Parents dropping off children at the school gate should stand a couple of metres apart to stop the spread of coronavirus, England’s deputy chief medical officer said today.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam said they wanted to minimise the amount of “close contact” between individuals.
He told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “It’s perfectly possible for me to drop my 11-year-old off at the school gate ... and I can do that in a way that I keep a couple of metres away from other parents.
“I can still have a conversation with them if I choose to but actually I can do that safely.”
He moved to reassure families that youngsters rarely suffer serious symptoms from Covid-19, adding: “What we already have a very clear picture on is that children are not seriously affected by this virus, they don’t become ill in very large numbers at all. What we don’t know is if they are being infected and having mild illnesses, or whether they are just not being infected at all.”
He made clear that schools could be shut if more stringent measures are needed to contain the outbreak.
Mayor Sadiq Khan suggested school children may be asked to stay home in the two weeks before Easter.
Mr Khan, who attended the Government’s emergency Cobra meeting last night, said: “I wouldn’t be surprised if, over the course of the two weeks before Easter, government advice changes.”
He added: “The advice is that it makes very little clinical difference in relation to closing schools. But that advice may change ... what we do know is some teachers may be pregnant, others may have underlying health issues, a child may have a persistent cough or temperature which means mum, dad, carer decides to withdraw the child.”
The Department for Education’s position is that schools should remain open unless advised otherwise by Public Health England.
A number of schools across the capital have closed for deep cleans.
