The Health Service Executive's lead for schools has said very early signals are that the transmission picture is similar to what has been seen previously.
On RTÉ's Morning Ireland Dr Abigail Collins said said that because the actual number of cases in the 0-18 year olds is much higher than at the end of the last academic year, this has resulted in many more close contacts being identified because they are identified in the same way.
She said it would take a while to see the transmission levels of Covid-19 in schools because students have just returned after the summer.
Dr Collins said testing positivity among children who have symptoms and no symptoms, who might have been close contacts from a household, community or club setting, is around