As schools open to all pupils today, teachers are being told to be “really careful” in staffrooms to avoid catching Covid-19 from colleagues.

Professor Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said teachers’ colleagues posed more of a Covid “risk” to them than pupils.

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Speaking on BBC’s Breakfast this morning, he said it was “inevitable that we will see a rise in cases” as schools go back, but that it was not so important if the reproduction number (the R) rose slightly.

It was more about “the absolute number of cases going to hospital and needing intensive care”, he said.

He said society needed to learn how to live with the virus, adding: “It’s going to be difficult and it is going to mean some social distancing and face mask-wearing, good ventilation until really late summer when we’ve got the vast majority of people vaccinated.”

The professor of child health and outbreak medicine at the University of Liverpool said advice for teachers “is going to be wearing face masks, being really careful in the common room - their colleagues are more of a risk to them than the children”.