A parent in the GAA whatsapp informed us at the weekend, his child had a positive antigen that afternoon and was scheduled for PCR.Good of him to let people know.
Our school sends out headlice alerts saying they have been notified of a case at the Senior or Junior end of the school.Similar could be done for covid but just confined to a class group.Just anonymous; "please be aware that a covid case has been identified in your child's class.Please be vigilant" or similar.Be no harm and easily done.
Headlice is a notifiable disease in a school setting. This comes from PH. From the outset PH has been clear that covid is not a notifiable disease in the school setting ie schools were not to inform parents or even staff in the class where there was a case. Procedure was schools were to inform PH of a case and PH would decide what was to be done. Even though contact tracing stopped in schools informing the school community was still not allowed. It is only in the last week or two that it has now changed to IF a parent informs the school re covid then the school can inform the class parents once the child is not identified. It took nearly 2 years of school staff asking why covid was not a notifiable disease , some schools informing class groups anyhow , an increase in infection among primary school children , a sub crises and subsequent media questions re covid in schools to get that much.
Ultimately the hope will be that parents continue to keep their kids at home if they show any symptoms. Thats the line of defense right now. I am just not so sure. We all know that parents regularly send their kids to school sick. Add to that and im still hearing parents going ahead with indoor birthday parties at play centers. The mind boggles.
My kids are vaccinated and we are doing all we can at home still, no friends in our home, activities are all outside. Ill be pretty pissed off to see my kids impacted because of the selfishness of others.
My son (11 yrs, 5th class) has been sent home because of a headache and sore throat. His temperature is normal. I can't get a PCR test anywhere (even tried neighbouring counties!). What are we supposed to do now? (I might add, there's not a loss on him!!!). I have a pack of antigen tests but apparently they are only to be used on people with no symptoms at all.
any suggestions?
Have you tried for a test via your GP? Think they get an allocation to register per day. Worth refreshing the page too, cancellations do pop up every few minutes, but you have to be lightning fast!
If it was me, I would do the Antigen Test anyway. See the result of that.
I would also phone your GP as I heard on the radio that a certain percentage of appointments are reserved for GP referrals.
Yes call your gp. They can get slots. And do the antigen test anyway.
CO2 monitors are shared, there aren't enough for each classroom, which Norma likes to ignore. They do nothing to purify the air. They are essentially like smoke alarms, warn you of a situation but don't do anything to fix it. Up to a few days ago, it was unseasonably warm, expect lots of cold students from now on, even with their coats on in class.
Why doesn't Norma just supply every classroom (special ed. classrooms included) with HEPA filters? There are 7 teachers out in one local school, 9 in another. There are NO subs to be had. And the biggest joke of all, an inspector was to call to the school with 7 teachers out today.
Read someone say c02 monitor is like going on a rollercoaster with no seat belt on, you get a glimpse of the speed limit as you plummet over the edge!
Teachers ( like me) have resorted to buying our own HEPA filters out of our own pockets. And schools have been threatened by the HSE that telling parents of cases in a class is a breach of GDPR which is actually quite a big deal.
No sign of Josepha these days, since she and Norma gave the go ahead for special ed. teachers to be used as subs in mainstream classes. once again children with the greatest needs are getting the dirty end of the stick.
if you breach GDPR, what can they do to you? Or the school. It wouldn't even be slap on the wrist. Tell them to F-Off. I've had my personal details leaked by Paddy Power, LinkedIn, and lately Fastway who had a customer database on a server exposed to the internet with no password and nothing happened to them. Teachers provide an essential service and there is a shortage of them. You should be getting on to you union and asking for vote to strike of proper air handling isn't in the class by Jan 1st. My kids teacher is back from two weeks sick leave, don't know if it was covid but she looks like death warmed up today and she's young.
When people say call your GP..... I call my GP and there is no available slot for 2 days to talk to the GP.There are no other surgeries, they are all full and won't register new patients (believe me I have tried).So what then?I was only thinking this earlier.
I just don’t know. We are very lucky with our gp. He always seems to return calls.
Inspector today to our Covid hit school said she understood how hard it was for us. (!!) Then went on her merry way at 12pm. Nice job if you can get it.
Us too. If I call in the morning, he returns calls between 12.30pm - 1pm. If I call after 12.30pm, he returns calls between 5.30pm - 6pm.
Definitely keep refreshing the booking page. Just managed to nab a test for tomorrow, and saw about 50 pop up at citywest, gone in seconds
They always were great for mine, but the last two winters have been a disaster.There is huge population growth in all of our surrounding area and the GPs are all full.
Regarding the antigen tests I wouldn’t be too confident now either that that’s the way forward in schools. My daughter in primary school tested positive via pcr and we gave her an antigen test the same day we got confirmation of her positive test and it returned a negative result on the antigen
She was asymptomatic thankfully
ETA she was a confirmed close contact which is why she received a pcr test
So had we not been informed she was a close contact or we had given her an antigen test she would have been in class while she was infectious
Your daughter may have had covid a while ago as opposed to right now, especially if she's asymptomatic. Antigen tests have different criteria to the PCR tests. If I did an antigen one right now it would be -ve but a PCR would more than likely be +ve, because I had covid last month (which my 9 yr old brought home from school!!). That's why they give you a covid recovery cert, if you're travelling or doing something that needs a PCR test it would likely still be +ve up to 6 mths later. So you get a recovery cert that's valid for 6 mths.
Not the case- she tested positive on her day 10 test she was also tested on day 6 and it was negative (both pcr tests)
I get what you’re saying though and yes that could explain some positive confirmed pcrs showing negative results on antigen tests
We got notification today of outbreak of chickenpox in class so we can keep an eye and watch out for symptoms.
Makes total sense, but yet the school is not allowed notify us of a case of Covid in the class?
It's a disgrace, not schools fault but government hiding behind GDPR nonsense but OK if its headlice or chicken pox for parents to be informed.
Can be positive for 6 months, not will. Most will test negative on pcr within a short period of time. PCR will detect for longer than antigen though
Yeah, fully agree, just wondering when there are lots of comments about antigens not being great because there are lots being neg then pcr pos. Especially in asymptomatic cases. I personally think if they were to do antibody tests on a full class in a primary school that a lot more would be shown to have had covid than were ever tested. It's absolutely ripping through the "safe" schools.
DH flagged as a close contact (outside event) and also son. Both are vaccinated. HSE asked some questions and based on answers given are sending out antigen tests. We had some here so they both took an antigen test and are negative. HSE guidance was to carry on as normal. Maybe its just me but I cant keep up with the advice.
To be honest most people i know have stopped listening as it's too confusing.
And wouldn't the teacher haters only love a strike? No, time for parents to pile on the pressure. I'm sick of being attacked as lazy and not caring about children by many sectors of the public.
It's great to see the media and opposition ranking up the pressure on Foley and NPHET over the schools. The conditions teachers and students have to work in is vile and disgusting.
The incompetence is staggering.
Would love to know if other European counties are using open doors and windows as their main defence against covid in schools.
Ronan Glynn's school comments yesterday are exactly why the likes of himself, and Holohan and Nolan should be told to stay away from media.
They are all over the place with messages that are all over the place.They should be told to stick to the day job and let the Government give the messages.
Glynn cannot win and he went down a completely ridiculous rabbit hole.Schools were never safe, most parents knew that but we also knew kids have to go.We also know covid has been circulating through them for weeks now...but kids still go.Glynn is getting tangled up in semantics and has already lost the argument. It's a pity in a way, because he is actually a better messenger than Holohan.
I wasn't attacking teachers. Where did you get that from?
If schools are not safe then why did Holohan say that children are more likely to get the virus at home or in the community?
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