The question isn’t whether schools are safe from Covid, but how we balance the risks
There are few issues more polarising than whether schools should reopen during a pandemic. We know that online learning often isn’t as effective as regular classes, and that closing schools disadvantages the poorest and most vulnerable children in society. But people are still divided over the question of when it will be safe enough to restart in-person learning. While politicians have argued that schools are safe, unions say that teachers are being sent into unsafe workplaces.
I’ve been helping to review the evidence on schools over the past 10 months for the Royal Society, which provides input to Sage and the Scottish government’s Covid-19 advisory group. The issue is far from clearcut: the science is still unfolding, particularly around the new variant, and the real question isn’t whether schools are safe or not, but how we balance various harms, benefits and risks.
