January 6, 2021

expert comments about nurseries staying open during the current lockdown

During this third national lockdown, nurseries have been allowed to remain open whilst primary and secondary schools have closed.

Dr Simon Clarke, Associate Professor in Cellular Microbiology at the University of Reading, said:

“What we know about the coronavirus, is that it can affect anyone of any age, but that the older you get, the more dangerous it is for you, and that the new variant, which is beginning to dominate in many areas, is more transmissible to others around you.

“The aim of lockdown is to limit person-to-person contact as much as possible.  Closing secondary and primary schools, which typically bring together hundreds of children, parents, teachers and staff on a regular basis, makes a big dent in the amount of physical contacts for millions of people across the country.

“The data from population-wide surveys of coronavirus prevalence shows that have been high numbers of school-aged children with the virus, even though they may not have had symptoms.  The younger children are, the lower the risk of having serious illness, or passing the virus onto other children or adults.

“In addition, nurseries tend to be smaller institutions than schools, with fewer pupils and staff.  If an outbreak were to occur, these smaller groups could act as transmission fire breaks, preventing larger-scale outbreaks that have occurred in and around some schools.”

All our previous output on this subject can be seen at this weblink:

www.sciencemediacentre.org/tag/covid-19

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