Make school holidays longer to halt Covid spread - YEP letters

The Government have told us that we can meet family or friends over a five day period this Christmas.

Then they make us feel guilty, by claiming that if we meet up with our families or friends at home – let alone in a pub - it will mean ongoing misery in the New Year.

So why don’t they close schools one week earlier for the Christmas holidays? And have a four-week school holiday this Christmas as a one off?

If schools close, at the latest on December 12 the reduction in the spread of Covid will more than compensate for people having a bit of fun at Christmas, - or at the Winter Solstice, or on New Year’s Eve.

The problem is that schools are leaking Covid in and out. Why? Not because schools are open; indeed they most certainly should be.

It is because test, trace and isolate is not being practised around schools. Pupils are expected to be sent in to school from households with Covid; provided the child does not have symptoms.

Children sent home because a classmate or teacher has Covid are not tested; and members of their household are still expected to go into work (and siblings to school), possibly unknowingly spreading Covid.

A four week school Christmas holiday might seem unusual, but those two weeks could be made up by taking time from future holidays, and/or postponing the start of the 2021 summer holidays.

The Government has failed disastrously in its implementation of test, trace and isolate and it is time it got a grip.

And it really is time that people were allowed to have some fun again, and for the Government to now take test, trace and isolate seriously; and to implement it properly, including at the school gate.