But you can work on minimising obvious risks. For a start, they aren't sending al kids back to school. I wouldn't expect any teacher in any at risk category to be expected to go into a school. There isn't even any need for them too at this point.
Outdoors and indoors does make a difference, but you can regulate how many people are in a classroom and how long for, and how close they are to each other. It's not exactly rocket science. You can't regulate hundreds of children playing in a sand pit with half the parents in there with them. You can kick them out of the park if you want but I'm not even sure what that achieves.
The point I'm getting at here is there is NO situation where it's possible to open schools and there be absolutely no increased risk of anything. There wont be at any point in the forseable future and possibly ever again. It is like trying to eliminate anyone at school ever spreading the cold or flu ever again. So someone needs to come up with a compromise and whining about it while offering no middle ground is not going to help anyone or result in anything other than open conflict, because keeping them closed is simply not an option, and offering completely unrealistic arguments just means the government will ignore it and open them as planned.
It might not do SOME kids much harm from an education point of view to keep the schools closed until after the summer holidays, but what would then be the solution for all the people living in poverty who need to work and support their children during this time, given that businesses are starting to go back to operating normally even now? Once you're after the summer holidays a lot of these people wont be on furlough or have near the same level of support as now (which a lot of them are finding a huge struggle as it is, based on demands for things lie food banks). Last time there were reliable figures you're talking about literally millions of families. Schools are a very important factor in all this. And Pogue you know full well that circumstances like this have a MASSIVE effect on a child.
I also missed 2 months of school around this time when I was 15 due to my mum being very ill and I can tell you it was quite a big problem. Not so much education wise maybe as I managed to just about blag my way through, but certainly from a social and development point of view.
The mindset really does need to change at some point as it feels to me like people are still living in a fantasy world where the virus is just going to go away. That's been off the table since before we were even in lockdown. The arguments people are putting forwards for why you can't open a school are all argument that will still apply in a month's time, two months time, six months time. At this point it's ideas and solutions that are needed, not just repeating the same stuff over and over.
