Government is making life-and-death call on school's reopening. It has to get it right

My article in yesterday's Independent

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/government-is-making-life-and-death-call-on-schools-reopening-it-has-to-get-it-right-39451430.html

Listening to Leo Varadkar  on RTÉ “guaranteeing” outbreaks of coronavirus in schools when they open, reminded me of the mayor in Jaws.

 

Mayor: “Get those kids back in the water”. Sheriff: “There’s a shark out there?” Mayor: “We’ll just have to live with it”. Sheriff: “People will die”. Mayor: “Yes, but tourism will survive!”

Meanwhile, acting Chief Medical Officer, Dr Glynn, said “children don't transmit very effectively to other children or adults”. As a parent,  I found that comment alarming. He should know that the ECDC report published last week states: “Children are more likely to have a mild or asymptomatic infection, meaning that the infection may go undetected or undiagnosed” and “When symptomatic, children shed virus in similar quantities to adults and can infect others in a similar way to adults.

Infact, there are numerous documented studies outlining the scale of risk associated with reopening schools. In Israel (like Ireland), where class sizes are big, the virus spread to students’ homes, other schools and neighborhoods, ultimately infecting hundreds of students, teachers and relatives. Across the country, thousands of students and teachers were quarantined. Israel’s deputy Director of Public Health Services , Dr. Udi Kliner, said that “schools, not restaurants or gyms, turned out to be the country’s worst mega-infectors.”

A large new study from South Korea shows that children between the ages of 10 and 19 can spread the virus at least as well as adults do. Cases in children in Germany have increased by 50% since they reopened schools and researchers in Berlin tested more than 3,700 coronavirus patients and found that children carried the same viral load as adults.

Our government seems unaware of these facts given the “roadmap” for school reopening does little to mitigate them. Aerosol transmission, for example, is not acknowledged, despite emerging evidence that the virus can travel up to 16 feet across an indoor space. This raises questions about proper ventilation, face masks and the efficacy of the roadmap’s “pods”. None of which are adequately addressed.

Another gaping omission from the roadmap is how to accommodate the many children who have underlying health conditions or whose family member(s) are high risk. What virtual/remote alternatives will be provided for those children who cannot attend school but remain entitled to an education?

What about the risks associated with multi-system inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) which is a covid related disease affecting children? Although the numbers are small, if contracted, it affects the heart and other major organs in the body and in a few cases it has proved fatal. Have teachers been made aware of the prevalence of this disease in children and how to spot it?

Community transmission is another key risk factor. The opening of schools safely was always contingent on levels being low.  NPHET warned Micheál Martin that, “We have to prevent the reimportation of the virus and unless we do that we are not going to be in a position to reopen our schools and get the economy up and running again.”

 Ignoring public health advisors, the government allowed, and continues to allow, tourists from the US, the most infected country in the world, unfettered access to our communities, thus reimporting the virus. Banned by other EU countries and Canada because the infection rate was out of control, Ireland said, “failte”. Even when New York banned flights from Texas, where in one day, 10,000 new cases were recorded, flights from Dallas landed here with no mandatory requirement to quarantine and no testing.

 With an R rate now of almost 2, how can it possibly be deemed safe to reopen schools?

 The government’s claim that “only 2%” of cases are related to foreign travel is disingenuous. As Dr Gabriel Scally warns, if we’re not quaranting and testing at source, the evidence trail is lost until it’s seeded in the community.

Instead of changing strategy, Micheál Martin wants us to learn to live with the virus. That’s like asking us to learn to live with a serial killer on the rampage.

 

However much money we throw at adapting our environments, as long as coronavirus is in our communities it will infiltrate our schools, nursing homes and workplaces. The only sustainable option is to adopt a zero-covid approach, which is to eradicate the virus from our shores, as New Zealand has done so successfully.

 

That requires mandatory quarantine so that all imported cases are detected on entry thus preventing community transmission and allowing schools, pubs, theatres and businesses to open at full capacity, safe in the knowledge that the silent assassin is not lurking in the shadows.

 

It’s crucial that schools re-open but it has to be done safely. After 3 months of being homeschooled by me, my child wrote a poem entitled “The Witch” which he insisted I send to his teacher. It was probably about me but I can’t be sure.

 

In the words of the WHO’s Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,  ”Treat the decisions about where you go, what you do, and who you meet as life-and-death decisions—because they are.”

 

Until the government can guarantee that reopening schools is safe, my child’s not getting back in the water.