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SCHOOLS will not take an extended midterm recess later this month to help curb the spread of Covid-19, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly said.
Arents, teachers and business leaders have been demanding clarity on the situation after it was revealed Friday that a proposal to add an additional week to the Halloween midterm break was briefly discussed.
Donnelly said today that “there will be no longer pause in the medium term.”
The usual one-week break will begin on Monday, October 26 as scheduled.
Donnelly said there is “very good news” that schools are “not contributing to an increase in numbers.”
Hr told RTÉ Radio One’s This Week that the level of cases among children is “roughly the same” as before they returned to classrooms and the reports he receives say “schools are safe.”
Donnelly said school closings have an educational cost, particularly for children in disadvantaged areas.
“Keeping schools open is a high priority for the government.
“And it’s backed by very positive epidemiological evidence that we’ve been seeing from the first weeks of schools opening.”
Donnelly said it is “impossible” to be able to say now what Covid-19 restrictions will look like in Ireland at Christmas.
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Health Minister Stephen Donnelly TD during a meeting between coalition party leaders and medical officials in government buildings last week. Photo: Gareth Chaney / Collins
He said that everyone wants them to be at Level 1 in the Government’s ‘Living with Covid-19’ plan, adding:
“We want to be able to travel. We want to be able to hug our parents.”
Donnelly said the situation can normally only be assessed “a few weeks in advance” and it would certainly now be “impossible for anyone to predict the level of the disease in late December.”
He said, “What I want to see is what everyone wants to see is come back down and we can all have a great Christmas.”
Donnelly said the current number of Covid-19 cases will be less than the 1,012 reported last night, but warned that the virus is “growing at an exponential rate.”
He said there is positive news for Dublin, where the ‘number r’ – the speed at which the virus spreads to other people – is one.
However, it stands at 1.6 for the rest of the country.
He said there is hope because the country is only in the first week of Level 3 restrictions that were previously working in Kildare, Laois and Offaly and may be working in Dublin.
Donnelly said the challenge in the next will is to work together to “roll back this virus.”
Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has admitted that a “short and hard lockdown” known as a circuit break may be necessary to reduce Covid-19, but he has also said that it “breaks my heart” to think of a second lockdown.
Donnelly said that the idea of a circuit break is a limited time period of Level 5 restrictions and “It is not something that is being considered at this time.”
He said that the fact that the Level 4 and Level 5 restrictions are in the framework of the Government means that “it is implicit that at some point we will have to go there.”
On the health service, Donnelly said that it is unlikely that the Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of the hospitals will be overwhelmed by patients with Covid-19 “based on what we saw in the first wave,” although he did not rule out the possibility.
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