The Health Minister says he’s now thinking about reversing course, to once again require contact tracing among classmates of schoolchildren who’ve contracted Covid-19.
The HSE suspended investigations in primary schools in September, shortly before the phased reopening of workplaces began.
As under-12s were not eligible to be vaccinated, if they were considered close contacts they were required to self-isolate – prompting complaints from some parents.
Despite saying new guidelines regarding contact tracing in schools that were published by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control were being looked at by Government, Minister Stephen Donnelly has denied that the decision to scrap tracing in schools has allowed the virus to spread further:
