School closures UK: Piers Morgan hits out at Khan on GMB 'we're the ONLY nation in Europe'
THE CORONAVIRUS row over closing schools erupted on ITV GMB as Piers Morgan took Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to task over the UK's failure to keep up with the rest of Europe.
Coronavirus: Piers Morgan grills Sadiq Khan over school closures
At the first of his daily coronavirus briefings yesterday, Boris Johnson confirmed that schools will be kept open for now “for all sorts of reasons”. Many European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, have all closed down schools to fight the outbreak. ITV Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan grilled Mayor of London Sadiq Khan over the refusal to shut UK schools.
Mr Morgan said: “I’m getting so many people, teachers saying ‘my health matters, why am I being put into a situation where I’m almost guaranteed to get infected and then maybe take it back to my family?’
“You’ve got parents taking their kids out of school.
“I know that my daughter goes to a French school. All of them have locked down, they’ve sent all the kids home now.
“But most London schools remain open, many teachers won’t be there so what quality of teaching will people be getting anyway?”
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The ITV host added: “What is the logic behind saying we don’t want people gathering in large numbers but still having a situation where twice a day hundreds of parents and nannies all congregate with many kids who will probably be carrying this without much of a problem, but may then be affecting the adults?”
Mr Khan responded: “This was raised many times, without breaching confidences, at COBRA yesterday.
“The advice is that it makes very little clinical difference in relation to closing schools.
“But that advice may change in relation to what we do know. Some teachers may be pregnant or others may have underlying health issues.”
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He continued: “A child may have a persistent cough or a temperature which means that mum, dad, carer decides to withdraw the child.
“We’re approaching Easter, which is still about two weeks away for most schools and school holidays.
“But I wouldn’t be surprised if over the course of the two weeks before Easter, Government advice changes.”
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The Mayor added: “If they have to close the schools tomorrow, which they might the way things are moving, it’s moving so fast.
“Most other countries have now shut down schools.
“I saw a piece in one of the papers today.
“We’re almost the only country now in Europe which is keeping schools open.”
The Government’s chief scientific advisor, Patrick Vallance, confirmed that “at some point” it may be necessary to think about school closures.