Pubs COULD be forced to close to offset reopening of schools, says Neil Ferguson

Ministers must be ready to close pubs or impose other curbs next month because reopening schools full-time will drive up coronavirus cases, a leading expert warned today. 

Neil Ferguson – known as ‘Professor Lockdown’ for his role in modelling the impact of the disease – said the ‘R’ rate could rise by as much as half when pupils come back.

He insisted that secondary schools in particular will contribute to infections, and unless the government drops its vow for a full return it will need to ‘row back’ on easing of wider restrictions. 

The grim message came after a major study predicted a second peak of the disease unless the contact tracing system gets better – and said it could be twice as bad as in the Spring.

Keir Starmer ramped up pressure on Boris Johnson today warning he has just a month to solve the problems of the UK will face a ‘long bleak winter’ 

But Prof Ferguson – who resigned from the Government’s advisory group Sage after breaking lockdown rules – said there was a ‘limit’ to what contact tracing could achieve.

He stressed that restricting social contacts between people was the main way to control the spread of the virus, and ministers needed to ‘plan for all contingencies’ when it came to the reopening of schools. 

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I think it is important to say that not all schools are the same. 

‘We have a lot of evidence now that primary schools, young children, pose very little risk of transmission. 

‘I think the concern is with secondary schools, teenagers, further education colleges and universities where the evidence is still not certain, but it looks like older teenagers can transmit just as well as adults. 

‘The risk then is that big schools, comprehensives, universities, FE colleges, link lots of households together, reconnect the social network which social distancing measures have deliberately disconnected. And that poses a real risk of amplification of transmission, of case numbers going up quite sharply.’ 

He added: ‘In terms of the reproduction value, the ‘R’ value, opening high schools could increase it by as much as a half, but by as little as 0.2 or 0.3, but it will go up. 

‘Given we’re at ‘R’ equal to one at the moment, clearly we don’t want ‘R’ going up to 1.5 or so, that would … lead to quite rapid growth of the epidemic.’ 

Prof Ferguson said trade-offs will have to be made to keep the virus under control.

He said: ‘Whether, in high schools, FE colleges, it is necessary for children to go back 100 per cent or whether we can have other alternative means of provision, children being in one week and out the other week, therefore reducing contacts in school and outside school, or whether we row back on the relaxation of restrictions in the rest of society to allow schools to be fully opened, for instance social venues, leisure venues, more working from home… 

‘I mean that really is a policy decision, but I’m just saying, in my view, it is likely that some form of those measures will be necessary to maintain control of transmission.’ 

Prof Ferguson said there was ‘absolutely’ a need for ministers to spell out the ‘Plan B’ on how they will react if cases increase.

On whether the virus can be controlled in winter, he added: ‘Things could get quite difficult. I mean, I’m reasonably confident that as long as there is the political will in place to maintain control of transmission that we can do it, we’ve have good enough surveillance now to know what is going on.’