The education union in UK along with northern leaders is warning that keeping schools open can have damaging consequences as it might lead to another lockdown in the coming year due to the spread and the effects of pandemic will be extended.
The national education union (NEU) is UK’s largest teaching body association which currently has around half million members. The NEU has claimed that schools are “an engine for virus transmission”.
Even though a lockdown has been imposed in a manner that shops and other non-essential places have been closed and adults have been asked to work from home but the government wants to keep open the schools.
A statement from general secretary of NEU read: “We are worried this will just lead to another lockdown later. We think it will not work if schools are not included.”
A trend started on twitter namely #CloseSchoolsNow in order to get the officials attention regarding the matter as the NEU thinks that cases will only increase and the lockdown will be of no use if one of the main transmission source i.e. schools are not closed.
Even scientists have suggested that keeping the schools opened can mean that the number of cases will only go higher.
An associate of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) Sir Jeremy Farrar said: “Personally I think this is definitely the lockdown to put in place now but if that transmission, particularly in secondary schools, continues to rise then that may have to be revisited in the next four weeks in order to get R [the rate of reproduction] below one, and the epidemic shrinking.”
