Professor Russell Viner, president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and a member of Sage, has taken to the airwaves to hammer home his message that studies suggest children are”very minor players in the transmission overall” of coronavirus.
The children’s doctor spoke out overnight to say research would prove re-opening Britain’s schools would be safe.
On Monday morning he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There are five studies from around the world from New South Wales, from Australia, Singapore, from Ireland, from Germany, and from France, and in each of those there appears to be very, very little transmission in schools.
“We know that children can and do transmit this virus, of course they do, but they’re very minor players in the transmission overall, particularly younger children.
“It’s increasingly clear that older children – teenagers probably – transmit as much as adults, but schools themselves play very little role.
“They’re a closed setting but actually we see very few outbreaks in schools, large outbreaks, and actually there’s very little transmission from child to child or child to adult, actually much of the transmission in schools is from adults bringing it in, particularly staff.
“There’s increasing evidence in the UK and the government is doing a number of studies which have showed apparently very little transmission and very little infection when schools were open in England.”

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