Ms Julia Corey:

I do not have a percentage for the Deputy. The WHO is saying it is still 10% to 20% of all infections. That is regardless of vaccination status. There is some evidence that it marginally reduces the instance of long Covid, but there is nothing really meaningful. This is with the absence of mitigations such as clean air in public buildings, especially like we are seeing in schools. The Department provided CO2 monitors in 2020 or 2021. Parents are reporting that many of those monitors are tucked away in drawers and not being used. Some parents have shared stories. They can send in personal monitors with their child, and they have reported CO2 levels that are more than double or sometimes almost closer to triple the legal limit set out by the Health and Safety Authority, which means that people are constantly being reinfected. We know that reinfections increase the risk of developing long Covid because the damage is cumulative.