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THE IRISH NATIONAL Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) has said a significant number of school staff contracted Covid-19 in recent weeks.
A recent survey conducted by the union found 605 staff across 877 schools were reported to have tested positive for the virus.
The survey, which relates from the period from 1 November to 16 November, found that of a total of 231,912 pupils in the responding schools, 3,726 pupils were reported as testing positive for Covid-19.
In the schools responding to the survey, 3.62% of staff were reported as testing positive for Covid-19 during this period.
11,778 substitutable days were reported during the survey period, of which 31.36% were not covered.
Of those days where a substitute was available, 48.34% (5,693 days) were filled by a registered primary teacher, 10.66% (1,255 days) were filled by a registered teacher who is not a primary teacher and 7.34 % (865 days) were filled by a person who is not registered with the Teaching Council.
INTO General Secretary John Boyle said the snapshot survey shines a light on a primary education system that is “creaking at the seams”.
“Soaring transmission levels are an indictment of the premature removal of testing and contact tracing from our primary schools, and of the frustrating failure to move quickly to deploy antigen testing,” he said.
“The cessation of public health risk assessments following primary school outbreaks, and the resulting unavailability of weekly reports detailing infection levels from 27 September, has concealed the escalation of positive case numbers among pupils and staff in primary schools.
It simply cannot be a coincidence that the number of 5–12-year-old children contracting the virus has trebled since crucial public health supports were removed from the primary sector less than two months ago, abandoning teachers and principals to protect themselves and their unmasked, unvaccinated pupils from the impact of the highest wave of infection in their schools since the pandemic began.
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He said the union’s view is that a recent statement from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) that sharing a classroom can be considered a high-risk exposure “must be taken seriously by the Irish government”.
“The government must do everything in its power to minimise the risk of exposure in every primary school classroom,” he said.
The union is calling for an immediate review of the Covid-19 response plans for primary and special schools to address the upsurge in infection levels.
“The fast-tracking of the booster vaccine programme and the provision of vaccines for children aged under 12 will be essential to support the primary education system in the coming months,” Boyle said.
He also called for the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) to publish another review of the minimum age for the wearing of face masks.
“It is entirely appropriate that the union representing workers who teach the largest cohort of unvaccinated and un-masked individuals in over-crowded and often poorly ventilated settings be consulted by HIQA on the issue,” he said.
“The provision of more air quality monitors and air filtration systems to primary and special schools would greatly assist our schools.”
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland this morning, Chief Medical Officer Dr Tony Holohan said that when schools returned in September, “the level of testing in that age group went very, very high with a huge increase in the number of people having PCR tests in the five to 12-year age group, and what actually happened was that test positivity fell significantly”.
“Even though there was a rise in the reported number of cases, what that actually was was an increase in what we call the case ascertainment. In other words, it was more likely that a case would be found,” the CMO said.
“It wasn’t a true increase in the underlying instance of the disease,” he said.
It reinforced other data that we have, and international experiences, that in general when schools are following all the basic public health measures that our school system has done really, really well to the credit of teachers unions, teachers, principals, sports management, parents, and obviously the children themselves, it helps to make those in relative terms low-risk situations compared to other circumstances like households.
He said children are “for the most part picking this infection up in the community and at home rather than necessarily transmitting it in a school”.
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@Paul Keenan: you sound like a NPHET briefing: “the fact that teachers are getting covid more since we removed contact tracing is co-incident in time”. But look, if teachers are like any other profession, then treat classrooms like any other workplace. Test. Trace. Mask. Ventilate. And, as soon as possible, vaccinate.
@2thFairy: well, no. If it’s necessary to attend the workplace in person, workers go in (like tooth fairies, I presume – at least you’ve got actual magic to protect you, and not just Norma Foley’s Magic Hand Sanitiser). But let’s not play “who’s a key worker” again. Let’s just make schools safer.
@2thFairy: Only if you can do your job from home…… Maybe you missed that piece of news! Huge chunk of the workforce cant work from home and things are still open.
@Paul Keenan: and totally unrelated to being in Europe’s smallest most overcrowded classrooms with more than half our school going population wearing no masks and a government that’s given up on contract tracing among other dumbf’ery???
This article does a good job of outlining the argument in favour of vaccination. Closer to home you could look at the situation in the UK, where well over 100 kids have now died from Covid. Bottom line is, the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks.
@Mac Muinteoir: Teachers received full pay while at home while the rest of us had our pay reduced to pup payment, so they weren’t treated the same as everyone else, they were also moaning looking for vaccine priority over the elderly and sick even though they were off school for the summer, I’ve no sympathy for teachers, all we hear is how hard a teacher’s job is, well the fact is they would struggle to survive in the real working world, they survive in their protected civil service bubble quite well.
@Disillusioned: not that is has anything to do with the current situation, but anyone who worked from home during lockdown(s) got paid; and no, in fact teachers didn’t want or ask for priority over elderly or vulnerable, only that government would follow WHO advice, and their own initial plan, and vaccinate key workers to protect key services. What teachers want now is our government to follow best international practice and put meaningful mitigations in place to protect education, to protect kids, and to protect the entire school community, including the families of school-going children. Why don’t you want that too?
@Mac Muinteoir: you have just summed up what teachers are like with the words ” what teachers want now is” stamp your feet and throw all the toys out of the pram as usual, usual diversionary tactics it’s all about the children lol the sooner you get treated like the rest of us the better, many professions are working exceptionally hard in difficult situations but it’s all about the teachers how hard done by they are.
@Disillusioned: I have worked as a teacher and I have also worked as long in the “real working world” and while I appreciate your concern…. I survived just fine
@Dave Phelan: @2thFairy: I’m horrified that so many people like you are actually promoting the idea of mandatory vaccination. Seriously lads, get a grip.
We know the vaccine does not stop you from getting covid nor does it prevent you from spreading it to others. What purpose would mandatory vaccinations serve?
What about when all the teachers are jabbed or fired? We move onto the kids next I suppose?
@Jim Smith: it stops them ending up clogging the ICU beds. Vaccinated people are highly unlikely to end up in hospital . The majority of patients in the hospitals are unvaccinated. I think you need to get a grip that this is a worldwide pandemic
@Dave Phelan: With that logic we should consider all health factors for teachers that are at risk of hospitalisation with Covid. Obese teachers, smokers, teachers with heart disease, diabetes, etc, should all find another profession. Sorry, it’s just too dangerous and we’ve really got to keep those beds free for the people that deserve them.
Need I remind you that those who are ‘clogging the ICU beds’ as you put it, are real people. I doubt they would appreciate your comments. The fact is they have a right to healthcare, regardless of their vaccination status.
Mandatory vaccination is just plain wrong, end of story.
@Jim Smith: I think the bottom line is if all were vaxed who could be vaxed we wouldn’t be facing into another potential lockdown as we would have the ICU issue we have now.
Schools cant contain a breakout of lice, how are they meant to handle Covid, You have 30 kids contained in a small (sometimes unventilated room) and yet Norma Foley says “Schools are safe, but please dont send your kids to birthday parties”
So the union need to take a closer look at the numbers ie just over 1% of students (of schools who answered the survey) had covid between Nov 1st and 16th but 3.62% of teachers had taken days off for both Covid and non related covid. Maybe the need another lock down #workfatigue
@Premier Fitters: maybe. Or maybe you need to have another look at what the article says. 3.62% of teachers in the schools surveyed did not “take days off for both covid and non related covid”, whatever that means. 3.62% tested positive for covid. When you test positive for covid, you don’t “take days off”. You isolate.
@Mac Muinteoir: thank christ your not teaching our children. I did look at the numbers
11,778 substitute days due to positive covid test taken by 605 teachers which equates to an average of 19.47 days off. So either other sick days are feeding into such a high absentee figure or some teachers are taking the P. Do the math!
@Premier Fitters: good lord man would you put down the shovel before you hit Wuhan. This was a survey about two issues: levels of covid infection, and the sub crisis. Nowhere does it say that all 11, 778 substitutable days were due to 605 teachers testing positive, and for good reason: they weren’t. Those 11, 778 days across 877 schools include all substitutable absences. Which renders your average, and your argument, meaningless.
Gauging by the number of messages my siblings with school-aged kids are getting about positives in classes, sounds like a fair bit of students are too.
What is so strange about that ??? Are there seriously more people outside Leo that believe that the virus will make make decisions not to attack childeren?????
@Margaret Deacon: I’ve never seen hundreds of customers all on top of each other, no social distancing etc. in Tesco or any other supermarket! What I have seen is employees masked, behind Perspex & wearing gloves. Hardly comparable!!
I wonder are these numbers replicated in the universities. With all the students living in cramped accommodation and socialising like everyone else will it be long before they go back to online lectures
Lesson to all, the boy who cried wolf springs to mind. A very serious and genuine issue has come up and looking at the comments everyone is fatigued of the teachers unions making statements.
@Sarah Lou: once there was a young shepherd who looked after a flock of sheep in a field beside a dark wood. The villagers built a fence around the field to keep out wolves. One day, the elders of the village decided to dismantle the fence. “There are no wolves in this field”, they said, “and we never liked this fence anyway. Spoils the view.” The boy cried, “there are wolves in the wood. If you take down the fence, they will come in the field”. The villagers laughed. “Wolves will come!” the boy shouted. The villagers ignored him and took the fence away. Soon, a wolf came and began eating the sheep. The boy cried out “wolf!”. Some of the elders were ashamed. “We should have listened to the shepherd,” they said. “No,” said Sarah Lou, “for lo, the boy did cry wolf, so there.” The End.
@Mac Muinteoir: oh sorry mac múinteoir have i missed something. Let me do a recap. March 2020 covid hit…. Schools closed until Sept 2020 (despite low summer numbers cos it was the school holiday) some teachers did online teaching, some didn’t want to be infront of the camera, some sent a note out to jumps in puddles…. Actual note recieved from the teacher of a local school. The unions are up in arms. Teachers expected to work from home and have their own kids, camera issues etc. Schools reopen. Teachers want other accommodations so many I don’t have the night to list. Schools close. Teachers don’t want to do remote teaching. Teachers don’t want to reopen schools…. Teachers don’t know what they want but teachers union headlines daily for weeks. Teachers now have a genuine issue….. Noone is listening. You can talk all day long about sheep and fields. This is the outcome of over a year of teachers union headlining. As for the other comment above yours noone knows where I am or am not working everyone just assumes they have it worse than the next!
@Mac Muinteoir: mac múinteoir you comment on every single teacher article. Tell me what I’ve missed?! Look at all the comments. This is a really serious issue and noone is listening.
Virgin Media News reported last week that 12000 teachers were out sick in October. 1500 of them had covid. Seems like they have an issue in general with sick leave. That’s from a teacher population of 70000.
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Nov 22nd 2021, 1:15 PM
@David O’Connor: Or perhaps they were isolating after being considered a close contact of one of the thousands of infected students in their classrooms? Using your population of 70,000 that would mean 17% of teachers have been forced to isolate because of their close proximity to so many unvaccinated human beings, not to mention the thousands of them who actually contracted the virus. I wouldn’t imagine there are many professions with that kind of ratio.
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Nov 22nd 2021, 2:21 PM
@David O’Connor: Indeed, which is why it’s always good to argue both sides instead of just coming out swinging with accusations based on ‘finger in the air’ assumptions.
@David O’Connor: it seems like you have an issue in general with teachers, and it’s causing you to jump to conclusions. 1500 teachers tested positive, but how many more tested negative? Because each teacher that tested negative still had to isolate while waiting for their result. I don’t have access to all the data, but positivity rate in middle of last month was 10% and rising (currently over 15%), so 1500 positive would mean a total of 15,000 covid tests, and 15000 teachers out of school isolating. Given that the actual figure was only 12000, it seems safe to conclude that a) the positivity rate for teachers must be higher than for general population, and b) you’re 93.6% positive to be talking through your taobh thiar.
@John Drake – Amazon #1 Bestselling Author: So 17% of teachers were absent from work in October. 2% with covid. If I ran a company and had 17% of staff out sick I’d be pretty worried.
@David O’Connor: what if someone told you that there’s a global pandemic, and that while waiting for their test results your staff had to stay out? I mean, any decent human being would still worry for the health and safety of their employees, but at least you could rest easy that they weren’t a bunch of liars, right?
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