Medical group, education union concerned about cases in Albury-Wodonga schools

Albury North, Albury West and Hume public schools have been made non-operational after members of their school communities returned positive results at the weekend.

While Murrumbidgee Local Health District will not break down cases by age, at least two Border schools have advised parents of positive tests within student cohorts.

OzSAGE, a network of 76 medical professionals, is aware of Albury-Wodonga's cluster of 288 cases.

Member Anna Davidson said vaccine bookings only opened to 12-to-15-year olds on September 13, so many students would have one dose, and under-12s were yet to get access to vaccination.

"I would have liked to have seen whole-of-population vaccine targets in roadmaps," Ms Davidson said.

"There are children that get severely ill and there are children that are clinically vulnerable.

"We do all these things for our sick kids in our communities; we raise money, we worry about them ... but they're not in the conversation at the moment.

"Do these children stay at home and be isolated from their peers, when we could be waiting until everyone gets the chance to be vaccinated?

"If ATAGI approved vaccination for younger children in the next month, realistically we could probably have all children vaccinated before school next year."

Ms Davidson said long COVID did affect children, and although many would have mild coronavirus symptoms, their infection would cause wider impacts.

"If children get sick, parents are off work," she said.

"It can grind medical services to a halt because parents are household contacts.

"Our position has been kids should be at school, but let's just do it safely."

The director of the Port Stephens GP Super Clinic, whose group will release a paper today about regional areas and COVID transmission, noted Victoria would roll out air purification units in schools, but not NSW.

"If you can make schools safe with vaccination, HEPA filtration, and CO2 monitoring ... why wouldn't you do that?" Ms Davidson said.

"For some parents, sending their kids to school is getting to be a tough decision."

NSW Teachers Federation senior vice president Amber Flohm told The Border Mail the NSW government's audit of school ventilation systems should have occurred sooner.

"That audit has just completed but the remediation work has not," she said.

"The student population under 12 is not eligible for vaccination, and we note that mask wearing is not mandatory for primary school students as it is for high school students; that is of concern to our members.

"Parents are concerned, particularly those primary school parents.

"Regional New South Wales is being impacted now as it wasn't previously ... we are aware of the cases in Albury."

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet said yesterday he was "very confident" the resumption of face-to-face learning across NSW would go well despite the potential for COVID-19 outbreaks.

"There will be challenges along the way," he said.

"We know that, we've had a number of schools close, but the alternative is to keep all schools closed.

"We're not doing that."

Indi MP Helen Haines said governments had to urgently address COVID-safe school settings.

"I think the the OzSAGE doctors are fundamentally right around the ventilation issue in our schools," she said.

"That is one of the things that we know is really important to maintaining the safety of our children and our teachers."

IN OTHER NEWS:

Dr Haines said many parents were concerned about cases in schools.

"I'm certainly hearing from my constituents they're very anxious," she said.

"This is new territory for us, and this is happening at the same time as states are coming out of that long period of lockdowns.

"Just when kids were getting back to school, some of our exposure sites have been schools.

"So that means students home again, and that's creating anxiety too."