A school in Waterford City says the HSE has informed them that a region in Italy, where students visited last week, is of zero to low risk for coronavirus.
St Paul's Community School says it met with students and teachers today and they're all healthy and not presenting any symptoms of the virus.
In a text message to parents, the principal of St Paul's says they're following instructions from the HSE.
Waterford Councillor Jason Murphy says his son was on the trip and the text message from St Paul's was relief:
"They went off last week, they went off for seven days, they came back just Saturday. Off on a skiing trip to northern Italy, to a place called Folgaria I think. We got a text there today just to say that they were in a area of low risk, and that there's low to no risk of them contracting coronavirus. But obviously until we got that text, we were all a little bit worried because we had all watched the news. I think a lot of people's minds will be put at ease by the text from the school. In fairness to the school, I think they've acted very quickly in relation to this."
Meanwhile, the mother of one of the De La Salle students returned recently from Italy has spoken to the HSE.
She says the students at that school are not being treated as high risk.
The students were in Andalo, which is 200km from the nearest coronavirus death.
The Irish Examiner reports that there's concerns surrounding students from one other secondary school in Waterford following their return from a coronavirus-hit region in Italy.
It's believed they arrived back to Ireland within the last 24 hours.
The Department of Health says it can't comment on individual cases but it says there are no confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ireland.
