THE DIFFERENCES between English and Welsh children returning to classrooms comes from differences in policy rather than science, Wales’ chief medical officer said today.

Dr Frank Atherton was asked about why there was this difference in approach if both governments were following the science.

“The policy here in Wales has been very clear that we want to get kids back to school, back to face-to-face learning,” he said. “They've been too long in the distance learning and we need to change that.

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“That's why we've taken a more gradual approach.

“We are being cautious because we know that when schools do restart that that can drive community infection so we want to get community infections as low as we possibly can here in Wales.

“There's no absolute right answer to this but we are being slightly more cautious I would say in Wales because we absolutely don't want to create a third wave.

“So that explains some of that that difference. It's a policy choice rather than a question based on science.”

Also speaking at the Welsh Government’s press conference, Dr Andrew Goodall, chief executive of NHS Wales, warned of the effect of re-opening from lockdown to quickly.

“There is still the potential of seeing a growth in other cases of coronavirus and seeing very visible pressures re-emerge again,” said Dr Goodall. “It is a bit of a mathematical equation to get the order of this right, but as ministers have articulated, schools remains an absolute priority.”

Dr Atherton was also asked about when the effect of schools going back would be seen in the data.

“It’s back to the earlier question about the impact of opening schools, which we know from the SAGE advice does have an effect on the R number,” said Dr Atherton. “It does lead to increased transmission - not necessarily because of transmission within the schools, but because of everything that goes on around the schools - dropping kids off and more parents back at work.

“There is likely to be some impact in terms of the community transmission, we may well see a signal.

“That signal becomes less as community transmission is low, [that’s] another reason why we need to keep it as low as we possibly can.

“Generally speaking, it's the three to five week period that we see any signal from any intervention, which is why we have a three week process here in in Wales of reviewing what we do in terms of releasing the lockdown.”