By Michael O’Farrell – Investigations Editor
NEARLY 40% of secondary schools have warned families of positive Covid cases among pupils, independent data compiled by a group of concerned parents reveals.
The figures, based on official school notices sent to parents throughout the country, indicate that 990 pupils attending more than 600 schools and pre-schools have contracted Covid.
The data, compiled by a 115,000-strong Facebook group called Alerting Parents of Outbreaks in Schools Ireland, shows that, as of Wednesday, 631 primary, secondary and childcare facilities have been affected.
Official figures provided to the Irish Mail on Sunday by the HSE this weekend confirm that as of Friday morning 634 schools have undergone mass testing following public health risk assessment.
Mass testing of this sort ensues after a school pupil or teacher contracts Covid and is deemed by public health teams to have been a transmission risk within a school.
Whether those pupils or teachers originally deemed a transmission risk contracted Covid within a school or in the wider community is not known.
The parents’ group tally is backed up by letters and notifications to parents from affected schools, which have been collated and posted online.
These documents reveal that 281 of the country’s 729 secondary schools have warned parents of 501 positive Covid cases involving pupils. That equates to 38.5% of all post-primary schools.
The group has documented 457 cases in 320 of the country’s primary schools – equating to just under 10% of junior schools.
The group has also documented 32 cases in 30 pre-schools.
In all, the parent-led group has collected data on 990 cases in 631 schools.
As clusters in schools doubled last week (from 25 to 49), some have closed entirely for short periods while many have seen partial closures for specific classes or cohorts of pupils deemed to be close contacts.
In one case in Kerry this week a school – which had been closed by its board of management because of a cluster – was ordered to reopen by the Department of Education.
But unlike other jurisdictions, both the Department of Education and the HSE are not publicly saying how many schools have fully or partially closed.
The authorities are also not making public the number of teachers who have tested positive – something unions have been calling for since the start of term.
Nor are they disclosing the total number of pupils who have tested positive.
In contrast to the lack of official data here, the North’s Public Health Agency (PHA) makes all this information public.
According to the PHA, there have been 2,030 confirmed cases in schools in the North affecting half of all schools. Some 32% of these cases involved staff.
Here the Government is disclosing only the number of ‘additional cases’ discovered in schools when they are mass-tested on foot of an original case among a pupil.
As of Friday morning, the HSE had mass-tested 15,632 students in 634 schools – and found 443 ‘additional cases’.
That number is likely to rise since some 626 of those swabbed in these mass tests are still awaiting results and a further 1,023 pupils are scheduled for tests this weekend. The HSE’s mass-testing results back up the Government’s view that transmission within schools is not as virulent as within the wider community where detection rates are running at 6.6%.
There are grounds for concern at the transmission rates within childcare facilities, where the detection rate is running at 4.7%.
That’s significantly higher than the rate in post-primary schools (1.9%), primary schools (2.7%) and special education (3.1%).
‘The experience of public health to date is that transmission rates of Covid-19 in schools are low, much lower than the rate currently in the community,’ a Department of Education spokesperson told the MoS last night.
‘Where mass-testing has been carried out of close contacts in the school setting of confirmed cases, this has only resulted in a small number of additional confirmed cases, not all of which are transmitted within the school setting,’ the spokesperson continued.
Meanwhile, a HSE spokesman warned against the use of social media to publicise Covid incidents in schools.
‘We do not recommend the use of social media in relation to incidents regarding Covid-19 within the school. This is because it can result in individuals accidentally being identified who might be confirmed cases of Covid-19 resulting in a breach of confidentiality, or stigmatising children or families with a confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19,’ the spokesman said.
‘This in turn can make it challenging for people to reveal any symptoms/concerns in a timely manner, making it more difficult for schools and public health staff to protect everyone.
‘As always, we would ask that people get their information from reputable sources and follow the public health advice available on gov.ie and hse.ie’
