Teaching unions and parents have hit back over the threat of fines if children do not return to the classroom next week, warning it could undermine trust between families and schools at a crucial point in the UK’s recovery from coronavirus.
It comes after Boris Johnson urged parents to send their children back to school when they reopen in England, saying that yet more time outside the classroom is a greater health risk than returning – a view echoed by Jennie Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, who said car crashes and flu were greater health dangers than Covid-19.
Scientists, meanwhile, claim to have found the first person to be reinfected with coronavirus – a man in Hong Kong who is believed to have caught one strain four months after battling a different incarnation of Covid-19.
Johnson pleads with parents to send their kids to school
Boris Johnson has appealed to parents to send their children to schools when they reopen next week as a major union warned more teachers are needed in preparation, writes Kate Devlin.
The National Education Union (NEU) also accused ministers of being “negligent in the extreme”, saying schools had been left in the dark on how to deal with a coronavirus outbreak.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has warned the exams crisis that has engulfed the government for a fortnight has put the planned reopening of schools “at risk”.
Trump approves plasma treatment despite controversy
The US Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorisation for the use of convalescent plasma to treat coronavirus patients on Sunday, despite top experts urging caution over its use, writes Danielle Zoellner.
Announcing the move, Donald Trump called it a “truly historic breakthrough” in the fight against the virus, which he had been “looking to do for a long time.”
“This is a powerful therapy. Today's action will dramatically expand access to this treatment," Mr Trump said. "The FDA really stepped up, especially in the last few days," the president said.
Auckland lockdown extended
New Zealand will extend coronavirus restrictions in its largest city of Auckland until Sunday night, Jacinda Ardern said on Monday.
A Covid-19 spike about two weeks ago in Auckland prompted the prime minister to put the city's 1.7 million residents in lockdown, forcing businesses to close and schools to shut. The lockdown was due to expire on Wednesday.
Ms Ardern said everyone using public transport under level two restrictions or above will be required to wear masks or any face covering to contain the spread of the virus.
Ministers 'must engage with families' to get kids back to school, says union
A teachers' union has said the government must engage with parents in order to get pupils back to school.
Many parents were anxious about the return, said Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT.
He told BBC Breakfast: "The government's back-to-school campaign has really got to engage with parents, let parents know what to do, and to make sure that parents know what to do around the school as well to make sure all of the measures being taken in school are as secure as they can be."
Mr Whiteman said there were worries about the impact on the R-rate and transmission of coronavirus in schools.
He added: "We want to engage with government, we want some more advice from government about what to do if the pressure on R comes and what to do if we do need a plan B.
"It seems to be an act of heresy at the moment if you talk about wanting a plan B. It's not defeatist to prepare for the worst whilst hoping for the best.
"If we do have to experience some form of shutdown going forward, we want to learn from what happened before when we had no time to prepare, and be prepared if it comes again."
Mr Whiteman said he did not support fining parents who declined to let their children attend lessons.
Flu and car crashes greater risks to kids than Covid-19, Harries insists
Jennie Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, has said it is safe for children to return to school next week.
The risk to their health is lower than if they stayed away, she said.
Dr Harries told Sky News: "A well-controlled school environment, with the information and knowledge that we have about Covid now, should be a safe one.
"The long-term harms of children not attending school significantly, we think, outweigh those potential risks.
"No environment is completely risk-free. Every time a parent sent their child off to school pre-Covid, they may have been involved in a road traffic accident.
"There are all sort of things. And, in fact, that risk, or the risk from seasonal flu, we think is probably higher than the current risks of Covid."
Masks now mandatory in Seoul
People in Seoul were ordered on Monday to wear face masks in both indoor and outdoor public places for the first time.
The South Korean capital is battling a surge in coronavirus cases centred in the densely populated metropolitan area.
Many cases have been linked to a church where congregants were refusing to be tested.
In May, the city government ordered that masks be worn on public transport and in taxis, but a recent spike in cases has health officials worried that the country may need to impose its highest level of social distancing.
"If we fail to flatten the curve this week we believe we will be faced with a very important crisis, that the virus will spread to the entire nation," health ministry official Yoon Tae-ho told a briefing.
The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention reported 266 new cases as of midnight on Sunday, down from 397 a day earlier but another in more than a week of triple-digit daily increases.
Overall, South Korea has reported 17,665 coronavirus cases and 309 deaths.
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Tokyo records lowest one-day case tally since early July
Tokyo reported 95 new coronavirus cases on Monday, marking the lowest single-day rise since 8 July, metropolitan government data showed.
The cases were confirmed out of about 2,900 tests, with those under 40 accounting for 60 per cent of new infections.
Total serious cases in the Japanese capital declined by one from the previous day, to 38.
Cases have declined from peaks of above 400 seen in early August.
It came as Shinzo Abe, Japan's prime minister, paid a second visit to hospital and sparked fears for his health.
Mr Abe has suffered a drop in support to one of the lowest levels since returning to office for a second term in 2012, when he promised to revive the economy and bolster defence.
"I'd like to take care of my health and do my best at my job," he told reporters at his official residence, after visiting a Tokyo hospital where he said he had received results of an exam done last week and undergone additional checks.
Blood pressure meds could boost Covid-19 survival
Medication for high blood pressure could improve Covid-19 survival rates and reduce the severity of the infection in patients with hypertension, a new study suggests.
Researchers studied 28,000 patients taking antihypertensives, a class of drugs that are used to treat hypertension.
Government should consider face masks in schools, says Labour
Ministers should keep under review the question of whether children and teachers should wear face masks at school, the shadow education secretary has said.
Labour's Kate Green told Good Morning Britain: "It's certainly something that I think needs to be kept under review, because in other countries they have been used particularly where there have been high levels of infection, and so I think it's really right that it's kept under very close watch as to where they might be appropriate in school, whether they might be appropriate in school."
She also accused the government of being "asleep at the wheel" when it came to reopening schools, and failing to monitor the details.
Ms Green said: "The union leaders that I'm talking to all the time are as desperate as anyone to see children back in class.
"They're education professionals, they're teachers, they really care as much as anybody about children's futures and it isn't the responsibility of the trade unions ultimately to get children into the classroom.
"The government has to make the conditions suitable and safe for schools, for staff, for students and it's been asleep at the wheel, it's been not paying the attention that schools need to the details of how they are going to reopen, nor has it been out sending a strong and clear message to parents."
"I do agree that it's really important that we get everyone back into school next week and... really welcome the clarity of the chief medial officers' advice, which I hope will bring reassurance to parents."
Anti-Covid-19 measures in schools 'very effective', says Gibb
Nick Gibb has insisted the measures schools were taking to minimise the risk of the transmission of coronavirus when children return to school are "very effective".
Asked about fines for parents, the school standards minister told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Well, look, fines for non-attendance have always been a last resort for headteachers and schools. What matters is that young people are attending school.
"We live in a country where education is compulsory and I think parents can be reassured that the measures that schools are taking to make sure that we minimise the risk of the transmission of the virus are very effective."
Mr Gibb said he was confident all schools would reopen on time, and claimed that 90 per cent of parents had indicated they would send their offspring back to class.
He added: "If [parents have] got extra concerns, that is a matter between the headteacher and the family to make sure that their concerns are taken into account, but it is important - it's a moral imperative - that young people are back in school, because what the chief medical officers are saying now is that the risk of not being in school outweigh the very small risk of children being in school, particularly given all the control measures, the hygiene, the cleaning that's taking place in our schools ... there's an absolute determination to make sure that schools are safe for the children and children want to be back."
Earlier, the NAHT said it opposed fining parents.
How will we pay the coronavirus debt?
This year’s government budget deficit will exceed £300bn, more than twice the peak recorded after the 2008 financial crisis. It has already taken government debt to more than 100 per cent of GDP, a level portrayed as apocalyptic in the somewhat fevered debates that led to "austerity" in 2010, writes John Cullinane.
How will we ever pay this back? What will have to happen to taxes? History suggests that there are many ways to skin this cat. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the UK’s national debt stood at about 200 per cent of GDP. It was paid off with Victorian conventionality.
The government raised little in tax by modern standards, but spent even less. Income tax was low and flat rate, and customs duties remained a major, and regressive, source of revenue.
NI schools reopen
Pupils have returned to schools in Northern Ireland for the first time since lockdown began in March.
Teachers' unions claim educators have not been given enough time to respond to new safety rules issued earlier this month.
Northern Ireland's chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride has insisted it is safe to return.
Strict social distancing between children may be relaxed if there are hygiene measures in place.
However, three schools did not reopen following the detection of Covid-19 cases.
Ballyclare Secondary School is set to reopen on Tuesday following a deep clean and 72-hour wait for the incubation period to pass.
St Kevin's Primary School and St Louise's College, both on the Falls Road in west Belfast have also delayed their reopening after new infections were detected.
Parents could be fined 'as a last resort'
Parents could be fined as a "last resort" if they refuse to send their children back to school, an education minister has warned, writes Jon Stone.
Nick Gibb said teachers should try to "reassure" parents of the need to send their children back to school but said there was a "moral imperative" to do so.
Asked whether fines were a possibility for parents who continued to resist, he told the BBC: "Fines are something that headteachers are very reluctant to use, they only use them as a last resort."
Unions accused of setting up roadblocks to schools reopening
A top Tory MP has accused trade unions of putting "obstacles" in the way of reopening schools.
Robert Halfon, who chairs parliament's education committee, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "What the Labour Party should be doing is encouraging the trade unions as much as possible to help get the children back to school, rather than put obstacles in the way."
He added: "The question we've got to ask is why is it that it's OK for children and parents to go to restaurants, to go to Primark every day, but the unions don't feel that it's right for them to go back to school?"
On guidance, he added: "Well I would have liked schools to have remained open as much as possible... If there are local lockdowns or, God forbid we're in a big second wave, there has to be national guidance in terms of the hours that children are learning, there has to be a guarantee of sim cards and computers for those kids who don't, possibly by just giving teachers vouchers... and I'd like to see a more proactive role for Ofsted."
Vaccine distribution must be fair, Harries warns
Following reports that Donald Trump was considering fast-tracking a UK Covid-19 vaccine candidate before the US election, England's deputy chief medical officer has advocated for "fair distribution" of any jab.
According to reports, the White House is considering granting emergency authorisation for a vaccine being developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Commenting on the prospect of the vaccine being fast-tracked, Dr Jenny Harries said that everyone around the globe should have "fair and safe access to vaccine development".
Dr Harries told Sky News: "We have a global crisis... It is really important that everyone around the world has fair and safe access to vaccine development.
"Obviously those countries which are more developed have the facilities to develop the vaccine and get it safely out to their populations. But I think all public health colleagues would be wanting fair distribution."
Transport should be no obstacle to pupils' return, PM says
Transport should be "no obstacle" to pupils returning to school in September, Boris Johnson has said.
He said: "We've also got to face the fact that lockdown, kids being out of school as so many of them have, has been I think a risk for them physically because they haven't been able to exercise, perhaps in the way that they should.
"But also there's been pressure on their mental health as well and that's why we're putting another £8m now into helping teachers to cope with some of the mental health problems that kids and young people may experience.
"But the best way to tackle any mental health problems is to get our kids into school in September."
The PM added: "Whether your child, whether your pupil is going by bus or by cycle, or by train, or by car, or walking, whatever mode of transport your kid needs to get to school, we'll do everything we can to help.
"We're putting another £40m in to support councils and we want to make sure that transport is no obstacle and it won't be. Transport should be no obstacle to kids, to pupils, getting back into school in September."
Majority of Republicans say US death toll 'acceptable'
A majority of Republicans surveyed in a national poll believe the number of deaths from the coronavirus is “acceptable”, and hold positive views of the US response to the pandemic, writes Richard Hall.
The new poll showed a significant partisan divide over how each party sees the health emergency, which is killing some 1,000 Americans every day.
Fifty-seven percent of Republicans surveyed agreed with the statement that the number of coronavirus deaths in the US — which this week reached over 176,000 — was “acceptable.”
Teachers more likely to catch virus on coffee break than in classroom, says Harries
Teachers are more likely to get Covid-19 on their coffee break than in a classroom, England's deputy chief medical officer has said.
Dr Jenny Harries said that the risk for teachers in schools would probably be highest "between staff".
She added that it would be "unlikely" there would be a scenario where all schools across the country would be forced to close again.
However, individual schools may have to close in areas under local lockdown.
The show can't go on - theatres still hit by Covid
Theatres were given the green light to reopen this month, but for the vast majority of venues, the prospect of the curtain raising any time soon is remote. For others, it may not happen at all, writes Ben Chapman.
Britain’s arts and entertainment industry, one of the country’s biggest success stories, is in crisis. Performers, technicians and theatre owners say that the government allowing venues to open their doors and welcome guests is useless as almost all productions lose money when shows are at less than 70 per cent capacity – an impossible level with social distancing in place.
Hogan should quit, Irish housing minister says
Ireland's housing minister has called on the EU's trade commissioner to resign after he attended a controversial golf event in the west of the country.
Pressure has been building on Phil Hogan to step down from the EU role.
Mr Hogan is a senior Irish politician with significant standing in Brussels who would be deeply involved in any deal with Britain after Brexit.
On Monday, Darragh O'Brien said that Mr Hogan should take responsibility for his actions.
The commissioner has also been urged to consider his position by the leaders of Ireland's coalition government, Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar, after attending a dinner at a hotel in the west of Ireland with more than 80 people present.
Last week a cabinet member resigned after attending the same event. You can read more about that here:
