Every parent now wonders whether it is safer to send their child to school when they have a cold or let them stay at home. The problem is that parents are being told that if a child develops a fever or cough to keep them away from school, self-isolate and get them tested for Covid-19. However, as experts stress, sneezing and a running nose are not symptoms of coronavirus and children with runny noses should not be tested: a waste of time and money. According to Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University, who analyses data on Covid at explaincovid.org, says: “If your little kid has Covid-19, there seems to be only about a 5% chance you’ll get it”. It appears, in the Daily Telegraph, article that children don’t seem to spread the virus as they “tend to breathe out with less force than adults, and closer to the ground”. The new UK academic year started with only 88% of pupils back. Dr Michael Tildesley, a mathematician at Warwick University, who develops models simulating the spread of zoonotic diseases, believes the risk of coronavirus spreading around schools is low. He advises parents not to panic: “The risk of being out of education is massive, whereas the risk of children getting seriously ill is low”.
