Child's class bubble close but should it have been?

[TellerTuesday4EVA]

This also happened to a friend with DC at a different school.

Message to parents last night, DD's class bubble will now be closed and children to isolate for 14 days as a child in the bubble has tested positive over the weekend.

Class group chat starts, one mum comes on & says it's X but we're ok. Then says X doesn't have any symptoms, was me on Friday afternoon and husband Saturday but we got her tested anyway and it's positive.

Now every single thing I have read says only to have a test if you develop symptoms. X would have to self isolate anyway due to the parents having positive tests but by getting her tested they now closed the bubble and all 30 kids are at home for 14 days. This what would happen if following the rules but then it shows the system if flawed as this child obviously did have it and was asymptotic.

So I don't know if I'm right to be annoyed by this or not. I'm certainly not looking forward to 2 weeks home schooling again.

Technically no she shouldn’t have been tested, but you are being phenomenally unreasonable! If she was an asymptomatic carrier she could have exposed the entire class already so they definitely need to be isolating!

@TellerTuesday4EVA

So at least some of you understand the point I am trying to get across. There's now 14 days of all 30 children being at home even though they have all had contact as of last week when the contagiousness was higher so they've all been exposed already anyway.

Yes, so as they were all exposed last week when they were more likely to be infected, it’s good that they’re now in 14 days isolation and can’t spread it any further.

You can’t win on here OP.

On one thread you will have everyone spouting the rules and saying how unnecessary and irresponsible it is to get tested when you don’t don’t have symptoms just because someone you live with tested positive - how it’s against the guidelines and a waste of a test etc.

Then you will come on another thread where people will be praising to high heavens the people who get tested, even though they don’t have any symptoms, just because they live with someone who got a positive.

That’s the whole point of isolating... they were exposed when there was a chance they could catch it, so now they isolate in case they are infected so that they can’t pass it on further. What did you think the point of the 14 day isolation is?

Why is it 14 days? It should be 14 days from last contact, so the last time she was in school. That's how all contact with someone who treated positive isolations work.

@SheridansSmyth I’ve just checked and you’re right, that’s changed very recently and is absolutely outrageous. The parents did the right thing, I would have done the same. I couldn’t live with the thought that I hadn’t taken the opportunity to break A chain of transmission which resulted in mr & Mrs teacher or grandpa Steve becoming seriously unwell, or unthinkably another child’s parents.

Oblomov- they haven’t closed the bubble because some people are idiots, they’ve closed it because the bubble have been in contact with a positive case. Parents who work in hospitals and nursing homes also have children in schools. Letting the virus run through schools by actively deciding not to test children who are likely to be positive is madness. Those who think that it’s possible to make no effort to contain spread in schools and successfully shield all the vulnerable are deluded. We don’t all live in different silos. There are all sorts of ways that infections in schools can spread to the vulnerable without anyone breaking any rules. The CEV are still required to send their children into school, for example.
OP- those parents did the right thing and as a society we’d be better off if everyone acted as they did.

@TellerTuesday4EVA

So at least some of you understand the point I am trying to get across. There's now 14 days of all 30 children being at home even though they have all had contact as of last week when the contagiousness was higher so they've all been exposed already anyway.

Well I don’t understand your point. You seem to think this is bad? Yes, they’ve been exposed. So yes isolating them won’t help them. But it isn’t just about them. It’s about preventing them infecting others now.

But if grandparents who do wrap around childcare are particularly vulnerable, then most parents who were concerned for the welfare of their parents would hdbr at least tried to arrange alternative childcare, different hours with their employer by now

Wow the ignorance of this statement.

If alternative childcare was that easy to sort out or parents were able to afford it, then they wouldn’t be using informal child care! Also by now, it’s been 1 week sense we went in to lock down child care settings can’t cope with a sudden influx. There’s often a waiting list.

Sorting different hours with employers also isn’t actually always possiable you do understand that don’t you? Oh hi A&E I know we’re in the middle of a pandemic and I’m your only clinical doctor on shift for the night shift but oblomov says you must give me different working hours because she also says no one should be seeing their grandparents and my mums the only child care I have! How well do you think that would go down?

How many child care settings are open in the middle of the night?
Which is when these informal child care arrangements are so very very much needed

Yes the system is flawed because it can't cope to test whole households. Ideally the rules should be for x to have been tested anyway.

It sounds like you want your DC's bubble to continue to go to school even though one of them has tested positive. This is completely irresponsible.

Thankfully her parents were cautious. I would have tested too in the same situation. Sometimes common sense should prevail regardless of the exact guidelines.

That's why I get a bit frustrated with the posters who try to have a go at people who are asking should they get tested when they don't exactly fit the 3 symptoms the Government promote. If you feel there's a reasonable chance you have it or if you are unwell with symptoms (but not the classic 3) and you think it could be Covid, be cautious and get a test. That's my opinion anyway.

Technically she wasn’t due for a test. But many people are getting tested for all sorts of reasons (parts of the ons study etc), regardless of reason for test rules are rules.

My school have said any child who has tested positive in the last 3 months doesn’t have to isolate again (for 3 months since diagnosis), so on that basis if I got a positive, I’d be getting children tested too to avoid another round of isolations (on our third so far since September...)

@TellerTuesday4EVA

So at least some of you understand the point I am trying to get across. There's now 14 days of all 30 children being at home even though they have all had contact as of last week when the contagiousness was higher so they've all been exposed already anyway.

And this way they’re not merrily all spreading it further round the school

Why are you seeing this as a bad thing?

If we had a decent system then the entire household of a person who tests positive would automatically be tested

No one is supposed to be seeing their grandparents atm. In lockdown. And you wouldn't see your grandchildren if you were that vulnerable , would you?

Doesn’t work if you live with GP like us.

Also, what is up with people’s comprehension?!

YANBU OP

If more people were super cautious and 'broke' the rules and tested kids with Covid positive family members, there'd be a lot less virus around. Just sayin'...

Close contact. What on earth do you think contact tracing is for? Exactly this type of scenario, to identify asymptomatic carriers of the virus and prevent further transmission.

I get what you mean op. Parent should have never got child tested as they had no symptoms. Parents must have lied to get the test. So annoying now as bubble has to close and a class of children miss school for 2 weeks

@JacobReesMogadishu but who will they infect? They're in a bubble together and have gone home to their families each night last week. Because of the lockdown they aren't mixing with anyone else anyway.

Chances are the parents caught it from the child who caught it from another child in the bubble who was asymptotic and who’s parents have it and were asymptotic anyway.

I would put money on the fact that if they tested every child in the bubble and then their family members they would get about a 10% return of positive tests.

Why were the parents tested in the first place? Symptoms or as close contact of another positive test/through their work etc?

Mass test any school and I bet there are positive cases wandering about. The fact that people don’t know they have it without a test being done just shows how stupid it is that people then stay at hone when someone does get tested and has a positive result. I doubt there is a school in the UK that wouldn’t return positive tests if you tested everyone

I really don’t understand your point at all. The whole reason that those 30 children are isolating is precisely because they had contact last week when she was likely contagious. Indeed, it’s possible that she caught it from a similarly asymptomatic classmate in the first place and passed it to her parents. The whole reason that the kids are now isolating is so that they don’t unwittingly go passing it around in the community and to protect school staff who may not yet have been infected. What is there that doesn’t make sense to you about that?

If we don’t get a handle on this sort of spread we’ll end up with huge numbers of families having to isolate or catching Covid, which will compromise our ability to staff essential services like schools, hospitals and care homes through the winter.

Agreed @ThornAmongstRoses 100% agreed 🤦🏻‍♀️

Unreasonable and selfish

Would you prefer for this child to have infected the whole bubble who then would have taken it to each of their homes?? What you fail to realise is that, if that were to happen for all the cases in schools then the system would be seen as not working and schools would go back to being closed full time

X's DM developed symptoms @Usernamenotavailabl
Yes exactly what you're saying

Because of the lockdown they aren't mixing with anyone else anyway.

Have you not seen the playgrounds?
Some grandparents may be still helping with after school childcare
The kids may be taken to the doctors/hospitals/ food shopping etc

Please just look after your child for 2 weeks and be grateful they are at school at all at the moment

[quote TellerTuesday4EVA]@JacobReesMogadishu but who will they infect? They're in a bubble together and have gone home to their families each night last week. Because of the lockdown they aren't mixing with anyone else anyway. [/quote]
School staff. Siblings who will then infect other school staff and further the spread in the building...