“My father is turning 70 in August. I personally have a chronic lung disease ... we are all high risk and terrified ... at the very least, please consider allowing high-risk staff to self-isolate. “Everyone I have spoken to wants the schools closed yesterday. This includes parents at my son’s school and my son’s teacher.” Schools remain open because of the potential risks closures could mean for grandparent carers, the significant number of health sector employees who would otherwise have to find emergency childcare, and to prevent other working parents from having to place children in potentially less controlled arrangements. Prime Minister Scott Morrison repeated this on Wednesday as a “clear and unified position” across the states. But health workers are worried this situation will change; a Fiona Stanley Hospital nurse said the hospital’s HR department had discussed emergency childcare at a staff meeting.

On the other hand, worry is skyrocketing around what working means for at-risk older teachers, with 30 per cent of Australian teachers aged 50-plus and one in five WA schoolteachers reportedly over 60. The risk of dying if infected with COVID-19 rises to 3.6 per cent for those in their 60s. A Perth man whose wife is a special needs education assistant in close physical contact with her students was aware of one student whose parent was about to return from overseas, but no information was provided about whether the child would still be attending. "Given the advice on social distancing, are the schools now a safe workplace?" he said.

"I just think the schools need to be much more rigorous in their management ... [other industries have] a lot more experience around risk management. Education department/schools don’t have the skill set or experience to manage this." Other teachers have written to WAtoday voicing similar concerns. The Australian Medical Association’s WA branch has daily pushed for a gradual, managed reduction in the school population to mitigate risk and buy time. AMA WA president Andrew Miller has stressed that this means for the moment schools would remain open for the children of healthcare workers and others who would face hardship without them. “The Chief Medical Officer and all those other professors and so on are very well educated but they have never worked on the front line. They don’t run an ED or an ICU or a general practice ... those people are telling me they are unprepared and they need a few weeks," he told Radio 6PR on Wednesday.

“No doctor or nurse should be in a position of telling themselves, I could have saved that patient if I had had more time or more equipment. I wouldn’t have brought that home to my family if we had a couple more weeks to get some more masks into the country.” Some parents are taking Dr Miller's advice to heart and keeping children home. WAtoday has been told one southern suburbs school has 30 to 40 per cent of its kindy and pre-primary school classes missing. But the Education Department has not outlined any further risk management moves aimed at protecting teachers, providing online learning options or reducing school populations.

Loading The state schoolteachers’ union has declined to comment and is deferring to the Education Department. The department's Workforce executive director Damien Stewart said this was an evolving situation and he understood staff had concerns. "We will continue to follow Heath Department advice and provide support and advice to our staff including guidelines for the management of good hygiene in the workplace," he said. “Department of Education employees required to isolate themselves because they are in an ‘at-risk’ group prescribed by the Federal Government, will receive paid time off.

"Teachers and school staff who may be diagnosed with COVID-19, or who are otherwise unwell and symptomatic, will be able to access their existing sick/personal leave entitlements. "Where existing paid sick, personal and carer’s leave entitlements are exhausted, there is capacity to grant up to 20 days paid COVID-19 leave where an employee’s ability to attend work is impacted by COVID-19." Mr Stewart said these guidelines applied to all the Department’s workforce including teachers. "I'd like thank our teachers and school staff who are providing the critical service of educating our kids during this difficult and ever-changing time," he said. Closing schools may have little impact in flattening the curve, says Ian Henderson, a professor of microbiology at the University of Queensland, and former director of the UK’s Institute of Microbiology and Infection.

He said if excluded from school for a 13-week period it was likely children would mix anyway and continue transmitting the virus, while impacts to the economy and healthcare system could be significant. But he also said older citizens and those with underlying health conditions needed to be protected from exposure. “Those most at risk, the elderly and those with comorbidities should consider isolating themselves from potential sources of infection. This includes children,” he said. Young children pose a greater risk as transmitters, says Robert Booy, head of clinical research at the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance. On Wednesday, Professor Booy told the Australian Academy of Science he suspected children were catching it but hardly showing systems as their immune systems were different.

He said young children with poor personal respiratory hygiene were the most likely to transmit infection. But milder cases in older children who could wash their hands posed a lower risk. Loading “Certainly they could pass it on to their families but I don’t see them as major transmitters,” he said. On Tuesday afternoon John XXIII College in Mount Claremont, which has more than 1500 students and 240 staff, advised the school community a parent had tested positive and the family was now in self-isolation.

WAtoday has contacted the school asking for further details about any further measures the school is taking and also the Health Department to ask if the Chief Health Officer is going to exercise his power to direct this school to take further action.