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Ministers have rejected a call from the children’s commissioner for England to bring in routine coronavirus testing in English schools.
Nick Gibb, the schools minister, confirmed that teachers and pupils in England will not have access to routine testing when they reopen in September, and will instead be primarily reliant on hygiene and distancing measures to control any spread of the virus.
Boris Johnson said on Sunday that there was a “moral duty” for schools to return full-time. Gibb agreed that this would happen “to the extent you can guarantee anything in the midst of this very serious pandemic”.
But he rejected a call from Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, to protect schools through routine coronavirus testing, perhaps even weekly.
“Anybody that shows symptoms in schools, teachers and pupils, will be tested,” Gibb told Times Radio. “Not routine testing without symptoms. The advice that we have is that its better to test when people actually show symptoms.”
New swab tests to confirm within 90 minutes if someone has Covid-19, as well as testing for flu, will be rolled out from next week, but Gibb confirmed these would not as yet be used in schools.
Instead, he said, schools would primarily seek to limit the spread of the virus through measures such as increased hand-washing and splitting pupils into distinct groups for mixing.
“The priority for the new 90-minute tests has to be the hospitals, the care homes and the laboratories,” Gibb said. “But all the advice we have had is that the measures we are putting in place, the sort of hierarchy of controls about hygiene and so on, and bubbles within schools, is the most effective method of reducing the risk of transmission of the virus.”
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Johnson said it was the “national priority” to get all English pupils back into classrooms in September.
“This pandemic isn’t over, and the last thing any of us can afford to do is become complacent,” the prime minister wrote. “But now that we know enough to reopen schools to all pupils safely, we have a moral duty to do so.”
Longfield said regular testing in schools should be a part of this. “I’m not an expert in testing but I would say that regular means weekly,” she said. “It needs to be as regular as it needs to be to ensure the infection is caught and identified as soon as possible, and then the tracking system can move on from that.”
Scotland, where schools are starting to reopen from Tuesday, plans to bring in an enhanced Covid-19 testing and surveillance regime, but it will not be ready in time for the start of term.
The government’s test-and-trace system also “needs to improve”, Longfield said, adding: “It has to be fit for purpose, and government has to make this happen.”
Longfield stressed that if, as expected, there is an increase in coronavirus cases in the autumn and winter, other places where people mix should be closed rather than schools.
She said: “I was dismayed when government prioritised opening shops, opening theme parks and even zoos rather than schools. So I am pleased now that government is now putting schools as a number-one priority. I don’t want to close any of those, but there may need to be choices.”
Kate Green, Labour’s shadow education secretary, also speaking on Times Radio, said it was essential all English schools reopen in September, and the government should provide extra resources for areas like more cleaning and the costs of staggering school days.
She also stressed the need for effective tracing of Covid-19 cases: “Without robust testing and tracing in place, schools can’t do all this on their own, and that is a really crucial element. The government has a window between now and the end of September to get that right. And it absolutely must do so.”
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