British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said reopening schools in September was a social, economic and moral imperative and insisted schools would be able to operate safely despite the coronavirus pandemic. 

His comments follow a study earlier this month which warned that Britain risks a second wave of COVID-19 in the winter twice as large as the initial outbreak if schools open without an improved test-and-trace system. 

Writing in the Mail on Sunday, Johnson said restarting schools was a national priority. Schools would be the last places to close in future local lockdowns, he was quoted by another newspaper as telling a meeting on Thursday.

Schools in England closed in March during a national lockdown, except for the children of key workers, and reopened in June for a small number of pupils. 

The government wants all pupils to return to school by early September. 

"Keeping our schools closed a moment longer than absolutely necessary is socially intolerable, economically unsustainable and morally indefensible," Johnson wrote. 

Read more:

UK faces COVID-19 dilemma after spike in cases

UK PM Johnson says he could have managed pandemic differently

The economic costs for parents who cannot work if schools are shut are spiraling, and the country faces big problems if children miss out on education, the prime minister warned. 

"This pandemic isn't over, and the last thing any of us can afford to do is become complacent. But now that we know enough to reopen schools to all pupils safely, we have a moral duty to do so," Johnson wrote. 

The headteachers' union has criticized Johnson's push and warned that schools will teach pupils on a "week on-week off" basis if there is a resurgence of the coronavirus and are drawing up a number of contingency plans, according to the Telegraph. 

The Sunday Times newspaper reported that Johnson has ordered a public relations campaign to ensure schools open on time.

Telegraph: Daily death count could be scrapped 

The Telegraph also reported that the country's official COVID-19 daily death count could be scrapped following an investigation into Public Health England's method of counting the toll. 

The conclusions of the investigation, which was ordered by Health Secretary Matt Hancock after it emerged officials were "exaggerating" virus deaths, are expected this week, the newspaper said. 

One recommendation could be to move to a weekly official death toll instead, a government source told the Telegraph. 

Britain paused its daily update of the death toll last month and the government ordered a review into how Public Health England reports coronavirus deaths, after academics said the daily figures may include people who died of other causes. 

Academics in a blog post had warned that the way the government health agency calculated the figures was skewed as patients who tested positive for coronavirus, but are successfully treated, will still be counted as dying from the virus "even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later."

England's death figures vary substantially from day to day due to this reason, the academics had argued. 

In contrast, the other parts of the United Kingdom do not follow the same approach. There is a cut-off threshold of 28 days in Scotland after a positive test, after which a patient is not automatically considered to have died from the virus. 

Britain, one of the countries hardest hit by the virus, reported more than 1,000 new COVID-19 infections on Sunday, its highest daily increase since June, taking the total number of cases past 310,000.