Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

Why an entire school? Should it not be done on a class-by-class basis, at least in primary school? Teacher has to isolate so class works remotely for a few days if no sub available

With secondary schools, if a teacher is out that's only one class that students will miss out or have to catch up on or maybe the 1st year maths class has to be cancelled as the teacher will have to teach the 6th year physics class

There's ways and means

I never said they should close an entire school????

It isnt as easy with secondary schools. That one teacher will likely be teaching multiple classes across multiple years. Its only one class for that one student. What do ye do with that one class if no one to take them, lock them in the room for an hour? If for example 2 teachers are missing without cover it means multiple classes are missed across all years.

Primary is easy imho, if no teacher or no sub then that class is taught remotely.

In secondary what do ye do, stay at home for remote teaching of 1st year maths, then come in for 1st year history for an hour, back to remote for another hour etc etc.

Of course just effin relax the stupid isolation rules and let everyone get on with life but someone tell NPHET that!

Yeah they should.

But dont forget its NPHET and "abundance of caution" it wouldnt surprise me one bit to see them close schools rather than accept stopping the spread is a pointless endeavour and that keeping society functioning is more important!

If its best practise elsewhere and involves taking a risk of any sort expect it not to happen here, juts look at their antigen test stance.

Schools will open IMO. It could be a very bumpy few weeks but if as suggested we do hit the peak very soon, relatively short-lived.

I believe (rightly or wrongly) ever since that attempt to gag NPHET and government realised very quickly they'd have no political cover for decisions they might make, so Leo, MM and Tony sat down and agreed "Their all in this together ", picked on hospitality again and the love fest started almost immediately with Tony appearing alongside his new best friends at the last Gov press conference, the first time ever in this entire pandemic.

There's a simple strategy at play, let's occasionally pretend to disagree, then compromise and Tony can continue to lecture whilst pointing his finger at the nation, he never minded being the bad cop and not dependent on re election.

As I've said previously, living with covid has commenced, they just don't seem to know how to communicate this message, actually They don't know how to communicate full stop.

Only short of Blizzard, perhaps high winds this week , schools will reopen, that's been governments and in particular NPHETs message to date, I can't see anything especially teaching unions crying and whinging changing Governments intentions.

In essence even Blackadder couldn't come up with a more cunning plan 😆

Not attacking you or anything, and I enjoy your contributions on here, but it might be no harm to turn off RTE from time to time! 😅 Ignorance is bliss and all that!

I did, listening to newstalk

On the topic of schools, I agree with others that the governments response to this could be a harbinger of things to come. If they stand-up to the unions (and complicit media!) for once, and stick to their guns, it could be the catalyst for a more proactive approach to actually living with Covid.

As an aside, the whole school "issue" seems like a complete overreaction to me. Have we lost all sense of perspective. It's abundantly clear at this stage kids do not get sick from this disease. There's no disputing that. Okay, you will have a few outliers, but don't let isolated incidences distort the complete picture. So kids are safe. How can they not be? Why are people even suggesting that "we need to keep kids safe" - when they clearly are. So people will argue that kids can transmit it to vulnerable family members - are these people not vaccinated? Do we not trust the vaccines? Do the vaccines not work? If the vaccines work as expected, and as we are told, then what is the issue here? Again, I fail to see the problem. So, ultimately, the problem I see is staffing - teachers isolating. Relax/reduce the isolation rules, and problem is solved.

Maybe mine is a simplistic viewpoint, but I'd be interested to hear others. Can't help but fell the media are blowing this out of proportion - as usual.

Going a bit off topic, but I find them every bit as bad. Pat Kenny is a zealot. Although Kieran Cuddihy in the evenings is a breath of fresh air, in that he is more pragmatic and doesn't agree with all the hysteria.

O God your right, P Kenny , my god he's obsessed, particularly the Antigen testing and the infamous Riddle me argument with a GP , I genuinely "Move the Dial' when he starts ranting about covid 😁

Apologies, yes I'd forgotten that, I was generally referring to his general absence at Gov press conferences since new Coalition came in. Leo and Tony seemed to have fallen out by then 😏

The head honchos are meeting now...does anyone have high hopes for what they will say? I am flying back to Canada tomorrow and there are groups calling for a large scale lockdown in the province.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The issue with using excess deaths is that developing countries have been hit hard by starvation. A U.N. study estimated that there were 228,000 additional deaths of children under five in South Asia in 2020 due to crucial services, ranging from nutrition benefits to immunisation, being halted because of Covid measures. That doesn't account for any adults that would have been affected by the same things.

While it's fair to say that India's Covid death numbers probably lack accuracy, I think it's a stretch to say that they're out by more than 3.5 times. Even if they were out by that unlikely amount, that would bring India's deaths per million population on a par with Ireland's, which still doesn't paint the catastrophic picture that the other poster was imagining.

3 leaders/sub-committee today, Cabinet tomorrow and NPHET I think is on Thursday.