Only between 5 to 10% of students are wearing face coverings in schools, according to a education department survey of headteachers conducted in early December.

The estimate was revealed by education minister Julie Edge this week in response to a direct question from Castletown, Arbory and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse.

Ms Edge however stressed that it was ’not a comprehensive survey’.

It comes as Chief Minister Alfred Cannan told Mr Moorhouse that there is no suitable evidence to support the enforcement of masking wearing in schools.

Mr Cannan began by making clear that the evidence for mask wearing as a means of stopping community spread has been ’systematically appraised and published by multiple world agencies’ including the World Health Organisation.

However, he said that ’determining the approach to recommendation or mandates [for mask wearing] is not one which is amenable to evidence or policy assessment’.

Mr Cannan said: ’Whilst it would be possible for a literature search to be undertaken to identify and compare approaches from other countries, these are very varied, [and] have often not been subject to formal evaluation and publication and are context specific such that they could not by assumed to be transferable here.

He continued: ’Accordingly, is it not possible to usefully assess the short term and certainly not the long-term (since a long-term data set does not exist) impact of different grades of recommendations and/or legal mandating of any interventions’.

Mr Moorhouse then asked how much longer the mask guidance would remain in place, given the lack of uptake and enforcement when it came to wearing them in classrooms.

assessed

The Chief Minister responded that the need for such measures was being constantly assessed, and that he expects to update Tynwald and the public on the government’s plans ’in the near future’.

Mr Moorhouse was also concerned about the lack of mask wearing on public transport buses (where it is mandatory), and asked Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall about this.

Mr Crookall said that bus drivers ultimately had to accept it if passengers stated that they were exempt from wearing one.

’And if they are challenged by other passengers on the bus as to why they haven’t taken other passengers to task [for not wearing a mask], they will either explain that, or [perhaps] they have taken the passenger to task and found themselves in precarious positions,’ the minister said.

’I have to feel sorry for the drivers in respect of this, they’ve got a service to deliver, they’re trying to do that.’

’But do you know, at the end of an eight-hour shift if they’ve been asking everybody when they get on, not only will they be getting fed up with it but they’ve probably been abused as well, so have some sympathy for them.’