Clonaslee Health centre issues words of advice to the students of Clonaslee College and local children as they remain at home during school closure.
For school closure to be effective the local GP advises parents and students to avoid students congregating and mixing together in groups. They could pass the virus on silently which may result in serious illness or death to those elderly or more vulnerable in our community.
Through respecting and maintaining the social distance rules the growth of the Covid-19 virus could be prevented. Please listen to the advice being given by the medical experts at this challenging time.
Message from GP:
I would appreciate it if you would consider sending this to the parents of your school community. Every little action that we take as a community will hopefully help in the weeks ahead. I appreciate that this can be difficult for active and healthy kids- we can still get out, go for walks and run around but preferably not in groups.
I have received two communications which I feel are very important and relevant to our school community as our schools and society commence this period of social avoidance.
One is from a Consultant Paediatrician in Cork Hospital who has strongly urged all parents in the Cork area to minimise the amount of mixing that children do over the next few weeks. He emphasises that while most of our children will remain well when infected with coronavirus, they are carrying and transmitting the disease to others. In order to protect the older and vulnerable members of our community we must minimise the social interaction of our children.
The second is from the sister of a Dr colleague, who lives in Italy. She described how when the schools first closed in Italy the population treated this casually and kids continued to meet in the playground or at each others houses etc. It is only in the past week that they have started to really socially avoid effectively. She is telling us of their experiences in the hope that we might learn from them.
Ireland has taken action early, and it will be difficult over the next few weeks, but if we listen to this advice then hopefully we can slow down the virus and reduce the impact it will have. There is a nice section on the RTE news website from Emma O'Kelly 13/03/2020 "Balance can be struck to keep children occupied".
Dr Julie Cunningham
GP
Clonaslee