. “I’m here 37 years and that is unprecedented. We’ve never had so many pupils absent on a given day.”Attendances are back close to their pre-pandemic normal of 90 per cent. The number of absences of teachers and SNAs has been lower than he feared. Apart from one outbreak in a junior class where 10 pupils out of 26 tested positive, it has gone smoothly.
“We’d love to host our grandparents’ day again. Chess matches, drama, choir - it’s all been off the menu for the past two years. First Communions and Confirmation gatherings in the school. Things like that. We’re hoping it will all be very doable in the coming months.”The relatively smooth reopening of schools stands in contrast to warnings issued by some public health commentators and politicians in early January.said the way schools were being reopened was “reckless and unsafe”.
“Public health remains of the view that these mitigation measures are effective and appropriate,” said Minister for Education“Furthermore, public health officials advised that there is no public health rationale to delay the reopening of schools later this week.”“The advice was that partial reopening or staggered reopening wasn’t going to make any difference given the scale of Omicron in the community,” says one senior source.
It shows infection rates for all age groups climbed from 1,365 cases per 100,000 in the last week of December to 1,887 per 100,000 in the second week of January. Prof Anthony Staines, however, defends the more cautious stance of those who were worried about reopening schools.“We were calling on the Government to make them safe, but we’ve stopped doing PCR tests on children, there is no systemic antigen testing, no mask wearing for younger classes,” he says.
What happens: - CO2 monitors go red with windows closed. Just turn them off? Pandemic has highlighted how inadequate the ventilation is in most schools. HEPAs not the long term answer. Proper ventilation measures are now needed for all children in our classrooms.
What this isn’t recognising is that the vast majority of schools are still having huge issues with staffing due to the sheer volume of covid circulating - take away all protections in schools will exacerbate that problem and result in more classes closed.
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