Covid-19: keeping schools shut will risk more lives than opening them

I have read more articles and social media posts than I can count recently about whether schools should reopen. Nearly all of them are sentimental, poignant and designed to pull at the heartstrings. Nearly all of them have in common that it's impossible to expect small children to social distance, that their mental and emotional health will be in jeopardy from the new systems, and that teachers and pupils would be risking their lives to return to a formal education setting. And most of them describe unrealistic scenarios that will not happen in practice.

As the wife of a Deputy Head I have found these posts painful and difficult to read. My husband does not actually have a choice about whether his school reopens (and incidentally, the schools never closed: they've always remained open to keyworker and vulnerable children). It doesn't matter whether he thinks it's right or wrong: his job is purely to facilitate it in the best way possible. This is a stressful, emotional and simultaneously incredibly tedious task.

While he sits in his makeshift office upstairs on call after call, going into school to walk around and hone procedures and painstakingly formulating and tweaking all these very high-stakes plans, the media, government and general public spend their time making known their opinions, which are not always very well informed or even well-intentioned.

Teachers are lazy, teachers should be "heroes", the unions are communists, schools should be refusing to open... there's something for everyone.

And meanwhile the actual teachers on the ground are just having to get on with the job of figuring it out.

I would urge anyone reading this to refrain from posting sentimental and ill-informed posts about the morals of children returning to school.

The fact is that schools NOT reopening will risk as many lives, if not more, as opening will. The proportion of the population not in care homes or hospitals who have Covid is currently projected at 0.24%. RO is under 1. The curve is dropping.

The curve that is shooting up exponentially, the disease that is catching faster than at any point in my lifetime now is poverty.

People talk of everything "going back to normal". There is not going to be a normal for a long, long time. We are entering a huge recession which will mean millions of UK families being plunged under the breadline. And schools are a lifeline for these children and their parents, who cannot return to work unless they have childcare.

Schools mean somewhere warm during the winter, a hot meal in a child's belly, a kind and friendly adult looking after them and being safe. It's a long time since schools were merely there to provide education. They are another branch of the NHS. Schools are where neglect and abuse is disclosed, where additional educational needs are discovered and referred to the experts, where children are safe, where they are given clean clothes, a healthy breakfast and love.

There are estimated to be 2,259,000 vulnerable children with "complex family needs" around the UK right now. There are around 831,000 living in homes where domestic abuse occurs. There are families who have struggled for weeks to access the free school meal vouchers. Food bank usage doubled at the Trussell Trust in just the first week of lockdown. At the start of April an extra 950,000 people had applied for Universal Credit in the space of two weeks.

Aside from the respite that a caring school offers to a child, there are many other millions of families who don't have any income now coming in because they cannot return to work while they have children at home. I have seen people scoff at the motivation of the government for reopening schools and workplaces first and foremost: but the economy is not always a bad motivation. The economy is what keeps us alive. We need people back to work if we are to save lives; and most people cannot work if the schools are not open.

This does not mean that everyone should send their children back to school. It is an individual choice and frankly, schools could not achieve the staffing necessary to welcome every child back into school on June 1st. This blog is not about whether you or I should choose to send our children in. It is about the UK-wide risks of either reopening fully or not.

The risks of Coronavirus will peter away. But the risks of poverty and vulnerability are only going to increase and they will kill far more, in the long term, than Covid. Whatever you think about the morality of schools reopening, the fact is that the economy collapsing is an equally morally weighted issue and one that we must pay swift attention to. Money, as well as medicine, saves lives.

Covid-19: There is no good way out of this and here is why

The morning after Boris Johnson's much-awaited speech last night, social media feeds and newspaper headlines are full of outrage, cynicism and indignation. A widely held view is that the Prime Minister was unclear, unwise and incompetent in what he said, lacking the necessary clarity and direction that we as a nation are currently craving. There are those who are frustrated at the ostensible contradictions in measures, and those who assert that Mr Johnson and his cabinet are doing the best they can with a horrendously difficult situation.

I don't know where you stand on all this. I do know that while we all yearn for a good way out of this pandemic, there isn't one.

There isn't a good way out of an impossible situation. To keep the lockdown in place for many more weeks will cost jobs, livelihoods and mental health. To relax it too soon will mean the Covid-19 death rate soaring sky high again.

We're all looking for the middle way; the right way; the way that will mean the perfect balance of sensibly eased restrictions with the necessary caution to protect lives.

There is no such thing. And yet we expect it, somehow.

We're right to want this impossibility. We feel the pain and injustice of families struggling to put bread on the table and nurses stretched to breaking point in ICU wards simultaneously, and we care. We want a way out that serves all of us fairly. It would be wrong not to feel angry and grieve over the mistakes that have been made - some deliberately - in this tangled, twisted situation.

The problem is, we live in a world where everything about this pandemic is so messed up that no one is getting out unscathed. We can try and minimise the damage, but damage there will be. This is true of most human stories, and Covid-19 has only served to bring this into relief. It's a giant magnifying glass to the brokenness and bruisedness of life as a human being. There is no joyful birth without pain, no marriage without conflict, no grief without the sweet notes of comfort from a loved one. Being human means to experience all these things, often at once.

There has never been a political leader who was perfect. There has never been a philosopher who has found the answer. There has never been a democratic system that has served its citizens in complete justice.

Yet we still continue to long for something better. Why is this? Because we were made for something better. We were made for a world where death was not present and Coronavirus an impossibility. That is why we mourn the separation of our body and soul so fervently - it is unnatural. It feels wrong, because it is. We were created to be in a world where there is no pain and no death and no tears. Yet it has become marred and so although our souls and hearts are still hard-wired to expect better, we are constantly disappointed.

Hebrews 11:16 describes Abraham and other Old Testament believers in this way:

"Instead, they were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

There is a better country.

We long for that better country to be now: for our leaders to be just, and fair, and compassionate, and wise. And so we are constantly disappointed, if not surprised.

There is only one leader who will not disappoint. He is Jesus. He didn't come to abuse his power and trample the vulnerable for the sake of profit - instead, he gave up his life and died for his people. He didn't come to impress the PR departments and spin his message - he was brutally honest about how difficult life is but how it's worth it to be on his team. He didn't ever mess up - he lived a perfect life here on earth, showing compassion to the needy, standing up to the corrupt leaders and showing us God's plan. He invites us all to be part of his family and share in that sure hope for a better world in eternity.

So let's stop expecting anything more of Boris Johnson, because he is not capable of more and we should not even come close to putting our trust in him. Yes, we must hold our leaders to account - and there is plenty of that to be done at all times and especially in these times. Yes, we must fight for justice and peace wherever it can be won. But we mustn't kid ourselves that we can navigate our way out of this one without a lot of collateral damage. To imagine that is possible would be a denial of the very world we find ourselves in, and a distraction from the better world we can have an eternal place in.

Covid-19: How do we UNlockdown?

First of all, give yourselves a virtual medal. We are now 6-8 weeks into isolating depending on when we started. Those of us with children have spent the equivalent of the summer holidays in the same space with nowhere to go and no one to see. Those of us on our own have slogged through nearly 2 months of just our own company. Let's face it, it's getting pretty old.

But a recurring theme amongst friends I speak to is that there are elements of lockdown we have all enjoyed and want to take away with us. That first week my overwhelming feeling was relief that I'd got off the hamster wheel. The feeling of having nowhere to go, no meetings, no pushing the kids out of the door for school and no hustle and bustle was so peaceful. Granted, our life was exceptionally busy, and I think we needed a break. (Also granted, I now feel like I'm on an even bigger hamster wheel, but that's another story!)

• I've learnt that our home and garden provides far more entertainment than I ever could have realised.
• I've learnt that my children can use their imaginations when they aren't overstimulated. They've spent hours this lockdown just tending some snails and inventing imaginary games.
• I've learnt that when I'm short with them and irritated, it's generally because of the pressures of 100 other things in my head rather than their behaviour or me lacking the skills and compassion to parent them.
• I've learnt that we don't need to go out to loads of places to be happy.
• I've learnt that I love cooking and actually enjoy cleaning my house when I feel relaxed and have more time.
• I've learnt that we can save hundreds by not doing lots of the activities that we do to 'get out' because we feel stressed.
• I've learnt that my (probably autistic) middle child is much happier and settled at homeschool than going to school, where she expends all her energy masking and then explodes when she comes home.
• I've learnt that my children can rise to the challenge of taking on far more responsibility than I used to give them credit for - they can now hoover the whole house, load and unload the dishwasher, do the washing, clean the windows, keep their rooms tidy, fold washing, dust, take the compost and recycling out, and steam mop.
• I've learnt that there are loads of lovely walks around here that we hadn't discovered - and that the girls are now easily able to walk for a couple of hours without complaining.
• I've learnt that I don't miss my job half as much as I thought I would, and I really don't miss spending evenings and weekends working. 
• I've learnt that the small things can bring so much pleasure - wild flowers, our view, a cup of tea enjoyed at leisure, a card from a friend.

The question is, how much can and should we take away into 'normality' with us from lockdown? And how do we work that out? I've spent the last few weeks trying to work through this.

Here are some thoughts I've had.

1) We can't, and shouldn't, try and emulate all of this when lockdown finishes. We were given this time for a reason, but it's not real life. It's an artificial and temporary situation. While we can think through our priorities, it's unrealistic to put pressure on ourselves to take all the good things away with us. We need to work our jobs, most of us think our kids should be in school rather than homeschool, and we need to spend time meeting people and celebrating things and going to appointments and just doing life. We can be thankful for the gifts of this time without feeling like we have to figure out how to integrate them all into post-lockdown life.

2) We can, and should, take some of these things with us. As Matt Haig points out, though some mental health issues are escalating during lockdown, we cannot possibly pretend that pre-Covid life was a 'mental health utopia'. A huge number of us felt overwhelmed, overbusy, overstressed and overworked before Coronavirus. So let's learn the lessons we've been taught during this time and figure out what can and should change.

3) Let's think through what this time has taught us about what we really do miss. Here are some other things I've learnt:

• That having people in my home, cooking for and with them and eating with them is an essential part of life.
• That meeting together as a church, and especially singing together, is precious and definitely worth all the hard work that goes into practical set up for it.
• That face to face, bodily present communication makes Zoom pale in comparison. 
• That we actually take pleasure in working hard in our home and garden, even the really difficult jobs!
• That we can stay in touch with people who are far away via tech all the time, not just in lockdown. We live far apart from a lot of family - I definitely want to carry on playing games online with them and Zooming even when normality resumes.

Aidan and I want to take these priorities and rebuild life around these, figuring out how we can adapt to put the important things at the centre. Number 1 is very dear to our hearts. When it is safe again, we want our home to be open to our family and friends a LOT. I've realised it's not having an immaculate home and special dinners that matters, it's just having people in our midst and living life together - mess and all. I'm not sure how this will work when my husband goes back to his intense and stressful job, but I definitely think we have changed our outlook on how we manage that stress - and I think it will involve more gardening and fewer trips to cafés...

Again, I'm fully aware that the privileges of a garden, spacious home and each other mean that this is a blog post I am completely blessed to even write. I know that for many, lockdown has presented only difficulties and that the sooner it ends the better. This is just our experience and one we are grateful for. And don't get me wrong, I am really struggling with a lot of aspects of it. 5 people under one roof exclusively for 8 weeks is not a pretty sight at times.

Have you enjoyed anything about lockdown? Is there anything you want to take away with you? And how will you do that?