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

Just found out our school is abandoning pods as a result of no more contact tracing. I don't think the Dept mandated any change to pod system did it?

To try and limit spread. Found the dept advice, pods are still required where possible.

Q. Do ‘pods’ still need to be organised and implemented?

A. Yes. We have asked children to be in pods as per last year and that indoors these pods are kept in place as much as possible. This is to ensure that the number of people (adults and children) who are in close contact with a case of Covid-19 is as limited as possible, and therefore the risks to others (albeit that the risks are low within a class setting) are kept to the lowest number. This year we have asked that close friends might sit together to reflect national guidance that people are not as restricted in activities and play dates out of school and therefore it is important this occurs to further enable the number of close contacts and those at onward risk are kept as low as possible within the community.

There were 49 new outbreaks reported in schools in the week to last Saturday, 25 September, compared with 90 outbreaks the previous week.

Was that before or after the changes re close contacts came in to play?

Now if we could just end the mask requirement in secondary schools, education would be largely back to normal.

They are scaling back as we are starting to hit a financial crisis again. The Covid cost was massive and some may say a bit OTT.

Covid is now not as serious as it was before, hence the reopening program is always fully there.

100%

Most of these things don't exist in primary school. Masks and open windows is about the extent of it. Desks are washed and cleaned at the end of the day. But during the day things continue as they always have. I'd love mask wearing to be optional at this point.

C02 monitors removed from a secondary school in the locality as the students were constantly blowing into them, between classes, so the monitor would go red and they'd have to leave class 😊😊

And first years trying to fart on them to see if they can turn red.

^^ That's what I'm thinking. You can only laugh.

After all the consternation about them, of course the kids were going to mess with them.

Yeah I just looked it up as I’m in the same situation. One with a temp and upset tummy for a day and it passed, but had her tested and I’m at home with three perfectly well children as the school goers can’t go in until the result. I antigen tested her and it was negative but it was the temperature that gave me the heebeejeebies, I know a few kids who got it recently and only had a temp. I am a SAHM but I have great sympathy for working parents, it must be a nightmare right now because kids are getting everything going

we suspended a child in our school for breathing on them. rightly so.

No they don't. They would only have had to restrict movements if the close contact developed symptoms.

My daughter was a close contact in September and had to restrict movements but the information from the school and HSE did not say that people who lived in the house had to restrict movements.

I kept her older sibling out of secondary school until we got the test result but I wasn't obliged to.

The HSE website has the following information :If you live with someone who is restricting their movements, you do not need to restrict your movements as long as they do not have any symptoms of COVID-19.

and the information from the HSE and department of education has the following information:

Q: Can family members of a pupil/student/staff member (who has been identified as a close contact) attend school?

A: Yes, as long as the family members have not also been designated close contacts by HSE Public Health. Only the pupil/student/staff member who is a close contact needs to restrict her/his movements, even though she/he has no symptoms. However, no other family member is required to do so and can still attend school – unless also identified as a close contact by HSE Public Health. If however, the pupil/student/staff member who is a close contact develops symptoms of Covid-19, then they are a suspected case of Covid-19 and should now self-isolate and contact their GP, explaining that they have been identified as a close contact of a confirmed case of Covid-19 and that they now have symptoms too. 

Could the parent be isolating in their room?