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Schools reopening in June did not lead to a single child being hospitalised with Covid-19, new figures from Public Health England show.
The data reveals that despite more than 1.6 million youngsters returning to education, just 70 children tested positive for the virus, and none needed hospital treatment.
In contrast, 128 staff members were diagnosed with the virus, and PHE said most of the transmission had come from adults. Schools have been told to improve their hygiene to prevent outbreaks.
The research also shows that cases were far more likely to happen in areas which were experiencing high levels of the virus, suggesting that high levels of community infection were responsible for the outbreaks.
The analysis also said further school closures may be necessary in regions with increasing community infection but this should "be considered only in extremis".
Report author, Dr Shamez Ladhani, clinical epidemiologist, Public Health England, said: "SARS-Cov2 infections and outbreaks were uncommon in educational settings during the first month after the easing of national lockdown in England.
"The strong correlation with regional SARS-Cov-2 incidence emphasises the importance of controlling community transmission to protect educational settings.
"Additional interventions should focus on reducing transmission in and among staff members."
The report also showed that there were 30 outbreaks in schools where at least two people were infected. In those cases there were just six incidents of pupils passing the infection to staff and just two of students passing it between themselves.
Many of the children were asymptomatic and of the 30 single cases, most had caught the virus from household contacts.
The report suggests that just 0.01 per cent schools had a case or outbreak in June, and concludes that infections in education settings are rare.
Over the same period, there were 25,470 cases recorded in England as a whole, meaning that schools contributed to just 0.7 per cent of cases, and children just 0.27 per cent.
Although staff members were more likely to be infected than children, they were no more likely than the general population.
On Sunday, Britain's chief medical officers warned that despite coronavirus children are more at risk of long-term harm if they do not attend school than if they return to the classroom.
In a joint statement issued ahead of the reopening of schools next month, the advisers said children have an "exceptionally low risk of dying" from Covid-19.
They said "very few, if any" children and teenagers would come to long-term harm from the virus solely by attending school, while there was a 'certainty' of harm from not returning.
The chief and deputy chief medical officers said schools were not a "common route of transmission", and that teachers were not at any increased risk of dying compared to the general working-age population.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/08/23/reopening-schools-june-not-single-child-hospitalised-coronavirus/