Sir, – Everyone wants schools open, but fudging the data makes no sense.
Your report ("Positive cases detected in more than 100 schools last week," News, March 16th) notes an increase from a 1.1 per cent to a 2.4 per cent rate of infection among teachers and students "mass tested" by the Health Service Executive in the last week.
The report compares this with a 3.8 per rate in the wider community who present for testing largely on a basis of having symptoms or being exposed to identified Covid cases.
The critical difference between mass testing in schools and the more selective process leading to testing in the community is not considered.
If our decisions on Covid are to be evidence based, let’s at least have the facts analysed consistently. – Yours, etc,
DAVID O’CONNOR,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.