Sir, – The recent decision to stop contact tracing in schools is an abomination. We are a family with one very vulnerable member. Her three siblings are in different classes in primary, while she is in a special school.
Now we find ourselves in the position of having no information of the risk to our family.
The HSE has been miserably inefficient in arranging appointments for the (many) recent cases of Covid within our primary school, meaning that parents arrange their own test, which I believe is not recorded as school transmission, but as community transmission.
It seems that now, an interpretation of the Covid statistics, not to mention a manipulation of how said statistics are gathered, is to put our family and so many others at risk.
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Children do not exist in a bubble, they have siblings, parents, and other contacts who are vulnerable. I need to know the risk to her at a given time so we can make decisions about how our family can keep her safe, but we are being thrown under a bus, and my other children are being abandoned in a way that no other unvaccinated, unmasked, unprotected group would be.
I will be relying on the goodwill of other parents to give me information which may prove crucial to my daughter’s survival. I should not have to do that, as far as I am aware we are still in the midst of a global pandemic. – Yours, etc,
NIAMH SHINE,
Crumlin, Dublin 12.
Sir, – Might the Government put together a list of Covid-related symptoms specific to parents/teachers – including perhaps confusion, confusion and more confusion. Of course, the Department of Education, HPSC and Nphet might need to have their own, conflicting lists, just to add to the chaos.
– Yours, etc,
JEANNINE KENNAN,
Drumcondra,
Dublin 9.