Shropshire Star comment: Back to school decision not an easy one
Looking back at the government's handling of the pandemic, it's easy to see that mistakes have been made along the way.
But that's looking back. Everybody is an expert when blessed with 20/20 hindsight.
Yet for many there is a measure of despair at the plight of our schoolchildren, and their stop-start-stop education over the past 10 months.
Amid calls for a road map from the government towards a reopening of the schools, Boris Johnson speaks vaguely about doing as much as we can, as soon as we can.
An easy decision? Only if you are not the one making it, nor the one being held accountable for it.
The government is being pulled in two directions. There is a strong desire to get children back into school. It is their education which is being interrupted and disadvantaged, and their opportunities which are being harmed, and all because of something which statistically holds relatively little danger for previously healthy children.
The damage goes beyond the effect on their education. They are being denied social contact with their schoolmates, and consequently being denied fun and activities which should be part of any happy childhood.
Parents across the country are struggling with the demands of home schooling while also trying to do their own jobs from home.
A no brainer then. Back to school. Back to school to potentially spread the virus, raise infection rates, lay low teachers, and unwittingly and unwillingly cause needless deaths among some people in the wider community, older folk, who could pay the fatal price of a Back to School mantra.
Back to school, potentially to extend the duration of this great plague just when we are beginning to hope that the vaccines will bring it to an end.
This is a pandemic with twists and turns as evidenced by the emergence of worrying new variants which change the picture.
A decision which looks reasonable today could look reckless tomorrow when coronavirus plays new cards in a dynamic situation.
The children will go back to school at some point. It's a question of balancing the factors, analysing the risks and benefits, and judging when the time is right.
While coronavirus rules, as it still does, that is an incredibly difficult judgment to make.
