SCHOOLS IN VIRUS PANIC
Alert as pupils return from virus-hit Italy Contagion across Europe But IRFU demands talks over match ban
PARENTS have been warned to keep vulnerable children away from school, amid fears they have picked up the coronavirus while on skiing trips to Italy.
More than 220 cases of the disease have been discovered in Italy, and eleven people have died from it.
Schools – including the exclusive Mount Anville in Goatstown, Dublin – have been warning families of their concerns as the deadly disease increases its foothold across Europe. Austria, Switzerland, mainland Spain and Croatia confirmed their first cases, and fresh outbreaks were reported around Milan and Venice.
And next week’s Six Nations clash between Ireland and Italy is to be called off over public health worries. However, the IRFU says it wants to discuss the ban and is seeking an ‘urgent’ meeting with Health Minister Simon Harris.
Despite growing international fears, the rugby body says it wants to hear the ‘specific reasoning behind calling for
the cancellation of the match’. In recent days, students in a number of schools across Ireland have returned from northern Italy where they were on mid-termbreak skiing trips.
Mount Anville, where students recently returned from such a trip, has written to parents to say that it might be prudent to keep students with compromised immune systems or underlying illnesses at home.
And in a statement yesterday, the principal of St Paul’s Community College in Waterford, Fiona McDonnell, said 40 of its students and four teachers returned from a trip in Folgaria in Italy.
‘The students and teachers were met today and all are healthy and not presenting with any symptoms of the coronavirus. We have contacted the HSE and have been informed that the group from St Paul’s Community College were skiing in an area of zero to low risk,’ she said.
The school said that they are following the instructions of the HSE and they will keep the school community updated.
However, according to reports, there are at least two other schools in Waterford in a similar situation.
And a Kildare school also had students returning from a skiing trip around the same time, but the
‘Italy game would be significant risk’
school could not be reached for comment last night.
Following the IRFU demand, Minister Harris said last night that he would meet the body today but he added that the Italy game would constitute a ‘significant risk’ because of the large number of people travelling to Dublin from northern Italy.
‘We’ve obviously taken a decision in relation to the Ireland-Italy rugby game, which was due to be held in Dublin on March 7. The very clear view of the National Public Health Emergency Team was that this game should not go ahead, that it would constitute a significant risk because a very large number of people will be travelling from what is now an affected region,’ he said.
‘My department will be contacting the IRFU in relation to this. I know it’ll come as a cause of great disappointment to many, but it is important we make decisions in relation to public health above and beyond all other considerations,’ he told RTÉ News. The emergency team will now develop a coronavirus risk assessment for all mass gatherings.
Meanwhile, UEFA have warned that Euro 2020 matches could also be in jeopardy, should the coronavirus outbreak in Europe get worse between now and the summer.
The Aviva Stadium is due to host four Euro 2020 games in June. Dublin is planned to be one of 12 cities to host games.
And a swimming competition in northern Italy, in which two Irish paralympians had been due to compete, has also been cancelled as result of the coronavirus.
Meanwhile, hundreds of tourists, including Irish holidaymakers, are being isolated in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands after two positive cases of the virus were detected.
Yesterday, news broke that an Italian doctor and his wife, who had been staying in the four-star H10 Costa Adeje Palace hotel, tested positive for the virus.
The hotel was subsequently placed on lockdown.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Liveline yesterday, a man from Wicklow, who is currently in the hotel, said that they received a notice under their door to let them know that the hotel has been closed down and they are to remain in their rooms.
‘Brian’, not his real name, said: ‘We’re here three weeks tomorrow.
We’re due to go home tomorrow in the afternoon, we’re supposed to be leaving. I hope we’re tested before we miss our flight tomorrow.’
He said there isn’t much going on in the hotel and that he thinks ‘everybody is waiting on a medical person to call’, adding that an army of doctors would be needed to deal with the situation.
The Department of Health yesterday said it was updating its list of affected regions to include
South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Iran as well as four provinces in northern Italy alongside China.
The four regions in Italy include Lombardy, Veneto, EmiliaRomagna and Piedmont.
The head of Iran’s virus task force also tested positive for the illness yesterday, just a day after a news conference in which he tried to play down the danger posed by the outbreak. Iraj Harichi’s diagnosis came amid a surge in cases in the country.
And Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow has announced he is in precautionary self-isolation after travelling to Iran to cover the country’s election. The news comes
‘I hope we’re tested before we miss flight’
as fears of the disease spreading hit Britain where staff and pupils at 18 schools were sent home yesterday amid fears they have picked up coronavirus on skiing trips to Italy.
The British Foreign Office is now urging people to avoid all but essential travel to 11 affected towns in northern Italy while those returning from the region are being told to ‘selfisolate’ if they feel unwell.
UK officials have also revealed they were considering closing schools and transport networks in the event of a global pandemic.
There, the government is already stockpiling drugs for malaria and HIV in the hope that they can also treat coronavirus and patients with severe chest infections will automatically be tested for the virus even if they haven’t visited an at-risk country.
One British government source said: ‘We are doing everything that can be done. But there is a sense that we may be at a tipping point where this is going to dominate everything.’
England’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, suggested vulnerable groups should think twice about going to Italy.
And worldwide, more than €100billion has been wiped off the FTSE 100 in two days, while a senior US official warned that it was a question of when, not if, the virus reaches America.