I’m seriously confused- corona virus, school and self isolation

[TheTempest]

Hi,

I’m after a bit of advice if anyone knows the answer. My DD went back to school yesterday (year 6) and it’s a whole year bubble.

Email came out today saying that a child in her year (her class I’ve been told) is self isolating with symptoms. I’m not sure if he’s been in school yet though.

Do we need to isolate? If he tests positive, does DD need to? And the rest of the household? I’ve been looking online, but I can’t work it out!

They are warning you need to prepare to isolate your child if the other child is positive then arrange a test for your child and isolate your child's household. If your child's test is negative then no isolation but no school, if positive, isolate for 14 days.

If other child is negative, other child returns to school, nothing happens to your child.

Yes, it’s a warning, if the child tests positive your DD must isolate for 14 days.

This should help

Trying again with a higher resolution version...

Serena you're advice is wrong. If the school child in the same bubble is positive then the other children will have to self isolate for 14 days. They only get tested if they develop symptoms.
They need 14 days as it can take up til then to develop.

Email came out today saying that a child in her year (her class I’ve been told) is self isolating with symptoms. I’m not sure if he’s been in school yet though.

Just a wild guess but if you were to isolate at this stage surely the school would have added this into the email?

@Torvean32
Thank you, I'm very confused, I got that info from dd's school 😭

I don't think you need to isolate right now according to the guidelines, but it would be sensible to avoid any unnecessary contacts (especially with vulnerable grandparents etc) til you know the result of the test. This is my understanding of what's supposed to happen, but I'm no expert, hopefully someone will correct me if I'm wrong

1. If the child in the class is positive, public health England will be called in to advise. Close contacts of the positive child will be asked to isolate for 14 days (in a primary school I would expect that to be the whole class)
2. Assuming your child is one that's asked to isolate, they'll need to stay home for 14 days, and you'll need to get them tested if they develop any symptoms. They won't be able to leave the house, and you shouldn't have any visitors (unless you have a support bubble, people in your bubble would be in the rules, although I would avoid that too if you can).
3. Other household members don't need to isolate, unless anyone in the house gets symptoms, in which case everyone in the house needs to isolate and get tested. If there's siblings supposed to be in school I would get advice from the school about whether they should attend or not. Of course your child will need looking after so in practice someone will need to stay home with her. I would be as cautious as possible, cancel any social arrangements and avoid any unnecessary interactions if the rest of the house is not able to completely isolate (eg if working etc).

Of course this system is completely imperfect and what they need to be doing to be sure of containing it is isolating whole households, and getting everyone tested too (so that if anyone is positive their contacts can be traced too). But I don't think that's the current system. I would love to be corrected if anyone knows better than me. Presumably if the test is positive you will get advice from public health England about next steps so please don't take what I've said as gospel!

Good luck, fingers crossed the child is negative. There's already been a case in DS's school but in a different year group, so some children have been asked to isolate, DS not affected as yet. It's going to be a long winter I think :-(

That makes sense, thanks everyone. If negative, then all ok. If the other child is positive, she needs to self isolate when told
For 14 days but the rest of the household doesn’t- until someone else gets symptoms.