There is no proof Covid-19 has been transmitted from a pupil to a teacher in school anywhere in the world, a scientist advising the Government has claimed.
Professor Mark Woolhouse, an epidemiologist from the University of Edinburgh, said closing all schools completely during Britain’s lockdown might have been a mistake.
Evidence now suggests children are ‘minimally involved’ in the spread of Covid-19, which politicians should bear in mind in the future, he added.
Statistics show 15 children and teenagers have died of coronavirus in England and Wales since March, 0.03 per cent of the total deaths.
And scientists are not certain that children even spread the disease very much. They appear to only rarely be affected by the condition, which preys on existing ill health.
Professor Woolhouse, who sits on a sub-group of SAGE, told The Times it is ‘extremely difficult’ to find any instances of children spreading the virus to adults in schools, with no certain cases.
He suggests closing schools was ‘never essential’ and said it was unlikely that governments would repeat the drastic step.
It is not clear, however, how much children contribute to the spread of the virus in the home, which is where most transmission takes place. Elderly relatives could be at risk from children catching the virus from other families, for example.
Returning to school has been a controversial issue in Britain as teachers and school staff said they felt unable to do it safely in the way the Government was asking. Nearly half of teachers say they are unprepared and only one in five feel safe.
Schools currently have social distancing rules in place to try and keep children apart as much as possible and prevent them sharing things like pens and pencils (Pictured: Pupils at Watlington Primary School in Oxfordshire)
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pictured during a visit to a school in Kent this week, has said all schools in England will reopen normally from September
Primary schools in Britain have been allowed to reopen to certain year groups and are run in ‘bubbles’ of teachers assigned to certain classes.
Secondary schools, however, have had to remain closed since lockdown was imposed in March and will not reopen until September.
From the start of the school year, all schools in England are set to reopen as normal and attendance will be mandatory again as it is in normal times.
Evidence has grown during the course of the pandemic that children are very rarely affected by Covid-19 and it is even more rare that they die from the illness.
Professor Woolhouse told The Times that children of school age up to 15 are ‘minimally involved in the epidemiology of this virus’.
He said: ‘There is increasing evidence that they rarely transmit.
‘For example, it is extremely difficult to find any instance anywhere in the world as a single example of a child transmitting to a teacher in school. There may have been one in Australia but it is incredibly rare.
‘There are certain environments where this virus transmits very well and children are not present in these environments.’
The idea that children don’t transmit the virus as much as adults has gained traction in recent months as scientists have been able to study where Covid-19 spreads the most.
Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine published a study in June that found only two in 10 children with coronavirus have any symptoms of it.
They saw that under-20s are half as likely to become sick with Covid-19 as over-70s, and only 21 per cent of infected 10 to 19-year-olds had symptoms.
In comparison, the rate of symptoms among over-70s — the group most vulnerable to the disease — was three times higher at 69 per cent.
The LSHTM experts said understanding that children are less affected by the disease could influence how strict school closures have to be in the future.
Schools are set to reopen fully without social distancing in September but teachers are uneasy about the plans.
The union NASUWT found that only 22 per cent of school staff in Scotland said they feel safe returning under the current proposed plan.
General secretary of the union, Dr Patrick Roach, said: ‘The NASUWT recognises the importance of schools reopening to all children as soon as it is safe to do so.
‘The Education Secretary needs to develop a coordinated national plan to deliver the full and safe reopening of all schools in September.
‘He needs to address as a matter of urgency the many practical and logistical issues that have been raised by teachers and headteachers across the country.
‘Schools have only a few weeks before they close for the summer break. Teachers and headteachers need urgent clarification from the DfE [Department for Education] if they are to be able to meet the guidance on September re-opening consistently and safely.’
Reasons for children’s apparent resilience to the disease are still unclear, despite a wave of trials devoted to unraveling the truth on the contentious topic.
Top researchers say their immune system may be faster to react or their bodies better able to cope with viral infections because they are younger.
Other studies have also suggested that children may have stronger immunity to coronaviruses in general because they catch so many colds, some of which are caused by viruses that look very similar to the one that causes Covid-19.
Speaking to the House of Lords’s Science and Technology Committee in June, LSHTM infectious disease experts Dr Rosalind Eggo and Professor John Edmunds said children don’t seem to spread the virus as much as adults when they have it.
This is unusual because children are usually ‘super-spreaders’ of coughs and colds because they have bad hygiene.
Professor Edmunds, who was a member of SAGE alongside Professor Woolhouse, told peers: ‘It is unusual that children don’t seem to play much of a role in transmission because for most respiratory viruses and bacteria they play a central role, but in this they don’t seem to.’
Dr Eggo added: ‘We think that children are less likely to get it so far but it is not certain.
‘We are very certain that children are less likely to have severe outcomes and there are hints that children are less infectious but it is not certain.’