Masks are not necessary, except for medical workers. Masks are an important element of the fight against Covid-19. Masks are definitely not needed for children in primary schools. Everyone over the age of nine should wear a mask in school. Antigen tests are not useful. Antigen tests are a useful adjunct in the prevention of transmission of Covid-19 in asymptomatic patients.
Schools are safe environments and transmission in schools is low. We’ve never said that schools are a safe environment. We’ve said that they’re a lower-risk environment.
The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
When George Orwell wrote 1984, he said that he was not predicting the future but satirising the recent past.
I am not accusing medical experts or politicians of being Orwellian. But at times, they have been engaging in constructive ambiguity; defined as "the deliberate use of ambiguous language in a sensitive issue in order to advance some political purpose" and closely associated with former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.
The agencies that have been spearheading the fight against Covid-19 are doing their best and, on a personal level, officials have made enormous sacrifices for the public good. They have been under unspeakable ongoing strain since March 2020.
Nonetheless, people involved in primary and post-primary education greeted with incredulity Dr Ronan Glynn’s claim that it had never been said that schools were safe environments. In fairness to Glynn, he was careful never to make a statement without nuance but politicians simplified it into a slogan – schools are safe environments.
Ill pupils
This mantra was repeated endlessly and it also shaped policy. This September, contact tracing was suspended in schools. Children aged 12 or under who were close contacts and were asymptomatic also did not have to restrict their movements.
People involved in primary and post-primary education greeted with incredulity Dr Ronan Glynn's claim that it had never been said that schools were safe environments
In response, John Boyle, general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, said he hoped there would not be a "we told you so" moment as a result of the removal of contact tracing and restriction of movement.
Ten thousand positive cases among those aged five to 12 were reported in the last fortnight. This translates to some 15,000 children self-isolating if you allow for siblings, and that is a conservative estimate. Significant numbers of teachers are also either sick or self-isolating.
The resultant strain on schools is inhuman. Covid-19 turned a pre-existing problem with finding cover for those who were ill, on maternity leave or out for other legitimate reasons, into a national crisis.
The other mantra that we heard over and over was that transmission in schools was low. How would anyone know? Contact tracing had ceased in September, and even before that, the contact tracing system was cumbersome and slow.
It defied logic that the virus would politely stay outside the perimeter of schools, while viciously attacking households and communities. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) said this October that sharing a classroom can be considered a high-risk exposure but regularly we have been slow to follow their guidance.
Meanwhile, the numbers of reported outbreaks in schools bore no resemblance to what principals (and highly active Facebook and WhatsApp parent groups) were reporting in reality.
Political imperative
The fact is that society as currently constituted cannot function without schools. Parents cannot work. Parents who choose homeschooling in non-pandemic times work hard to ensure that their children have ample opportunities for socialising with other children. During enforced homeschooling, children are isolated at home, staring into screens for hours on end.
Politicians and medical experts claimed to be following the science but what they were primarily following was a political imperative to keep schools open.
The majority of the public agreed with that political imperative and schools sweated blood to make it possible.
Politicians and medical experts claimed to be following the science but what they were primarily following was a political imperative to keep schools open
If politicians and medical people alike had simply said that the risks to students, teachers and other staff in schools were real but were outweighed by the damage done to society and to children by long school closures, the public would have been well capable of understanding that compromise.
Substituting a simplistic slogan for the truth simply reinforced cynicism and outright disbelief. This kind of fudging, of hiding behind ambiguous statements, was a trend during the pandemic.
It was used as a tactic during the initial understandable desire to conserve masks for medical personnel and at other times, including implying that enforced cocooning for the over-70s was a legal requirement.
With the worrying advent of a new variant detected in South Africa, every member of the public needs to be doubly vigilant. Agreeing that keeping schools open is for the public good is meaningless if there isn’t a widespread and ongoing alteration of our behaviour to make it possible.
Constructive ambiguity is a dubious tactic at the best of times as it often just glosses over issues that eventually must be resolved. When it works at all, it works because both parties agree to politely pretend the different interpretations on both sides are compatible.
When one side is engaging in constructive ambiguity as a protective tactic towards people they believe cannot cope with the truth, it is inevitably destructive.