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One of the nation’s leading secondary school teacher unions expects schools to reopen after the midterm recess, but warned that teachers are “very scared.”
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland program, the president of the Irish Secondary Teachers Association said they would like schools to be open “in a very safe way”.
Discussions have been taking place between the HSE, the Department of Education, and teacher unions on how to address Covid-19 infections in schools.
A revamped contact tracing system should be put in place when schools reopen after the midterm break.
A public health risk assessment is conducted as soon as a case occurs in a school, and Ann Piggott said its members would like to know more.
“We would like to have more confidence in him,” he said.
“We would like to make sure all the details are open for everyone to know. Because even if there is a case in the schools, the teachers currently rely on rumors.
“They would like to know for sure: is there one case, are there three cases, how much risk do teachers and students run?”
Ms. Piggott said they are concerned about the amount of time it takes to identify a positive case and that teachers have been asking from the beginning for rapid tests to be conducted in schools.
He said that if the evidence could be returned within 24 hours “it would be much better” than the current waiting time.
“It can take two to four days for results to come in and then follow-up on contacts is also very slow, maybe another four days,” he said.
“We would appreciate any quick test, but we would certainly like it to be accurate.”
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Meanwhile, the medical director has urged people to comply with public health advice on self-isolation and restraint movements.
Last night, Dr. Tony Holohan said there are “too many stories” of people having Covid-19 symptoms or awaiting test results who are not self-isolating, and people who are contacts but do not restrict their movements. .
He added that self-isolation means staying indoors completely and avoiding contact with other people, including the people you live with.
His comments came after the Health Department announced that it was notified of an additional 939 new cases of Covid-19 tonight, while three more deaths were also recorded.
It brings the total number of virus-related deaths to 1,885 and the total number of cases to 58,067.
There were 341 hospitalized patients with Covid-19, 38 of whom were in intensive care units.
The 14-day incidence rate of the virus nationwide is now 309.9.
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