来源：《每日电讯报》
日期：2021年1月25日
Once again the big question dominating the coronavirus debate is: when can schools reopen? It should be said that most are not closed at all since they are required to offer places to the children of key employees who would otherwise not be in a position to work and to those classified as vulnerable. This includes children with no access to computers who would miss out on online tuition.
再一次，冠状病毒争论的焦点问题是：学校什么时候可以重新开学？应该说，大多数学校根本没有关闭，因为它们被要求为关键岗位员工的子女提供场所，否则他们将无法工作。开放的对象还有弱势群体，弱势群体包括那些无电脑可用的孩子，他们可能会错过网上教学。
It is evident that the Government has no more idea when all children might return than anyone else. It is unclear what the official metric is for ending the lockdown and allowing schools to resume normal teaching. Is it the infection rate among teachers who, as Office for National Statistics figures showed yesterday, are no more at risk from Covid than many other walks of life? Is it the tendency of children to pass the virus on to older family members? If that is the case, that risk will persist because children are not to be vaccinated, certainly not for months, if at all. Moreover, if children are passing on the virus within their own families then vaccinating teachers will make little difference to the spread of Covid though it might help create the conditions to reopen schools.
很明显，政府也不知道什么时候能让所有孩子重返校园。目前还不清楚结束封锁并允许学校恢复正常教学的官方标准是什么。是教师中的感染率吗？根据英国国家统计局昨天公布的数据，教师的感染风险并不比许多其他行业更高。是儿童将病毒传染给年长家庭成员的倾向吗？如果是这样的话，这种风险将持续下去，因为儿童不会被接种疫苗，至少几个月内肯定不会被接种。此外，如果儿童在自己的家庭中传播病毒，那么教师是否接种疫苗对新冠病毒的传播几乎没有影响，尽管这可能有助于为重新开学创造条件。
Or is the date for reducing restrictions the point at which the most vulnerable have been vaccinated? This is expected to be mid-February, by which time 13 million vaccines should have been administered to the elderly and sick. Yet doubt is now being cast over this because it is not certain that the vaccine will give sufficient protection. Another metric is pressure on the NHS. Even if infection rates remain high, will controls be eased once it is evident that the vaccine has helped reduce hospitalisations?
或者，易感人群接种疫苗后，是否可以放松限制？这估计要到二月中旬，届时应已为老年人和病人接种1300万剂疫苗。然而，现在人们对此产生了怀疑，因为疫苗是否能提供足够的保护尚不确定。另一个衡量标准是NHS的压力。即使感染率居高不下，一旦疫苗明显有助于减少住院人数，管控措施是否会放松？
We know none of the answers to these questions and Boris Johnson was unable to shed any light when asked yesterday to give an idea when the lockdown might be eased.
我们不知道这些问题的答案，鲍里斯·约翰逊昨天被问及何时解除封锁时，也没有透露任何信息。
Some Tory MPs want a timetable charting a path back to normality but the Government is reluctant to create hostages to fortune. However, ministers could at least identify the benchmarks they are looking at to guide their judgments. For instance, will it be when hospitals are running at 80 per cent capacity; or the proportion of over 70s contracting the virus has fallen by a particular percentage; or the case fatality rate has declined to a specific level? The country needs this information to gauge for itself when normal life might be restored.
一些保守党议员希望制定一个时间表，制定一条回归常态的路径，但政府不愿立flag。不过，内阁官员们至少可以确定他们正在关注的衡量尺度，以指导他们的判断。例如，当医院的容量达到80%时，或者70岁以上的人感染病毒的比例下降了一个特定的百分比，或者病死率已经下降到特定水平？英国需要这些信息来估计何时能恢复正常生活。