Schools and Covid 19 (part 5) **Mod warnings in OP**

Do you have a source for that R0?

Interesting snippet from Wikipedia:

That might partially explain the current low incidence of SC2 in schools, and go against the idea of keeping symptomatic kids out of school, at least until they test positive.

Honestly I'm not expecting certainty, but at a minimum a coherent approach for all concerned.

As I've said, I'm not a parent, can only go on reporting and speaking numerous friends & neighbours who are parents and the situation seems quite chaotic given the fact there was months to prepare for a return to school. Just as an example, I live quite rural, 4 families within a 2 mile radius have children who've been sent home.

Parents will have to expect that it is likely their kids will be out from time to time during the year. The main thing is that we don't return to the laughable remote learning for young primary school kids.

It's interesting how so many of the voices who six months ago argued locking incoming travellers in hotel rooms was going to insulate Ireland from Covid now argue schools can be insulated from Covid. All measures in schools are surely just delaying the inevitable. Covid is already endemic and people are going to live freely in wider society - including schoolkids meeting up after school etc. Put all schoolkids in hazmat suits and I guarantee you 10 minutes after the closing bell you'll find all the kids without the hazmat suits in the nearest shop buying chocolate bars.

That's not exactly what the quote said, it said that rhinovirus infection may reduce severity and disease burden, so it might make you less infectious.

Any symptomatic infection is likely to repel people in the current environment.

Wow 30,000 tests done in a single day ! No wonder it sounds like Ireland's testing capacity is coming under strain at such a huge number, a bit late now to do anything really, only had 16 months to ramp it up. Need a bit of snake oil as back up i think like the rest of Europe.

Going by what Tony Holohan put on his twitter timeline yesterday I can't see them changing their advice about isolating with symptoms anyway.

There are some schools saying don't come to school with a runny nose. Now if I didn't send my child to school with a runny nose (or sent all the children home in my class with a runny nose), they'd miss a ridiculous amount of school. So it's just not feasible to ask parents, teachers or children to do that.

I drove past a test centre on Monday and it was absolutely crazy. I never saw anything like the queues.

we had symptoms since school started back but I didn’t send for testing as were mild. Just kept out for a day to monitor.

Somewhat self inflicted chaos though. The school appears to have chosen to do its own contact tracing. Or is this response somehow mandated by the DfE, unions or whoever?

My kids secondary school, by contrast, is leaving it all to the HSE, and there is zero disruption.

Now most of the secondary school kids are at least partially vaccinated, and all of them are masked and reasonably well separated (single desks) so it's not a fair comparison.

But I wonder whether there will be pressure coming from primary school parents on school management to be a little less reactive, i.e. let it rip. I think I might be in favour of this if my kids were younger.

Let it rip.

Only way out of this madness.

Kids are fine.

My daughter's entire class has been sent home for 10 days after a couple of positive cases. They all are considered close contacts in the class and all must go for tests according to HSE tracing. If a child doesn't go for a test they must stay at home for 14 days. No wonder the testing regime is overwhelmed.

Just saw in Canada that close contacts with no symptoms are still allowed to attend school but must isolate outside of school. Might be an idea here.