SCHOOLS TO BE WATCHED CLOSELY FOR VIRUS, SAYS DEPUTY CMO
DEPUTY Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn last night said that NPHET will have to continue to monitor the situation with schools ‘very closely’.
He said: ‘The incidence amongst our children, has generally outperformed that in the population as a whole.
‘We will have cases, we will have clusters. I have no doubt that there’ll be ups and downs over the coming weeks.
‘We know that school communities, parents, teachers, principals, all got behind this in September and made it a success from September to December. I’m confident that it can be a success again.
‘But as I said previously, for me, the biggest concern over the coming
‘We will have cases and clusters’
weeks is not necessarily what happens in the schools, it’s that everyone buys into the measures. Beyond the school community.’
Dr Glynn also said the issue of whether primary schoolchildren should wear masks would be discussed at the next NPHET meeting this week.
He said: ‘Our position since September, has been that children less than 13 years of age, that whilst it’s not formally recommended, any child who wants to wear masks shouldn’t be discouraged from doing so.
‘We do keep these things under constant review, and this topic will be coming up for discussion at NPHET. I’m not necessarily anticipating a change.’
Dr Glynn added that when parents drop their kids off to school, they should be wearing masks.
It comes as the latest report on Covid-19 cases from the Health
Protection Surveillance Centre shows that there were 1,403 cases in children aged 12 years and younger, in the two weeks to February 27.
Of these, 28 were admitted to hospital, but none were in intensive care units. There were 589 cases among those aged 0-4 years, with 814 cases in those aged 5-12, while there were 710 cases in the 13-18 age group.
Meanwhile, Education Minister Norma Foley has said that antigen testing has not been recommended by public health bosses after schools began reopening on a phased basis.
And she said that while the new variants have changed circumstances, there are no plans for primary school students to wear a face covering. More than 300,000 students returned to classrooms across the country yesterday for the first time since December after pandemic restrictions were lifted. After 33 lost school days, 60,000 Leaving Cert Students and another 260,000 junior primary pupils have returned to in-person learning. Special needs schools, having returned on a limited basis two weeks ago, have now returned to full capacity. Ms Foley said: ‘In terms of the antigen testing there is an expert group headed up by Professor Mark Ferguson doing a particular study on the use of antigen testing, not just in education settings, but all settings. And, the review of the work of that group is due to make its findings sometime in mid-March so we will wait to see what the findings are.’
Ms Foley insisted ‘such testing has not been recommended by public health’ experts.
Meanwhile, Ronan Mac Grianna, a principal at Scoil Naomh Lorcan in Omeath, Co. Louth said his pupils were overjoyed to be back.
He said: ‘When the children arrived, the vast majority of them literally ran up the hill to the school here. Our school is located on a hill overlooking Carlingford Lough here. Everyone’s very happy, everyone’s delighted. It’s joy, even more so than relief. I’d say there’s a lot of relief among parents though.’