There is now clear data on Covid-19 and children: it should be safe to reopen English schools | Matthew Snape

New research suggests that children are at minimal risk, yet their education has suffered greatly

• Matthew Snape is associate professor in paediatrics and vaccinology at Oxford Vaccine Group, University of Oxford Department of Paediatrics

Into the debate about the full reopening schools across the UK comes some good news from Public Health England (PHE), confirming that children and adolescents are at minimal risk of Covid-19. Children under 16 accounted for just over 1% of all cases of coronavirus during the first wave" of illness in England, and even among those with respiratory symptoms, only 4% tested positive for the virus, compared with between 19% and 35% in adults.

This makes one thing clear: reopening schools after the summer break does not represent a significant Covid-19 risk to children and teenagers themselves. What is also clear is that, as the recent difficulties around A-level results have highlighted, the near complete shutdown of school in March, during the early stages of the pandemic, meant that children and young people have been disproportionately affected by the lockdown relative to their risk of disease.