'Not enough evidence' to support mandatory mask-wearing in primary school

Guidance sent to primary schools this week by the Department of Education described mandatory face-covering usage as "challenging" amongst childcare and primary schools. 

Making face-coverings a requirement for younger children in school could have unintended consequences, such as increasing face-to-face contact, according to the HSE schools response lead. 

Dr Abigail Collins, a consultant in public health medicine, said public health hasn’t seen enough evidence to support a recommendation that requires all younger children to wear face coverings in school.

Guidance sent to primary schools this week by the Department of Education described mandatory face-covering usage as "challenging" amongst childcare and primary schools. 

Introduced last year, the recommendation that students over the age of 13 wear face coverings in school is based on advice issued by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa), Dr Collins told the Irish Examiner. 

“The recommendation was for age 13 and above, and whether that is something that actually would be effective, and if that is something young children can comply with as well."

“In a school setting, we haven’t seen high levels of close contact positivity amongst primary school children not wearing face coverings." Close contact positivity relates to the number of people who go on to test positive for Covid-19 after being identified as a close contact.

“It’s not that [younger children] are not allowed to [wear face coverings], it’s about whether you require them all to do so.” 

It can be quite difficult for young children to put a face covering on, and for them to stay on during school, she added.

Younger students or those who wear glasses may need help from a teacher with their face covering. 

"Then they go to help them, you are getting someone face-to-face really close, touching around their mouth and around their ears to help with that.”

“So actually, while we are not sure we are preventing, we definitely know we are adding to the risk by having people close by requiring them to do that, to put the face mask on. These are the kind of things that are discussed; on average do we think there is enough evidence to support reducing the risk further, without introducing unintended consequences.”

There was “remarkably little change” in the level of close contact positivity recorded in schools between the terms, even with the introduction of the Alpha-variant, according to Dr Collins. 

"That was very reassuring for the infection and control measures that have been put in place.” 

The infection prevention and control measures in schools are based on “copper fast principles” that have stood the test of time, she added.

“Our objective always was to look at how the virus transmits and put in the infection prevention controls that would make that much less likely to happen.” 

With more infectious variants, adhering to these principles becomes even more important. 

This includes keeping your contacts outside of school as low as possible and meeting people in low-risk environments.

Meanwhile, Niamh O’Beirne, the HSE lead for testing and tracing, said the teams will learn from the lessons of last year for the new school term.

“We had a situation last September which we can use to monitor what will happen this year." 

"We expect additional viruses to run around at that time, which would increase testing. Hopefully, it won't mean increased positivity levels, but we do expect to see increased demand for testing.“