BACK TO SCHOOL THIS MONTH STILL OUR AIM, SAYS DR GLYNN
IT is still the ‘full intention’ that schools will reopen at the end of the month in the three blackspot counties under lockdown, the acting Chief Medical Officer has said.
Kildare, Laois and Offaly went into partial lockdown last Friday after severe clusters of Covid-19 in meat processing plants and direct provision centres led to major outbreaks of the virus.
The measures, which have shuttered many businesses and restricted people’s movements, were put in place for the next fortnight, bringing it very close to when schools are due to reopen.
Dr Ronan Glynn said: ‘I certainly hope that they will open. It is still the full intention that those schools will open.’
He said ensuring the reopening of schools was one of the reasons why the decision to reimpose restrictions was made. ‘If community transmission has been prevented and if we can stem that, the measures will be eased on Sunday week and, hopefully, schools will open both there and across the country.’
Following reports that three children in a creche in Meath tested positive for Covid-19, Dr Glynn said that he is not overly concerned. ‘No school will be a zero-risk environment, nowhere is a zero-risk environment if levels of this disease are significant in communities across the country.
‘I fully understand that parents will have concerns about their children going back to school, but equally there are a whole range of other social, educational consequences for children if they are not receiving an education.’
Dr Glynn added that NPHET has not downplayed the risks. ‘What we do know is it appears that although children can and do get this disease, they do not transmit it very efficiently to one another and it appears they do not transmit it very efficiently to adults.’