THERE have been no coronavirus outbreaks linked to schools.

Schools have remained open for the children of key workers and many reopened to Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils on June 1.

At a meeting on Monday, City of York Council's director for education Amanda Hatton said: "We have been very lucky, we haven't had any outbreaks that have been linked to schools across the city.

"That's been really positive and members of the school community have very proactively used public health advice."

The meeting discussed plans to control local outbreaks.

Charlie Jeffery, vice chancellor at the University of York, highlighted the need for swift testing and action to be in place at the city's universities.

He said: "We're hoping that close to 20,000 students might reappear at the University of York in September.

"York St John hopes for another 7,000 more.

"The universities require special consideration not least when it comes to contact tracing."

"Obviously people come from different places, many of them international.

"That sounds to me like a high-risk location or a high-risk community.

"It barely features in the government words.

"I know it features on your outbreak control and the universities require special consideration not least when it comes to contact tracing, because we will be a complex setting and I'm rather concerned about that.

"We will need to have a very swift testing capability so that contacts can be traced quickly, otherwise it could be a very rapid process of extending through the university with people in self-isolation, not knowing whether they have anything or not.

"So my question ultimately is whether the testing capability that we will have through the various sources is really up to the challenge of bringing 20,000 people from different places in the UK and beyond together and managing the complexity of all of that.

"And if not, what can we do as a university or as universities to supplement a testing capability?"