The New South Wales teachers’ union has called for an urgent meeting with health and education officials to discuss safety at the onset of the new school year amid the growing Covid-19 outbreak in the state.
The NSW Teachers Federation president, Angelo Gavrielatos, warned absentee rates could cause chaos and said “serious questions” about safety needed to be answered before students returned to classrooms in early February.
“The current plan is the plan we had when schools went into the vacation period,” he told Guardian Australia. “All that’s changed. We are now living in a very different context to what we were in the weeks prior to schools going into summer recess.”
In highly vaccinated NSW, case numbers have exceeded 20,000 in recent days.
Gavrielatos said schools were already heavily disrupted in 2021, when far fewer cases circulated in the state, with an average of about 40 schools a day affected by staff or students testing positive.
“That was at a time when numbers were but a fraction of what we’re seeing today,” he said. “So clearly there’s a lot of concern.”
The union is seeking an “urgent meeting” with education and health officials this week to ensure a proper plan is in place.
“Who knows what that plan might look like? Who knows how many cases we might have?” Gavrielatos said. “There are a number of scenarios potentially at play here, including the possibility of remote learning in certain settings.”
Gavrielatos said a multi-pronged approach to Covid-19 was sorely needed in schools, where vaccination rates differ from the general NSW population. As of Monday, 78.2% of NSW children aged 12-15 were double-vaccinated, compared with 93.6% of people 16 and older. The vast majority of primary school students are currently unvaccinated, with the rollout for children aged 5-11 to begin on 10 January.
Among the union’s demands are “enhancements” of rules around masks and ventilation, with an “urgent audit and stocktake” needed on air purifiers. “We need to know what on earth is happening with rapid antigen testing,” Gavrielatos said. “We need to know what efforts are being made to procure and make available that other critical component in risk mitigation strategy.”
Covid-19 has generally produced a milder illness in children than adults, though it is possible for children to become severely ill and in rare cases die. Research on children and the Omicron variant is still emerging.
Towards the end of the 2021 school year, measures in place for NSW schools included physical distancing and outdoor lessons where possible, mandatory vaccinations for staff and compulsory masks for staff, visitors and students in year 7 and above. Masks were strongly recommended for primary school students.
Ventilation advice was to open doors and windows. The department said advice from NSW Health, the Doherty Institute and the World Health Organization was that “maximising natural ventilation in our learning spaces is the most effective method for minimising the spread of Covid-19, as it is a very effective way to disperse particles in the air”.
But there are concerns this will not always be possible in a hot Australian summer. The department has bought air purifiers, but they will not be brought in across the board and only used in situations where, for instance, bushfire smoke or poor air quality rules out opening the window. In the UK, similar ventilation advice was criticised as unworkable in the context of a harsh winter.
The education department said on Tuesday it was working closely with NSW Health “to finalise school settings for the start of the new school year and detailed advice for term 1 will be made available soon”.
“The settings will be fit-for-purpose, while also providing time for schools to prepare for the beginning of classes on 1 February,” a spokesperson said.
“We remain committed to reducing the disruption to schools, keeping staff and students safe, and providing a greater degree of normality in line with changes communicated in the final weeks of term 4.”
The department noted vaccine appointments were available for children aged 5– 11 from 10 January.
“We encourage parents to book a vaccination appointment for their child as soon as possible, as evidence shows vaccination offers excellent protection against Covid-19 for children and helps keep your family safe and well.”
