Dr. Colm Henry:

To reiterate, it is unrealistic to expect we can eradicate risk; we cannot. I recall the committee meeting at the beginning of March when we communicated that clearly. Viral upper-respiratory tract symptoms are very common in primary school children and the vast majority are due to more common ailments. In communicating this to parents, principals, teachers and wider society, we are trying to strike a balance between the significant health and well-being benefits for children in education, that is, the opportunities this presents to health, such as vaccines and screening for vision, hearing and so on, versus the risk of transmission of the virus. As I said earlier, the emerging evidence is that child-to-child transmission in a school setting occurs at a lower frequency and is rarer than we initially thought. What we have to have in place is clear communication to GPs, a clear definition of cases, insofar as we can when one considers all the other illnesses children get at that time of the year, and a rapid testing strategy for those who are funnelled through to testing as determined by a general practitioner. As I said, we have been working this week with primary care and public health teams to create an algorithm for this purpose.