Schools have been the elephant in the room since September. With this new variant clearly more transmissible among children, the government have a clear choice to make. If they decide to keep schools open, they need to level with the public that the R number is very unlikely to fall below 1 as a result. Get teachers higher up the vaccination list and then batten down the hatches and hope for the best until spring.
The current dithering and window dressing cannot be allowed to continue. The choice is easy - keep them open and have the virus largely out of control until spring, or close them, reduce the R number but deal with a loss of education, exam chaos and mental health issues. I don’t really envy those making the decision.