School closures round about when they happened were almost unavoidable due to staff shortages round here. Most secondary schools had already sent home multiple years.
Very possibly, I was really just seconding the point that the government will have received various conflicting pieces of advice from various eminent, well-informed people and couldn't follow all of them.
I have heard from a well-placed source that the school shutdown was actually put in place earlier than recommended by people advising the government.