Since the gradual removal of social distancing restrictions, school children have been reunited with friends, young adults have been excited to live out the rest of their 20s in an adventurous manner, the working population have been longing to get back into the office… overall much of the population were just keen to get “back to normal”.
However it has become apparent that the former sense of “normal” will never be experienced again. The world has learnt to adapt and be more efficient in the face of a global lockdown, and many of these changes were permanent. Services such as banking and even certain aspects of higher education have become permanently remote.
In the face of a new biological threat affecting certain areas of London - could this be a good thing?
Group A Streptococcus (Strep A) is not a new thing, just as coronavirus was not, but there has been an increase in a variety of strains of Strep A which have caused these outbreaks. According to Professor Shiranee Sriskandan, Professor of Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London, these strains “are good at causing throat infections including tonsillitis and also scarlet fever”. Scarlet fever quite commonly affects primary school aged children but “the timing and number of outbreaks at present is unusual” which is a great cause for concern as Strep A has caused some deaths (though this is rare) and this concern has spread to secondary schools.
To protect students, secondary schools such as my own (Townley Grammar) have shut early for the Christmas holidays overnight due to suspected cases of Strep A, and students hope to return to school as normal in January, having thought to have seen the back of remote learning for good in early 2020.
