Covid-safe measures helping keep kids safe in schools, says study

STUDENTS are jumping for joy as the state hits a key vaccination target and they head back to school on Friday.

Healthcare worker Wendy Dalziel is thrilled her 12-yearold daughter Annabel will return to the classroom, and said hitting the 70 per cent milestone “represents opportunity”.

“For me it brings great joy that people are doing the right thing, so we can all start to enjoy a sense of normality again,” she said.

It comes as new data from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, based on the NSW outbreak, showed that while Delta is about five times more transmissible than previous variants, rapid testing, enhanced ventilation, maskwearing and good hygiene helped control its spread in schools.

The researchers, led by Professor Sharon Goldberg, predict numbers of children getting Covid will rise as restrictions are eased “due to an overall increase in community transmission in a mainly non-immune population”.

However, children and adolescents continue to have mild, or no symptoms.

More than 50 schools across the state have Covid cases, including Berwick Lodge Primary, where preps went back to class for only one day before being sent home again.

About 68 children and 20 staff have been identified as primary close contacts and have to isolate for seven or 14 days depending on their level of contact.

Principal Henry Grossek described measures such as masks as a “toothless tiger”.

Mr Grossek said there was minimal mask-wearing among preps to year 2, but much higher compliance among older kids.

“But some find it hard so how to do you manage the kids who refuse or take them off? You can’t isolate or suspend them,” he said.

He said the Covid-safe measures made sense but were a “toothless tiger as they are unenforceable”.

“It’s a bloody challenging time. From day to day we are not old until early evening what’s happening the following day,” Mr Grossek said.

“We are all flying by the seat of our pants.”

“It is very disappointing not to have kids back on-site. Schools are hollow institutions without the kids.