Government rejects teachers' plea to restart contact tracing in schools

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar dismissed the idea of extending the mid-term break and said children will be returning to school on Monday. Picture: Danny Lawson

Schoolchildren will be sent rapid antigen tests if they are deemed a close contact of a Covid-19 case, it has emerged.

The Government has rejected calls from teacher unions to restore the contact-tracing system for schoolchildren amid a spike in cases among those aged between 5 and 12.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar dismissed the idea of extending the mid-term break and said children will be returning to school on Monday. They also ruled out a return of lockdown restrictions.

Mr Varadkar said there will not be a return to a situation where children who are close contacts are sent home for 10 days, calling such a move “very disruptive”.

He was speaking as another 2,605 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed yesterday, the highest daily total since mid-January. The Department of Health said 487 people were in hospital with Covid, with 99 patients in ICU.

Mr Varadkar said asymptomatic schoolchildren, who are close contacts of a confirmed case, may be sent antigen tests to use at home.

The National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) will reconsider the issue of contact tracing, he added.

“If somebody is a close contact of somebody who has Covid and they’re not in school, they will be offered a PCR test if they’re positive and an antigen test if they’re not,” he said.

“And it may be the case that we might have to apply that to schools as well, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean every child in the class being tested, but it might mean kids in a pod, for example. So, if one kid gets infected then it might make sense to test all the kids in the pod as well using rapid test,” said Mr Varadkar.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) said it is time to recommence testing, tracing, and risk assessments in primary schools.

The union said it remains concerned there has been a dramatic increase in the number of under-12s testing positive for Covid since the beginning of October.

The automatic contact tracing of asymptomatic children stopped at the end of September.

“We believe the decision to end contact tracing and testing in schools was premature and we reiterate our call that public health should recommence testing, tracing, and risk assessments in primary schools,” said John Boyle, INTO general secretary.

On the spike in cases among schoolchildren, Mr Martin said the information from Nphet was that “a lot of the transmission was in the community”. He said it was not a “slam-dunk” conclusion that transmission was happening within schools.

“Nphet has always been consistent in saying schools are paramount in our society, and we have always taken public health advice,” said Mr Martin.

He appeared to contradict Dr Ronan Glynn, the deputy chief medical officer, who this week suggestedchildren need to limit activities. “I would be concerned about the mental wellbeing of children. We have concerns about how the whole Covid situation is adding to their anxieties,” said Mr Martin.

He echoed Health Minister Stephen Donnelly by saying the booster vaccination programme for older people is going ahead and would open for the over-60s next week.

Over one in five (21.7%) Covid cases were in under-18s, according to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre’s latest report on schools.

The incidence rate of infection per 100,000 among 5-12-year-olds is 436.1.

The incidence rate in adults is also high, at 310.8 per 100,000, compared to 58.6 in early May.

The 14-day incidence rate per 100,000 is now 577.9.

Waterford remains the worst affected county, with a rate of 1,179.2, followed by Carlow, Longford, and then Kerry with a rate of 987. The infection rate in Cork is 533.1.