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

If masks are needed for 8/9yrs to stem the numbers in hospital, then the CMO and/or government should logically explain this.

As adults we can book a restaurant for 2 hours and spend most of that time talking and not eating, all without a mask.

Why let people know late on a Tuesday for it to be implemented on a Wednesday, give some forewarning so we can discuss and explain this to our kids as to why it is needed or not depending on your viewpoint.

At the beginning we were all told not to handle the masks and guidance was given on how to put the mask on and off.

Now we have 8/9 yr olds having to wear a mask tomorrow who have in most cases never worn one and how many times in the day will it be handled, taking on or off, etc.

For me the mental aspect of this on kids is a big issue; I know people say kids are flexible but 2 of my 3 kids are so angry tonight that they have to wear a mask tomorrow, this of course might change in a few weeks or months of wearing the masks but it is so frustrating the timeline of how the government handle this and how they apply it without guidance, timelines to prepare, etc.

A few points on primary schools at the moment;

1. Covid is everywhere and the testing delays mean that we have kids and teachers out for much longer than necessary. They should be fast tracked for testing, particularly the teachers, purely because classes have to close if teachers aren’t available.
2. Think about who pays for masks…. Parents. No extra cost to government. Schools have been told they should have extra supplies if a child forgets theirs. No idea who’s paying for that, it’s not like schools are flush with cash.
3. Absolute bullshit sending this info on masks to principals at 5.15pm and telling them it’s to be enforced tomorrow.
4. Measures that might actually help like contact tracing and HEPA air filters will cost the government money so they’ve abandoned them. In an unpublished paper for NPHET back in September, Prof. Martin Cormican came out and said we needed to move away from the ‘medicalisation of society’. Fair enough, except that our health service stumbles along at the best of times and cannot handle any kind of Covid surge. Anyway, among the recommendations were to discourage testing of under 13s - hence the abandonment of contact tracing in primary schools… now we see where that’s left us. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-nphet-paper-envisages-change-to-more-normal-testing-system-1.4671986
5. Air Filtration: There was a committee set up to advise government on this called ‘Expert group on the role of ventilation in reducing transmission of Covid 19’ - people like Prof. John Wenger and Asst. Prof. Orla Hegarty were on it. You can see that he was advising awareness of ventilation back in August here; https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40354085.html. Orla H resigned eventually when she realised gov were not really interested in their recommendations, one of which was that HEPA filters should be used in crowded, badly ventilated spaces ie. schools. The Irish Examiner has recently reported on this, you’ll see that the Dept of Ed recommends that schools use the Emergency Works grant to fix any ventilation issues. This is a long drawn out and unnecessarily complex process, one which principals frankly don’t have the time for while firefighting endless Covid cases among kids and staff. Quite apart from this, it’s almost impossible to get builders and building supplies at the moment. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40755462.html
6. ’The advice we have from the HSE’s expert group is that they (HEPA filters) are not required’ - Stephen Donnelly on Claire Byrne yesterday. The group he’s referring to is a totally different group called AMRIC (Antimicrobial Resistance and Infection Control) which focuses on hospital transmission. They are not experts on ventilation, or on schools. Guess who is on that group? Prof. Martin Cormican. Are we seeing a pattern?
7. That said, I have heard reports that teachers who have bought their own air filters say that you still need some of the windows open to keep the CO2 monitor in the green range. So they’re not a silver bullet, but they would mean we would be working in less Baltic conditions.
8. People underestimate kids. Most of them can wear masks no problem, even the infants. Yes they’ll touch them and take them off and whatever, but mask-wearing helps to reduce aerosol spread so it will likely help to reduce transmission to some degree. I had 24 kids present today (5th class) and 22 wore masks and just got on with it. Masks are not great, it’s hard to hear through them, facial expressions are lost etc. I think it’s massively unfair that kids are saddled with this considering government and Public Health pushed the ‘schools are safe’ farce for so long and now refuse to engage with other measures. But here we are, and teachers and parents and most importantly, kids want schools open, and government have to be seen to be doing something to combat the rise in infections, so masks it is.
9. But how very **** it is for kids to be told, wear masks to school and no play dates etc for now purely because the adults in government wouldn’t listen to those in schools who have been telling them since Sept 2020 that schools are not safe and that realistic measures were needed.