Long Covid Kids Ireland

By Sarah O'Connell

The Lead LCK Representative for Ireland

13th November 2021

Northern Ireland

Long Covid Clinics are finally to be launched in Northern Ireland (a year after clinics established in England). It is unclear yet whether these clinics will accept both children and adults or will be adults only (similar to the Rep of Ireland model).

Further coverage and details regarding last week's news can be found here

Republic of Ireland

The Irish Government continues to face a backlash over the changes made in September to policy surrounding testing and contact tracing amongst children. Guidance states that only sibling close contacts are required to self isolate and all other close contacts can attend school unless they have symptoms.

Child case numbers continue to be reported and referenced by the Government regularly despite the fact that it is clear these figures are not accurate - the percentage of positive children who are asymptomatic are longer identified given the new policy.

Teachers, Principals and many parents have called on the government to reinstate contact tracing and testing. Ahead of the return to school on November 1st (following mid-term), Dr Tony Holohan tried to reassure parents that schools were safe This message is no longer believable given the fact that there continue to be almost zero mitigations in classrooms which often have more than 30 children to a room.

The government had provided some CO2 monitors, but schools do not have even half of the monitors needed for classrooms. Teachers are told to leave windows open and to practice hand hygiene, methods which alone are not going to curb the spread in the classroom and the over focus on hand hygiene does not reflect the fact that Covid is an airborne disease.

Case number totals (for all age groups) across the Rep of Ireland have been over 3,000 for the past number of days, hitting records not seen since January. For the reasons stated the true numbers are likely to be much higher given many cases in children are being missed).

The government announced plans to introduce antigen testing for schools this week. This step, although welcome, would seem like too little too late, with case numbers still up at around 3,000 a day and an extremely high rate of infection amongst primary school children.

The Taoiseach and the Ministers of Educations and Health still refuse to backtrack on contact tracing and self isolation rules for children despite significant criticism from teachers and principals. Joe McKeown of INTO (Irish National Teachers Organization) spoke out on Virgin One's Tonight Show on Monday night, criticizing the government for failing to acknowledge the ECDC's (European Centre for Disease Control) assertion that primary schools are a setting for high risk of transmission, and instead continuing to insist that schools are not driving case numbers.

LongCovidKids.org is a UK based international charity supporting and advocating for families, children and young people living with Long Covid. Our story started with a short film on the long-lasting symptoms of Covid in children.

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