DD has a cold - CV test?

[BastardCorona]

Sorry; posting for traffic. DD6 has a cold. It’s been threatening to come out for days, with sniffing and sneezing yesterday. Today she is full blown snot, sneezes and slight coughing due to being bunged up. Just to note, she doesn’t have a raised temperature. I’m keeping her off school today because she feels miserable.
My question is do I need to book a CV test? And do I need to declare anything to the school? I’m really confused and worried she won’t be allowed back into school without one but at the same time I don’t want to book her in for a, very hard to get test, which I’m sure is a waste of time.
I’m also really concerned about making a bigger thing about this because the school closed the bubble for my older child last week when another child had a cold and the kids couldn’t come back to class until the (negative) result.
Sorry, I’m rambling a bit but just after a bit of advice really.

@SVRT19674

No. A common cold is just that, sniffles and the like, that is not covid. Covid is dry, those who have a cough and sore throat have a very strong cough from deep in their lungs. I am surprised people arent informed better to be able to know this. It is ridiculous to test every child with a common cold, fgs. A temperature of 37.5 sustained, that is another clue. But, most children will be asymptomatic so you will never know if they have it or not.

It’s 37.8

I've sent mine in today with a cold. Clearly a cold and no temp, I phoned the school to check. I think after 6 months of no school or nursery kids are going to be picking up bugs left right and centre.

@Dahlietta

Thank you for your capitalising. It really helps me understand. I know they don't necessarily need a test if they are unwell enough to be off school. It depends if they have symptoms. The OP, however, wasn't asking if her child was unwell enough to be off school - she wants to know if she should book a Covid test. According to your silly flowchart, she shouldn't, because once she has decided to keep her child off school, she doesn't need to think about getting a test.

Dahlietta

"Thank you for your capitalising. It really helps me understand"
🤣
That was brilliant. Spot on...

Thank you for your capitalising. It really helps me understand.

Love this response

This is just my experience/opinion, not official advice:

-I’m fairly sure my 6 and 3 year olds had covid at the start of lockdown (they became ill shortly after I had it). Their symptoms were a short lived, a cough (quite bad in one child but mild in the other - I’d barely have called it continuous) and being tired and off their food. NO snot or sniffles! Much milder than the illness me and DH had.

-we have all had colds more recently. These started with the kids who were more poorly with it, mild in the adults. Streaming snotty noses which developed into a cough after a few days. The coughs in terms of frequency/severity were probably little different from the coughs they had when they had covid but was really obvious to me that the coughs were triggered by a snotty cold. I didn’t attempt to get them tested and sent them to school/nursery as normal.

I think all the evidence of symptoms in children suggests snotty noses are NOT a symptom, so a cough that is quite clearly the result of a snotty cold can probably be safely ignored.

Sorry just realised that should say “a short lived fever” above in the DCs covid symptoms. The cough lasted a week or so.

I’m getting seriously frustrated to be honest.
Research shows that barely half of children with symptomatic covid have a fever/ cough.
30-40% of them though have runny noses and sore throats.
And even more have no symptoms at all.

So why is it ok for children to be at school with a ‘cold’ ?

‘ I think all the evidence of symptoms in children suggests snotty noses are NOT a symptom, so a cough that is quite clearly the result of a snotty cold can probably be safely ignored.’

Where are you seeing that? @Bubbinsmakesthree

I'm in a similar position with 6 year dd. She got a runny nose last night. The mornin woke up with sneezing. No cough, no temp, no other complaints. If I was at work I'd send her in. But as I'm at home today, I.jept her off to limit the spread of the cold. She doesn't even have any pockets in her school dress to keep a tissue. If she was older and could catch her sneezes better and wash her hands more, I would have sent her in.

I won't be ordering a test unless she develops a cough or other covid symptoms.

@Jellybeansincognito

I’ve heard experts on the radio saying this, I assume based on this study:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/03/diarrhoea-and-vomiting-may-be-key-sign-of-covid-in-children-study

A quote from that write-up:

“the study should also reassure parents. “Lots of children will have a running nose this winter [and] sneezing – that is not a sign,” he said.“

I’ve read in another study that stomach issues are present in 10% of symptomatic cases, often being the only symptom (in children).

Same study said that 30-40% have runny nose/ sore throat.

(It was published in May and updated in July)

[quote Bubbinsmakesthree]@Jellybeansincognito

I’ve heard experts on the radio saying this, I assume based on this study:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/science/2020/sep/03/diarrhoea-and-vomiting-may-be-key-sign-of-covid-in-children-study[/quote]
From the Zoe App - covid.joinzoe.com/post/back-to-school

The top five symptoms in school aged children who test positive for COVID are;
fatigue (55%)
headache (53%),
fever (49%),
sore throat (38%)
loss of appetite (35%).

This was different compared to the App’s data on adults;
fatigue (87%),
headache (72%),
loss of smell (60%),
persistent cough (54%) and
sore throat (49%).

In addition to this, research from the app has also found that one in six (15%) children who test positive for COVID also present with an unusual skin rash.

I'd book one personally. My CV 'symptoms' presented as a cold and I went to have the test to be safe, not in a million years thinking it would come back +ive.

@wherestheotherone

If you send her back to school and she starts coughing expect to be asked to provide a negative test before they let her back. 119 is a nightmare, you'll be waiting for hours! I'd speak to the school and see what they need.

This is what I've had this morning, DD had a cold this weekend but feeling better today and a chesty cough. They sent her home within 15 minutes and won't let her back without a negative covid test which are impossible to get in my area.

We called our GP last week as both kids had a cold (no temperature, no loss of taste/smell) and coughed lightly (throatclearing cough) about 2-3 times per hour, not at all
We were told to not be silly, and send them back to school. A continuous cough according to her is one that also occurs during the night, and is several coughs in a row.

Just to throw the cat among the pigeons, I've had covid and been incredibly ill from it. My symptoms started with normal cold type sore throat, runny nose, fever under 38 and bit of sneezing from the runny nose. On the fourth day the cough set in, and stayed for 18 weeks.

@FaffingForEngland

Can you explain more about the inappropriate contracts? I haven't heard about that.

It's been all over the news. The government has been handing out contracts to carry out testing and analysis without tender to all kinds of private companies irrespective of whether they are adequately skilled or resourced to deliver on them, just like all the bogus PPE contracts they handed out to their chums' companies. As a result, test swabs have been mishandled, dumped, sent abroad, or sitting in a backlog for so long that they're useless, instead of being processed accurately and promptly.

Given we've done more tests per capita and in total than most other countries in Europe, it seems odd that the current lack of availability is coinciding with people returning from holiday and children going back to school.

I'm not sure why you think this. Instead of ~300,000 tests being processed per day, which the government's much vaunted 'capacity' might suggest are happening, the number recently has been more like 60,000 (which puts the daily number of cases into an interesting new percentage bracket). Considering the tests processed per day is a number that hasn't been available for months, it's likely this has been going on for some considerable time, even though it's only been known about for sure for a few days. Keir Starmer asked Boris Johnson at PMQs last week to comment on reports that the testing system is close to collapse. Boris Johnson responded with his usual halfwitted cocktail of insults and 'world-beating' hyperbole. Now the system has collapsed.

@Clymene
that chart where helpful is not from PHE it's from the northern ireland public health agency.
I think it is probably broadly similar for all of UK but bear in mind different devolved nations definitely have slightly different rules

Friends DD had a mild ‘cold’ with sniffles etc.
Tested positive.

(WRT to testing criteria I mean, not suggesting Covid symptoms are any different)

My son has had a cold all weekend. He now cannot stop coughing. Sometimes the cough sounds chesty sometimes its dry. Sounds quite croupy which hes had before, hes 9. But it is a constant cough. No temperature at all. No idea if he needs a test but we have spent the last 4 days trying to get one and none available anyway.

Schools are all being different on this one it seems. I spoke to our school Head today because mine are walking balls of snot this week and I know with DD1 it will go on to be an annoying lingering post-bug cough as it always does. Head is fine to have them in at the snot stage but once the coughing starts it'll have to be nose swab time is her line on it.

Thus is where I got it from:

www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-rate-select-countries-worldwide/

@DominaShantotto

Schools are all being different on this one it seems. I spoke to our school Head today because mine are walking balls of snot this week and I know with DD1 it will go on to be an annoying lingering post-bug cough as it always does. Head is fine to have them in at the snot stage but once the coughing starts it'll have to be nose swab time is her line on it.

But what if you cant get a test? What happens then? We spoke to the testing helpline and 119 who said there arent any tests at all.