“If you think back to your own school days, there were kids in your class that you saw a lot of and there were kids in your class you barely saw at all.”
School children have “3-5 close contacts a day”, according to expert Phillip Nolan.
Speaking at Thursday evening’s briefing, the chair of the Irish Epidemiological Modelling Advisory Group said that depending on the child, they may only come into close contact with three people while at school.
Nolan said: “We overestimate the amount of contact that actually occurs in school settings. It’s been studied and we don’t have close contact with all of the other 25 kids in our class, everyday. It’s actually much closer to three or five.
“If you think back to your own school days, there were kids in your class that you saw a lot of and there were kids in your class you barely saw at all.”
"If you think back to your own school days, there were kids in your class that you saw a lot of and there were kids in your class you barely saw at all." Prof Philip Nolan says a child has 3-5 close contacts with classmates a day | https://t.co/yro2bXPnFk pic.twitter.com/Fc3uUvX9jd
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) August 27, 2020
Doctor Colm Henry also spoke at the briefing, saying that now is the time for schools to be reopened, as prolonged school closures are having an impact on children’s health and wellbeing.
Thursday’s briefing saw 93 further cases of Covid-19 confirmed, while no new deaths were reported in the last 24 hours.
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