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.

I don’t agree with a pp saying families are being very much encouraged to test if there’s a family case.
DH tested positive we were told no one goes for a test unless they have symptoms.
I developed symptoms a few days later and tested positive.
Again told no tests for anyone else unless symptoms.
One of the dc came for a test as she had a bit of a sore throat (grasping at straws..) hers was negative
All 4 are going back to school today and I have no idea if they are harbouring it or not. It’s frightening that they are not encouraging family tests

Totally agree with you OP even though I can see it's unpopular. My Dd4 is in a bubble with 100 other kids and c10 staff. She's in to miss most of reception year if parents do this as we're in an area with quite high transmission at the moment.

Anyone can see from statistics that it clearly isn't spreading among these age groups, as they have tonnes of contacts and yet the lowest rates of cases (not just the number of cases identified but in community surveillance including asymptomatic cases) . If children were spreaders it would be absolutely rife among primary aged children. The isolation is out of proportion.

What irritates me is the "class bubble" all being sent home - which seems really common in schools. It's only close contacts that should be isolating, not just everyone in sight

I think in early primary especially it’s difficult to identify a ‘close contact’... they don’t always remember who they’ve played with at break/lunch every day for example. Hence the class bubble being sent home.

What is a close-contact anyway?
How close do dc need to be to another child?

I assumed it was closer than 2 metres, for longer than 15 minutes. But I'm not sure what the guidelines are.

@Oblomov20

Rainbow: "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."

All those things shouldn't be happening. They are. But they shouldn't be.

Who is taking their kids to the doctors? As if they are sat in a waiting room? Like the old days, contaminating everyone.

Everyone I know, their GP surgery is nigh on closed, only doing phone calls.

I work in a GP surgery, I see children every day. Either for vaccines with me of visiting a GP for any one of the many other causes of childhood illness that aren't Covid. Yes, we do telephone triage, but plenty of patients are still coming in because physical examination is needed for some of them.

Your logic is correct. Had the parents not had their child tested, the bubble would carry on. The risk there, however, is that another child, or the relative of one of those children, does become systematic, and potentially becomes very ill. It is likely with COVID in the class that isolation would hit very soon anyway, so may as well get it over and done with now, and (hopefully) without anyone becoming seriously unwell.

While I understand your frustration at having to isolate and homeschool again, this really is a very small cost compared with what someone might endure if you didn’t.

@Oblomov20

And if your dc did get a test, and it's negative, they aren't allowed back to school anyway.

We had that recently. Child x was announced positive. Many parents who were told to isolate didn't think their child had been in 'close contact' with said child. They insisted on getting their well/showing no signs/asymptomatic child a test (although lord knows how they managed this because loads of my friends who really did need a test, couldn't get one!) and then test was negative. But school said child needed to carrying on isolating anyway.

So then getting/wasting a test was pointless.

Is it pointless if the parents of the children isolating work in a supermarket, or factory, or a care home? They don't have to isolate just because their child does, and still have to go to work, but thats also 2 weeks of Russian roulette with everyone they meet. Knowing your child is negative but isolating anyway gives peace of mind. I arranged to WFH when dd isolated, I didn't want to be the one to potentially close my workplace and lose the company £££.

The UK’s definition of a ‘close contact’15 or more minutes within 2 metres of distanceused for its coronavirus track and trace system,

I agree with you, OP. Even though I know it’s not a popular opinion. Rules exist for a reason. Asymptomatic people shouldn’t be tested, there’s not enough tests for symptomatic people already and waiting times can be ridiculously long. The child would have to be isolated anyway.
The same happened in my child’s school. As a result 13 days of misery for locked children and parents trying not to lose their work. Many of them started to panic and order tests out of desperation assuming it will allow them to go back to work (it doesn’t work like this). None of the classmates had symptoms or positive test.

Would you prefer this child to infect your family?

@Ignoringequally

What irritates me is the "class bubble" all being sent home - which seems really common in schools. It's only close contacts that should be isolating, not just everyone in sight

I think in early primary especially it’s difficult to identify a ‘close contact’... they don’t always remember who they’ve played with at break/lunch every day for example. Hence the class bubble being sent home.

Yes, I understand its harder with young children who may be moving around and mingling a lot within the classroom and/or playground. You hear of secondary schools closing entire year groups though which, though may turn out to be sensible, surely isn't what the guidance suggests.

Our (high) school has just this weekend announced their first case(s). They've used the seating plans to determine close contacts and these people have been asked to isolate for 14 days. Everyone else in the class/year group is to attend school unless they develop symptoms. Will be interesting to see what happens next, but I do think that decision is more in line with the guidance given for schools.

@DumplingsAndStew

OP this must be really frustrating as barely anyone is reading what you are actually saying (though your title is clumsily worded).

What irritates me is the "class bubble" all being sent home - which seems really common in schools. It's only close contacts that should be isolating, not just everyone in sight.

I'm reading what she's saying. She doesn't know whether to be annoyed or not. She's not looking forward to having her kid at home for 2 weeks.

oblamov why can't you understand that people are still taking their kids to everyday things that are still open? There is a difference between lockdown rules and self isolation rules.

My niece has 3 medical appointments next week, under lockdown rules she goes to all of them, on the bus, so she has 3 chances of spreading the virus to everyone on the bus and all medical staff she sees. Under self isolation rules she cancels them (which is shit for her) and doesn't have any chances of spreading the virus further.

And more generally, one positive case doesn't necessarily infect everyone they've been in contact with. So child X may have only infected 3 other children, but nobody knows which 3, so the whole class isolating means the 3 that have been infected don't continue to spread it to the rest of the class and the teacher.

[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]

And none of the parents of children in the bubble are still out working?

Honestly OP, your ignorance would be laughable if it wasn't so worrying.

I get what your saying it’s not really the fact the bubble has had to isolate it’s more the test for someone who didn’t have symptoms.

I had a COVID test a couple of months back with symptoms was negative but in my head I thought well I won’t get the kids tested as they’ll just isolate but then I thought what if they have it from me and they pass it on to someone who potentially is vulnerable. It’s hard to weigh up the morals and guidelines.

I think the main reason for the guidelines stating about no test required for people who don’t have symptoms is your covered by isolation rule and helps with availability of tests. At the end of the day the lockdown and guidance isn’t to stop people getting COVID, it’s to stagger the people getting it

The child should not have been tested. You only get a test if you have one of the three main symptoms. The guidance is extremely clear and I don't know why people don't understand this. The child should have isolated with her parents and only been tested if they developed symptoms.

This is hugely irritating to me as I run a childcare setting and was unable to find a test for an employee with symptoms. We waited a ridiculous amount of time to find a test and the local public health team kept us open as we didn't have a positive test!

Incidentally we will never know if it was Covid because they lost the test she did but that's somewhat beside the point.

I agree she shouldn’t have been tested.

BUT, she is positive. Therefore all the children are at risk of the virus. The idea of isolating to contain the virus and stop the spread to the vulnerable.

So while it’s annoying I’d be thinking, thank goodness they got her tested.

I’m seeing my mum as part of our bubble. I know it’s a risk having children at school, but in this situation I think the parents have been sensible to go outside the guidelines as it safeguards people like my mum.

I think you are missing the point really for your own selfish reasons

This is barmy. You’re pissed off because your child can’t go to school for 2 weeks because a Mum who has tested positive dared to also get her child tested WHO HAS ALSO TESTED POSITIVE?

Your child has been in close contact with someone who has tested positive so yeah, they need to isolate. Don’t blame the Mum for doing the responsible thing.

[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]
Well working parents may infect their colleagues, or customers, or patients.
Not all people are in total lockdown. Many HAVE to work. And by closing the bubble and getting potentially infected children to isolate themselves it's lessening the risk of those children leading to cases in the wider community.

@Streamingbannersofdawn so you work in a childcare setting and don't get why it was the right thing to do? The mind fucking boggles.

This thread is nuts.

Do you all honestly think that if your kids schools tested every child today they wouldn’t turn up positive cases?

Of course they would, and they aren’t all bringing it home and killing grant and grandad.

If this kid hadn’t been tested no one would have ever known they had it. Same as plenty of kids in your own children’s schools

This is the most upside down Covid thread ever. OP, aren't you grateful that the parents are preventing a local breakout?

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

OP, I understand your point. If this child's parents had followed the rules, the child wouldn't have been tested; they would have isolated for 14 days while the rest of the bubble carried on as normal. However, you seem to think that the rest of the bubble carrying on as normal would have been a good thing, whereas I think it's much better that the bubble has closed. In my view, you should be annoyed about the flawed system, rather than the over-cautious parents who didn't strictly follow the rules.

You have already acknowledged that the infected child was probably contagious when he/she was in school last week, and that the other children in the bubble may therefore have been exposed. However, from the paragraph that I have quoted above, you seem to think that it's ok for those children to carry on going to school regardless, because (due to lockdown) they will only be mixing with the rest of their bubble (who may have already been exposed) and their immediate families. I presume this means that you think they won't spread the virus any further?

This thinking is really flawed, though. Although the whole bubble have all had the potential to be exposed, they won't all have caught the virus from that one original child, but one or two of them might have done. Isolating them all prevents the virus from spreading round the group further; allowing them into school makes it much more likely that it will be passed on to more members of the group. And although those individual children might not be mixing with others due to lockdown, they will still potentially be carrying it home to family members. Those family members will each have contacts of their own - their siblings might take it into other schools or year group bubbles, their parents may pass it to their colleagues, those colleagues may pass it on to others etc etc. That is how the virus spreads.

I get that it's inconvenient to have to isolate, but we all need to do our bit. Don't be angry with the parents who tested their child, be angry with the government's failure to introduce adequate testing capacity in the first place, which led them to limit who could be tested.

They're in a bubble together and have gone home to their families each night last week.

And not everyone in the bubble will have been infected by the contacts last week, and not everyone who was infected will have passed it on to their families. If you let them all continue to mix, even leaving out any external contacts, it's more likely to spread round the bubble.

DC's school has had 2 asymptomatic positive tests. I have to wonder that in both cases I wonder why the child had the test. However some people are being randomnly tested as part of various studies (DD was asked to do this, but refused) so it's not necessarily that someone didn't follow advice.

We don't actually know if people who have no symptoms at any point are infectious. The pcr test looks for viral dna. It has nothing to say about whether the virus is alive or dead.

Positive pcr + symptoms = active infection
Positive pcr - symptoms = not so obvious

In the absence of symptoms it could be an old infection or one that just got killed off by the immune system asap

We don't know. More targeted research is urgently needed to find out how infectious people who have no symptoms are, if they are at all.

Before we fritter £££££ on mass screening programmes and unnecessarily send children home from school etc.