It can’t be worked out sure. The only solution is to turn schools into a prison camp and we haven’t the time or funding to do it. Even if we wanted to
Berlin is to blame. Hopefully they get no spread
Of course they are connected - it’s utterly naive to suggest otherwise. Both will raise the risk of increased cases In the country - despite all the mitigation. It’s unclear by how much and how quickly - there is no formula that can simply be applied. All they can do is the empirical method of action (ie open something up) and measure the impact over several weeks. Rinse and repeat.
First, as a rich country, not having funding is not an excuse for anything.
Second, everything is possible. For a start they could test every teacher in the country every two weeks and a temperature check everyone on the way in every day.
Limerick is riddled.
Yeah - it’s going to be extremely hard and you’d be concerned at how prepared schools will be based upon the poor performance of the Dept to date and the mixed signals coming from unions.
The biggest factor in the success of reopening them and keeping them open will be as low a prevalence in the community as possible. Anything that puts that at jeopardy will be focussed on I’d imagine
I think the temperature check is overstated - it’s more a bit of theatre to show compliance rather than a serious screening measure. It’s cheap and it’s obvious but I’m not sure how useful it actually is
If the schools don’t open, the country is facing the abyss.
The government can’t afford to do that.
Sorry but that is nonsense.
You’re loading up massively on a presumption that: pubs = virus increase. Despite the evidence we have that pubs have been operating with restrictions for weeks now without causing an increase.
Meanwhile, we have places of work that concerns have been raised about repeatedly for months causing massive spikes. Meat plants have caused increases all across Europe for months now, and concerns have been raised in Ireland. There are concerns about other places of work too and we refuse to even inspect them. Instead we shut down pubs.
Yet you are telling us it’s a binary choice between pubs and schools. It’s complete nonsense.
Same with travel.
If we actually put as much effort into controlling the risk where it really exists we would be doing a whole lot better.
if nobody is dying from this
if kids have been going to camps all summer & have been playing together all summer
how can they justify not opening them?
I genuinely feel sorry for the teachers and maybe @fenwaypark @Declan_Moffat and any others teachers Could answer Me this. Would running the leaving certs in August not have been a good trial for reopening schools and also solving the issue of grades.
I presume no teacher wants to do the grading and understandably so.
Fear of making a decision
They are actually connected.
The HSE has a finite capacity and the government / NPHET has (or should have) a risk appetite corresponding with that. Additional risk will be taken with the reopening of schools, leaving less appetite for cases arising from other public gatherings. The UK has also mooted pub restrictions to facilitate the reopening of schools, though I doubt that will happen.
I’ve no idea if the opening of both pubs and schools would threaten HSE capacity or not but that’s a different argument.
I don’t disagree with you about the meat plants. It was handled poorly all be it is a high risk activity.
Ultimately the risk is cumulative though and while I’ve no doubt that certain areas could be handled better it’s an imperfect balancing act going on with an extremely limited evidence base to work off. Mistakes will be made in both planning and execution.
But are you making the argument that pubs reopening is zero risk? Clearly that’s not the case. Therefore it’s a judgment call in tandem with all the other judgement calls. To my mind it’s marginal and I appreciate the various pub lobby groups making the point about risk mitigation efforts. However, where the current overarching priority, correctly imho, is to get schools reopen I can see why they remain shut for now.
Can we just not convert the pubs into schools lads? Job is oxo
The point is their perception of where risk exists is wrong, and they are focusing their efforts, in ineffective ways, on the wrong places.
It’s fascinating the obsession with pubs above all else.
Perhaps an ultra-cautious approach has been taken, I suppose only time will tell.
If we’ve been too cautious that’s surely better than being too reckless/hasty?