Schools try return to mask rules

Amid clear signs a second wave of Omicron has arrived, some schools have decided to make mask wearing compulsory – despite no government mandate – to limit a worsening impact on learning.

A mandate for masks in schools was removed in mid-April.

The Government confirmed last week that the country would stay at the orange Covid-19 setting but encouraged face masks indoors for year 4 students and above.

With about 100 students a day absent, Christchurch South Karamata Intermediate School this week reintroduced a ‘‘circuit breaker’’ of mandatory mask wearing indoors. An increase in student absences ‘‘related to a range of winter illnesses’’ was affecting ‘‘normal school operation’’, principal Ross Hastings and board chairperson Mark Callaghan said in an email to parents.

‘‘We feel the need to mitigate the situation to reduce disruption to learning and teaching.’’

Professor Michael Plank, a Covid-19 modeller and University of Canterbury mathematician, said a steady increase in Covid-19 case numbers in the past week made a second wave of Omicron ‘‘likely’’.

‘‘The signs are there that it does look likely that we’re at the start of a wave.’’

Case numbers could increase and peak at more than 20,000 a day, just like the first wave in March.

On Sunday the rolling average of case numbers was 6895. This was a 26% increase on the previous Sunday, when the seven-day rolling average was 5480.

Plank said there was evidence from genome sequencing that the more contagious variant BA.5 was on the rise and would become dominant in the next few weeks.

The impact of a second wave would depend on how compliant people were with public health measures – the most important of which was still the Covid-19 vaccine, Plank said. ‘‘It’s still the best tool we have. So whether it’s your first dose or your fourth dose, it doesn’t matter – now’s a really good time to go out and get it.’’

Mask wearing and staying home when sick were also effective in limiting the spread of the virus, he said. ‘‘I’ve seen some studies estimate as much as a 20% reduction in spread as a result of mask wearing.’’

The Government said last week it would supply each student in years 4 to 8 with 50 child-sized masks in term three, which starts

on July 25. Some 20,000 to 30,000 adult-sized masks were already being distributed to students and staff every week, Associate Education Minister Jan Tinetti said.

Principals’ Federation president Cherie Taylor-Patel said there was wide variation in the approaches that schools were taking to mask wearing. Some had found it hard to maintain a strong culture of mask wearing after the mandate was removed, she said.

‘‘Over this year it’s been more difficult to maintain that ... when the peer pressure has gone on . . . and it’s left up to individuals.’’

Burnside High School principal and Canterbury West Coast Secondary Principals Association president Phil Holstein said the group wrote to the minister of education to express concern about the lack of consultation over the mask mandate decision. ‘‘All of a sudden [the decision] was made for us, but we’re the ones implementing that, and we would like to have had a voice in there.’’

Burnside students were told they were ‘‘expected’’ to wear a mask indoors, and Holstein was relieved students had complied.

Beckenham Te Kura o Pu¯ roto primary school principal and Canterbury Primary Principals’ Association president Sandy Hastings said many schools, including her own, had seen a steep rise in illness among staff and students.