The National Public Health Emergency Team is meeting this morning to consider the next steps in the country's Covid-19 battle.
Public health officials are considering guidance around getting primary school children to wear face masks in the classroom.
Nearly one in every hundred children tested positive for Covid-19 last week. The latest Health Protection Surveillance Centre report shows that 5,375 contracted the virus in the last week.
Meanwhile, 10,154 picked it up in the last two weeks.
It's the highest case rate of any age cohort, with 978 cases per hundred thousand people.
The HPSC said just 24 outbreaks, accounting for 139 cases, were linked to school settings – with the vast majority of children picking up the virus in the community.
Infectious disease consultant Dr Eoghan De Barra noted that the virus tends to be mildest in children.
“The direct health impact on children has been modest in their physical health so thankfully the numbers of children that end up severely unwell is small.
There are children who get sick with this. There are admissions to hospital but thankfully that is a relatively rare event.
The big impact on children has been the impact for their socialisation, society, development and education.”
