Coronavirus news – live: Teachers and parents criticise threat of fines for children who miss school as scientists claim to have found first patient reinfected with Covid-19
Follow the latest updates
Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health
Get our free Health Check email
Teaching unions and parents have hit back over the threat of fines if children do not return to the classroom next week, warning it could undermine trust between families and schools at a crucial point in the UK’s recovery from coronavirus.
It comes after Boris Johnson urged parents to send their children back to school when they reopen in England, saying that yet more time outside the classroom is a greater health risk than returning – a view echoed by Jennie Harries, the deputy chief medical officer, who said car crashes and flu were greater health dangers than Covid-19.
Scientists, meanwhile, claim to have found the first person to be reinfected with coronavirus – a man in Hong Kong who is believed to have caught one strain four months after battling a different incarnation of Covid-19.
How will we pay the coronavirus debt?
This year’s government budget deficit will exceed £300bn, more than twice the peak recorded after the 2008 financial crisis. It has already taken government debt to more than 100 per cent of GDP, a level portrayed as apocalyptic in the somewhat fevered debates that led to "austerity" in 2010, writes John Cullinane.
How will we ever pay this back? What will have to happen to taxes? History suggests that there are many ways to skin this cat. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the UK’s national debt stood at about 200 per cent of GDP. It was paid off with Victorian conventionality.
The government raised little in tax by modern standards, but spent even less. Income tax was low and flat rate, and customs duties remained a major, and regressive, source of revenue.
NI schools reopen
Pupils have returned to schools in Northern Ireland for the first time since lockdown began in March.
Teachers' unions claim educators have not been given enough time to respond to new safety rules issued earlier this month.
Northern Ireland's chief medical officer Dr Michael McBride has insisted it is safe to return.
Strict social distancing between children may be relaxed if there are hygiene measures in place.
However, three schools did not reopen following the detection of Covid-19 cases.
Ballyclare Secondary School is set to reopen on Tuesday following a deep clean and 72-hour wait for the incubation period to pass.
St Kevin's Primary School and St Louise's College, both on the Falls Road in west Belfast have also delayed their reopening after new infections were detected.
Parents could be fined 'as a last resort'
Parents could be fined as a "last resort" if they refuse to send their children back to school, an education minister has warned, writes Jon Stone.
Nick Gibb said teachers should try to "reassure" parents of the need to send their children back to school but said there was a "moral imperative" to do so.
Asked whether fines were a possibility for parents who continued to resist, he told the BBC: "Fines are something that headteachers are very reluctant to use, they only use them as a last resort."
Unions accused of setting up roadblocks to schools reopening
A top Tory MP has accused trade unions of putting "obstacles" in the way of reopening schools.
Robert Halfon, who chairs parliament's education committee, told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "What the Labour Party should be doing is encouraging the trade unions as much as possible to help get the children back to school, rather than put obstacles in the way."
He added: "The question we've got to ask is why is it that it's OK for children and parents to go to restaurants, to go to Primark every day, but the unions don't feel that it's right for them to go back to school?"
On guidance, he added: "Well I would have liked schools to have remained open as much as possible... If there are local lockdowns or, God forbid we're in a big second wave, there has to be national guidance in terms of the hours that children are learning, there has to be a guarantee of sim cards and computers for those kids who don't, possibly by just giving teachers vouchers... and I'd like to see a more proactive role for Ofsted."
Vaccine distribution must be fair, Harries warns
Following reports that Donald Trump was considering fast-tracking a UK Covid-19 vaccine candidate before the US election, England's deputy chief medical officer has advocated for "fair distribution" of any jab.
According to reports, the White House is considering granting emergency authorisation for a vaccine being developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.
Commenting on the prospect of the vaccine being fast-tracked, Dr Jenny Harries said that everyone around the globe should have "fair and safe access to vaccine development".
Dr Harries told Sky News: "We have a global crisis... It is really important that everyone around the world has fair and safe access to vaccine development.
"Obviously those countries which are more developed have the facilities to develop the vaccine and get it safely out to their populations. But I think all public health colleagues would be wanting fair distribution."
Transport should be no obstacle to pupils' return, PM says
Transport should be "no obstacle" to pupils returning to school in September, Boris Johnson has said.
He said: "We've also got to face the fact that lockdown, kids being out of school as so many of them have, has been I think a risk for them physically because they haven't been able to exercise, perhaps in the way that they should.
"But also there's been pressure on their mental health as well and that's why we're putting another £8m now into helping teachers to cope with some of the mental health problems that kids and young people may experience.
"But the best way to tackle any mental health problems is to get our kids into school in September."
The PM added: "Whether your child, whether your pupil is going by bus or by cycle, or by train, or by car, or walking, whatever mode of transport your kid needs to get to school, we'll do everything we can to help.
"We're putting another £40m in to support councils and we want to make sure that transport is no obstacle and it won't be. Transport should be no obstacle to kids, to pupils, getting back into school in September."
Majority of Republicans say US death toll 'acceptable'
A majority of Republicans surveyed in a national poll believe the number of deaths from the coronavirus is “acceptable”, and hold positive views of the US response to the pandemic, writes Richard Hall.
The new poll showed a significant partisan divide over how each party sees the health emergency, which is killing some 1,000 Americans every day.
Fifty-seven percent of Republicans surveyed agreed with the statement that the number of coronavirus deaths in the US — which this week reached over 176,000 — was “acceptable.”
Teachers more likely to catch virus on coffee break than in classroom, says Harries
Teachers are more likely to get Covid-19 on their coffee break than in a classroom, England's deputy chief medical officer has said.
Dr Jenny Harries said that the risk for teachers in schools would probably be highest "between staff".
She added that it would be "unlikely" there would be a scenario where all schools across the country would be forced to close again.
However, individual schools may have to close in areas under local lockdown.
The show can't go on - theatres still hit by Covid
Theatres were given the green light to reopen this month, but for the vast majority of venues, the prospect of the curtain raising any time soon is remote. For others, it may not happen at all, writes Ben Chapman.
Britain’s arts and entertainment industry, one of the country’s biggest success stories, is in crisis. Performers, technicians and theatre owners say that the government allowing venues to open their doors and welcome guests is useless as almost all productions lose money when shows are at less than 70 per cent capacity – an impossible level with social distancing in place.
Hogan should quit, Irish housing minister says
Ireland's housing minister has called on the EU's trade commissioner to resign after he attended a controversial golf event in the west of the country.
Pressure has been building on Phil Hogan to step down from the EU role.
Mr Hogan is a senior Irish politician with significant standing in Brussels who would be deeply involved in any deal with Britain after Brexit.
On Monday, Darragh O'Brien said that Mr Hogan should take responsibility for his actions.
The commissioner has also been urged to consider his position by the leaders of Ireland's coalition government, Micheal Martin and Leo Varadkar, after attending a dinner at a hotel in the west of Ireland with more than 80 people present.
Last week a cabinet member resigned after attending the same event. You can read more about that here:
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies