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A renewed contact tracing regime will be put in place for schools when they reopen after mid-term to help ensure there is a faster response to positive Covid-19 cases.
School principals and teacher unions have criticized the slow response times, which have left many schools waiting several days before receiving guidance from public health authorities once the Covid-19 cases were identified.
The Department of Education says a national network of new school teams will be established beginning November 2, led by public health professionals and endorsed by education officials.
This aims to speed up the time it takes to alert schools to close contacts of positive cases, as well as support principals in finding substitute teachers and special needs assistants in cases related to Covid-19 absences.
Quick test
It is also understood that health authorities are considering rapid tests for Covid-19 in schools, which has been a key demand from teacher unions.
Current PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests are considered the gold standard for testing the virus, but they are expensive and time-consuming.
Other countries have introduced cheaper test methods with a faster response and immediate results, but which have lower levels of precision.
The state health watchdog, the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) has reported that these antigen tests typically show “reduced diagnostic accuracy” compared to current tests.
You have cautioned that rapid antigen and other alternatives should only be used to improve the current PCR testing system.
For example, the rapid test results may need to be confirmed with the current PCR test.
Meanwhile, the government insists that schools remain a safe environment for children and will reopen as planned after the midterm recess.
Education Minister Norma Foley has said that the most recent data on testing shows that positivity rates for close contacts of people diagnosed with Covid-19 are much lower in schools compared to the wider community.
Figures from HSE, for example, show that a total of 15,632 students and teachers have been “mass tested” in schools after the identification of a positive case. These tests revealed another 443 cases.
This represents a positivity rate of 2.8% compared to more than 7% in the general community.
However, these figures do not show the total number of cases that have been detected in schools and only include those that followed massive testing.
The HSE did not provide this information when requested by The Irish Times.
However, data compiled by a Facebook group called Alerting Parents of Outbreaks in Schools states that to date around 990 cases have been identified in around 600 schools since the schools reopened in late August.
It says its figures are based on school notices, which have been sent to parents about the Covid-19 cases.
These unverified figures indicate that the cases are more common in high schools with at least one Covid-19 case registered in 281 high schools, or 39% of post-primary schools.
At the primary level, the group has registered 320 school notices alerting parents to at least one case of Covid-19, representing 10 percent of elementary schools.
Meanwhile, teachers unions have criticized what they say are inconsistencies in identifying close contacts.
In a statement, the HSE said that the definition of close contact within a school setting is variable and depends on a variety of factors such as classroom structure, proximity to an index case, social media and other factors.
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