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

ah ok, our schools must have been just lucky so.

both my young kids had it, so i wonder would they be exempt as according to the HSE their immune for 6-9 months

I'd like to understand where the authority comes from in this decision. Does the HSE have the legal right to mandate that a child stays home? Do they have the legal right to insist that the school send the class home? Or is this an authority-by-consent situation, where the school is following HSE orders despite them having no legal basis?

What is the purpose of 'quarantine' ?

I would like to hear a good explanation too, but i guess if they have already been exposed in their classroom and not showing symptoms, there is less risk in letting them to continue to mix with other asympomatic kids in their class that have also been exposed potentially.

That's a very good question, technically they're denying the children access to education for the 10 days without proof they are a legitimate risk (positive test etc), I totally understand why but can they actually do that considering it's a constitutional right?

Why the need to send home and entire class, how can the whole class be considered a close contact. What if they come back and then there is one more case? Are the school going to send all students home again?

Realistically we cant get into a situation where every time there is a positive case the whole class is sent home. There have been 2 years of interrupted education. Isn't this the reason there are pods? To reduce the close contacts.

50% of adults in hospital are vaccinated because over 90% of all adults are fully vaccinated ergo they make up the vast majority of the population. The fact 50% comes from unvaccinated people, when they make up a complete minority of the population now, says everything and that's what your focus should be. Sadly the media confused people like yourself with the stance they took with these figures the other day and their choices of headline.

considering all they amount to is "oh its red, open the windows more and hope it gets better" i cant really see the point in them either

We leave all the windows open all the time (in current weather anyway) so I'm failing to see their purpose to be honest.

Well, in our school the teachers are planning to take the kids out of the room if possible, while leaving windows and doors open.

Even a 5 minute walk around the yard would be enough to reduce the levels, once a decent airflow is established. It's obviously messy and will be difficult to implement (what if there are already kids moving in the corridors, what if more than one class triggers a warning at the same time) but where possible it'll be a mitigation factor, every little bit helps.

I wish the Department would invest in hepa filters for every room, it's actually a pretty reasonable investment considering the cost of not doing it. Our PTA is looking into just fundraising for them instead.

New York gov just brought in mask mandate from the age of two up.

If one of the kids has a cough (booked in for a test) should the other (no symptoms) stay home from school? Struggling to find the exact guidelines.

Typical US "Go big or go home" stuff.

The devil's in the detail. The mandate only requires that it should be worn by anyone capable of doing so. I can tell you that you'd have a lot of fun trying to keep a child under 4 wearing a mask for more than five minutes.

This is typical though, U.S. laws tend to lack subtlety.

I teach 5th class. Here is an example of a week in school.

Two kids were out on Monday as they were close contacts. Such is the stigma that the Dept of Ed and Public Health have created around Covid in schools, both were very uncomfortable about explaining their absence to other kids. An absence which should be completely normalised by now. I knew because their parents had contacted the school.

Another kid was in Monday and out Tuesday and Wednesday. Said he had a sore throat and stomach upset. Back in school today, no note from home.

His friend, who was on a play date with him last weekend, was out all week until today. Also said he had sore throat. No note from home.

Neither kid was tested, I didn’t ask them, the other kids did. So there’s absolutely no way for me or the classroom SNA to know whether they just have regular back to school sniffles or if it’s more serious. There were 2 other kids from the class on the same play date.

I’m vaccinated but got swine flu in school in 20009 and suffered from serious post-viral issues for 5 years afterwards. Really, really do not want Covid, or more particularly long Covid, as many of its symptoms mimic what I went through. I also have elderly parents, vaccinated, but vulnerable all the same.

I, like every other teacher I know, want schools open and functioning. Kids missed out on too much socially, there is evidence of it in the classroom. I just wonder how we can do this safely. Public Health are understaffed and the people at the top seem to have no comprehension of how small Irish classrooms are and how many kids are squashed into them. Dept of Ed will do literally anything to maintain the party line of ‘Schools are safe’. Anywhere is safe if you suppress the number of cases coming from it. At the moment we have all windows and doors open but that can’t continue into the winter. We got 5 CO2 monitors, there are 18 classrooms and 8 resource rooms in the school. So far, their readings are unreliable - all 5 in the same room produced different readings.

I do believe that we need to learn to live with Covid and begin to de-medicalise our existence at this point. However, I’m not convinced that kids and staff in primary schools are being adequately protected so that this can happen successfully.