms but were never tested.
England partially reopened schools on Monday and allowed the most vulnerable to venture outdoors despite warnings that the world's second worst-hit country is moving too quickly out of its coronavirus lockdown.
The high death toll has piled political pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was elected in December with a big majority.
Ironically, Johnson spent much of the past week stamping out a scandal sparked by his chief adviser's decision to drive to a picturesque castle with his family while everyone was under orders to limit outdoor exercise to an hour a day.
Majority of members of Johnson's own party joined a failed effort by the opposition to get Dominic Cummings fired for undermining the government's public message on health. The anger over Cummings appears to have abated but concern about Johnson's handling of the crisis remains.
Johnson public support has suffered the sharpest fall for a Conservative party leader in 10 years nine points in a YouGov poll and 21 points in a survey for the media.
The mood in Britain is clearly improving as the number of daily deaths drops. Parks and beaches have been filled for two successive weekends in what has been one of the driest springs in over 100 years.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set out a timeline that allows two million younger children to return to school on Monday and older ones on June 15.
Surprisingly, a survey conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research found that primary school leaders expect 47 percent of families to keep their children home.
The British government is also allowing those most at risk of suffering serious consequences from the virus to spend time outdoors for the first time in two months.
Many critics argue that the so-called R rate of transmission, estimated nationally at between 0.7 and 0.9 was still dangerously close to the 1.0 figure above which the virus's spread grows.
This important R rate estimates the number of people one infected person passes the virus to.
Many members of the government's scientific advisory group have warned that restrictions were being lifted prematurely.
Scientific advisor Jeremy Farrar said on Twitter, "COVID-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England,"
Alok Sharma, a Minister told the media on Monday that the "scientific advice does differ" but that the overall view from the official body advising the government was that "we must do this cautiously".
The advisory group has more than 50 members and disagreements are to be expected alt
hough public criticism of the government's policies from its own advisers is relatively rare.
Sharma added, "These are very cautious steps we are taking.”
The medical scientists are not the only ones to express concern. The National Education Union co-leader Mary Bousted said the government has had to revise its school reopening guidance 41 times since mid-May.
She said, “There were things they had forgotten, things they didn't know, and things they got wrong (and that) had to be added in.”
However, the schools will only start reopening in England because each of Britain's four nations follows its own health guidelines.
Interestingly, Scotland is waiting until August and Northern Ireland is eyeing September, while Wales is still making up its mind.
Robert Jenrick, Communities minister said a return to school was essential because a lack of classes and lunch provision was hitting disadvantaged families especially hard.
However many still disagree as considering that there are new studies that have emerged that children could be affected more badly with the COVID-19 disease.
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