School learning is a continuous process and it cannot take place in fits and starts

Some children, on the cusp of functional literacy, will never recover.

Why?

When a child tests positive for Covid, the Public Health Authority (PHA) say the Test and Trace and Protect programme will be applied to those in contact with that child (and then) ...“isolation guidance will be provided ... and may result in friendship groups, regular contacts and potentially an entire class or ‘bubble’ being instructed to self-isolate at home”.

In practice, this means the entire class or sports team.

Parents, already stressed because of the uncertainty surrounding their work are unable to work because of children being sent home, further jeopardising their already fragile situation.

School principals are in an impossible position — caught between parents with opposing fears, the regulations and the need to educate children.

Learning is a continuous process — it cannot take place in fits and starts. How can a curriculum be delivered when children are in and out?

How can pupils retain motivation?

For exam pupils, the uncertainty is stressful and the effects lifelong.

There will be a widening gap between those whose parents are willing and able to help and those who are not, and, for those who are challenged by education, it is disastrous.

Children need to socialise — sport, choir, clubs are vital for children’s health, mental health and life skills

What about children living in cramped conditions, what about the rising tide of abuse and self-harm?

What about crying children deprived of friends?

School is so much more than lessons and the lessons of life are essential

Professor Woolhouse (SAGE): “I believe the harm lockdown is doing to our education will turn out to be at least as great as the harm done by Covid-19.”

The principals’ view

“Near breaking point” Headteachers worn down by ‘non-stop Covid crisis’- the Guardian.

“School leaders are managing the vast majority of Covid 19 preventative and response measures single-handedly along with their normal management and leadership duties. We are torn between our moral and professional duty to serve our children and their parents and the need to meet the pastoral needs of our colleagues.”-Head

Here is one parents’ view: “If one parent freaks out and puts their poor child through that horrendous test it causes havoc with hundreds of families!”

Here is another: “My grand-daughter has been sent home for two weeks, due to one class-mate testing positive. She cannot attend her gym classes, hockey practise, see friends, or even visit the park! The stress on families juggling work commitments is terrible.”

Professor Carl Heneghan of the centre for evidence based medicine at Oxford University said: “Relying on the testing — you might as well close schools now — it is utter chaos”

What should we do?

The Great Barrington declaration written by three experts recommends:

“Those who are not vulnerable should be allowed to resume normal life. Simple hygiene measures should be practiced. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home.”-Dr Gupta (Oxford), Dr Bhattacharya (Stanford) and Dr Kuldorf (Harvard)

Why are we sending children home denying them education when they are unaffected by the virus and do not transmit it?

And doing so on the basis of a test which is ‘completely useless’ for this purpose?

Haven’t they lost enough?

• Hugh McCarthy was principal of Killicomaine Junior High School. He wrote this in collaboration with Professor Ennos, see article below

Professor Ennos, of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh writes that there is no reason to be worried about Covid passing through pupils:

The PCR (polymerase chain reaction) test was designed using RNA (ribonucleic acid) sequences from other coronaviruses, not Sars/Covid 2. Therefore, it is non-specific for Covid-19, a positive result can be obtained if a child is infected with a related coronavirus causing eg the common cold. Moreover, the test is so sensitive that it will give a positive score even if there are only fragments of viruses left many weeks after a previous infection and the individual is non-infective.

Positive results should therefore not be referred to as ‘cases’, because the vast majority of positive PCR tests are not active infections.

Indeed, the inventor of the PCR test, Dr Kary Mullis, stressed that it should never be used for diagnosis; it will not determine if a person is sick nor whether there is a risk of transmission, for this a separate diagnosis is essential.

According to the government over 90% of positive PCR tests do not represent active Covid-19 infections. Therefore the PCR test results are completely inappropriate for providing evidence of whether there is an outbreak of Covid-19 in a school.

The other major reason for ceasing to use the PCR test as a way of finding Covid-19 and disrupting the education of our children is that we have very good data now on the infection fatality rate of SARS COV2, the probability of an individual dying if the virus infects them, is around 0.2%, according to the World Health Organisation. So 99.8% of infected individuals survive. But the news is even better for children. The Covid-19 deaths are concentrated in the elderly, with mean age of those dying being around 82, greater than mean life expectancy. For children the risk of death is incredibly low, one in three and a half million, less than the chance of being struck by lightning. Moreover there are no confirmed cases anywhere in the world of Covid-19 being transmitted to a teacher by their pupils.

In short, the PCR test is completely useless for the purpose for which it is being employed-namely the detection of Covid-19 infected individuals who can infect others. Furthermore since children are hardly affected, and show vanishingly small frequencies of transmission to adults, there is no reason to be worried about SARS/COV2 passing through children at school.

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