We're following the science (but not if it's inconvenient)

I am angry. You should be too. Throughout this pandemic you have worked on the front line to help keep children and families safe and protect education. Throughout this pandemic our leaders in Westminster have promised to ‘follow the science’ and focus on ‘data not dates’. And yet throughout this pandemic key decisions seem, time and again, to have been made without any nod to ‘the science’.

This is bound to irk health professionals – after all, in your daily lives you embrace the importance of ensuring practice is evidence-based and reflective.

Cases of the Delta variant (B1.617.2) in the UK are soaring. Figures from 3 June show 12 431 cases – up by 5 472 in just one week (Public Health England [PHE], 2021a). And the government's attitude to the alarming spread of the Delta COVID variant in schools in the two biggest epicentres of the outbreak, Bolton and Blackburn with Darwen, is the final straw for me.