Coronavirus, schools and children - what are the risks?
While plans for mass testing in schools are put in place, most children across the UK are starting the new term learning at home.
So what is known about how the virus is transmitted among children and in schools - and will closing them make a difference?
What's the risk to children and young people?
Children's risk of becoming ill from the virus is tiny - and this hasn't changed since the start of the pandemic, even with a new, more contagious variant of coronavirus circulating in the UK.
Despite a clear rise in the numbers of children infected in the second wave, child health experts confirm they are not seeing any rise in Covid-related illnesses in children in hospital.
"As cases in the community rise there will be a small increase in the number of children we see with Covid-19, but the overwhelming majority of children and young people have no symptoms or very mild illness only," says Prof Russell Viner, president of Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.
Do children spread the virus?
Among pupils in primary schools, up to the age of 11, evidence shows that there is very limited spread of coronavirus.
Children of this age don't appear to be the main drivers for passing it on to their friends or to their families at home.
Children of secondary school age are different, however - they appear to be more able to pass the virus on.
But there is no evidence that teenagers are more likely to transmit than adults.
Schoolchildren and young adults have undoubtedly experienced a much faster rise in infections than other age groups in the second wave - and that may be down to their opportunity to mingle.
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