The United Kingdom government has pledged to rush ventilation units and enough COVID-19 test kits to schools so as to ensure that they reopen later this week despite soaring infection rates fueled by the Omicron variant.
Secondary school students in England will be required to wear face masks when they return to classes after the Christmas holidays and they could also face merged classes amid staffing shortages.
“The priority is to keep schools open,” British Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi told Sky News on Monday. “The testing, the staffing support we’re putting in place, and of course, the ventilation is going to make a big difference to schools this year.”
Omicron has caused the UK’s virus caseload to soar during Christmas and the New Year, with 137,583 infections and 73 deaths reported for England and Wales on Sunday.
Scotland, meanwhile, recorded a further 20,217 infections on Monday, its highest daily figure of the pandemic. Figures for Northern Ireland, the UK’s other constituent nation, were set to be announced later on Monday.
Patrick Roach, general secretary of the British teachers’ union NASUWT, welcomed the news that more ventilation units and testing kits would be available, but warned on Sunday that the education sector has another pressing problem as schools prepare to reopen.
“The availability of teachers and support staff is also a key pressure point for schools this term as the number of COVID cases continue to increase,” Roach said.
Elsewhere across Europe, schools were also preparing for another new term overshadowed by the global pandemic or already reopening.
Children returned to class on Monday in several parts of Germany, where patchy testing and reporting during the holiday period meant that the level of infections was somewhat uncertain.
More than 12 million French children also returned to school, with new rules aimed at slowing the spread of the virus. French children from the age of six have been required to wear a face mask in classrooms since November.
However, Italian schools are not scheduled to reopen until next week, but already local leaders are mulling possible delays given a surge in cases in the country.
Meanwhile, the Dutch caretaker government was meeting Monday to decide whether children will be allowed back to classrooms next week after a holiday that was extended to three weeks as part of a nationwide lockdown that is set to continue until January 14.
The Dutch lockdown led to reductions in infection rates in recent weeks, but numbers have begun climbing again with Omicron now dominant in the Netherlands.
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