Holohan: Reopening schools could have led to 'significant risk' of spreading virus
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Reopening schools on Monday could have led to "a very significant additional risk" in spreading Covid-19, Nphet told the Government this week.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Dr Tony Holohan said that Nphet had considered the issue of schools at its meeting on December 30.
At that point, the letter says: "The Nphet specifically considered the matter of schools at that meeting and it advised that, on balance, that schools should reopen in January as planned, as provided for in level 5.
"While acknowledging the deteriorating epidemiological situation, this advice was based on an assessment at that time that the known negative impacts of school closures on children (including student mental health, wellbeing, development, educational attainment and overall health outcomes), outweighed the risks of reopening in terms of potential direct health risks to children and staff from Covid-19 (with evidence to date confirming that schools are a safe and protected environment) and the wider impact of school opening on community transmission levels.
"However, the Nphet did note that the high and rising levels of community transmission would become a risk to the ongoing provision of education at primary and secondary level unless these levels of transmission could be addressed."
Despite this, Dr Holohan warned that the situation had deteriorated significantly in recent weeks, with ICU admissions, hospitalisations, and case numbers all rising.
While saying that the school environment was safe, Dr Holohan said the movement to and from schools could lead to significant risk.
"While the experience from September to December 2020 has clearly demonstrated that schools are in themselves a safe environment, the current epidemiological situation has deteriorated to a point where the significant levels of mobility and linked activity that the full reopening of schools would generate, constitutes a very significant additional risk in the context of what are already unprecedented levels of disease transmission in the community."
The letter calls for measures to assist healthcare workers with childcare due to existing staffing issues and to protect vulnerable children. The Government yesterday announced that schools will close until at least the end of January but that provision would be made for special needs students and Leaving Cert classes.
Meanwhile, the Tánaiste said it was hard to predict when the peak of the “third wave” would be reached because of the new variant, but he did not anticipate any improvement for a few weeks.
Leo Varadkar said numbers requiring hospitalisation could go as high as 3,000, but it was hoped that they would not go higher than 1,500.
The country was much better prepared this time with a stockpile of PPE, “hundreds of ventilators”, 6,000 extra staff and increased track and tracing capacity.
However, it remained important that people stay at home, he urged.
When asked about private hospitals Mr Varadkar said he was “absolutely confident” that all the private hospitals would make their facilities available.
Their staff would want to make themselves available to the country, he said.
The Government had not received “specific” advice on the reopening of schools for sixth years students, Mr Varadkar admitted.
The Government wanted the Leaving Cert to go ahead and that could become a real difficulty if students did not get practical education.