A SAGE adviser today hinted a third national lockdown including mass school closures may be required to suppress Covid as he insisted keeping people apart stops the virus from spreading. Professor Sir Mark Walport claimed the mutant strain of coronavirus was transmitting rapidly among children, with those aged between 12 and 16 seven times more likely to infect a household.
Speaking on the BBC s Andrew Marr Show as Liverpool s leaders called for a blanket shutdown, he said it would be very, very difficult to keep the disease under control without tighter social distancing measures .
Sir Mark also suggested the UK has struggled to keep cases down because it is a western liberal democracy , hinting that draconian countermeasures adopted in unfree countries like Vietnam had suppressed the virus.
Head teachers are calling on the Government to scrap this summer s GCSE and A-level exams amid outrage over Gavin Williamson s plans to keep schools open.
Most primaries in England are expected to re-open their doors tomorrow, while secondary schools will reopen on a staggered basis later this month with plans to test every student weekly.
Yesterday, however, the UK s largest teaching union advised members it was not safe to return to the classroom - with several left-wing councils demanding their primary schools move to online teaching only.
And in another blow to the Education Secretary s plans, UK head teachers are now calling for this year s exams to be scrapped to prioritise wider public health, pupil and staff safety .
Keep them at home : Headteacher in Berkshire tells parents not to send their children to school amid soaring Covid cases as more councils look set to defy orders to open primaries despite assurances from Boris Johnson
Boris Johnson has urged parents to send their children back to primaries that are set to reopen tomorrow
PM said he had no doubt that schools were safe but refused to rule out full shutdown in the weeks to come
Headteacher Gil Denham said she can t guarantee that pupils or staff will not be exposed if they return
Insisted in a letter that parents should only send their children in if they feel the risk is not too high