Japanese pupils want end to Covid ban on lunchtime chatter

After two years of eating in silence, survey by mother finds 90% of schoolchildren want to converse again

Most children in Japan long for a return to the days when they could chat to their classmates over lunch - a pleasure they have been denied during the coronavirus pandemic.

After well over two years of eating in near silence to prevent the spread of the airborne virus, schoolchildren say they want their classrooms to reverberate to more than the sound of cutlery and crockery at lunchtime.