COVID testing - AGAIN!

[preschoolhelp]

My 4 year old has caught ANOTHER cold after returning to pre-school last week, which has turned into a cough (as it always does!) As the day has gone on, she has coughed more. I thought she had stopped coughing but in the last hour it has started up again so I have booked her a test.

The thing is, this will be the 5th Covid test that she has had since September - every cold she gets, it becomes a cough and I have had her tested every time (all negative). But this means that both of my other children have to have at least a day off school and I'm worried about their attendance. I'm quite an anxious person and I'm worried that I'm over reacting to her coughing when I know that its only a cold. But I'm worried that the one time that I don't get her tested will be the one time that she has Covid.

AIBU to get her tested every time? Is their anybody else's child out there who has had multiple tests? Please reassure me that I'm not overreacting!!

Unfortunately till this lot does a runner sadly testing is the right thing to do. Don't worry about attendance as school cannot count it against them in terms of attendance when covid is involved.

Thanks - I think I just feel bad as pre-covid their attendance was really good :( I'm so ready for life to go back to normal - whatever that is!!!

Schools would much rather you keep them off and have them tested than send them in- we would send them home anyway if they were coughing. As has been said, Covid related absences don't count!

The schools want overall attendance to be good. Their attendance will be scuppered more if you weren't diligent at getting your children tested and a whole bubble had to isolate!

But aside from school stats, you are making sure that if your daughter show symptoms that could be covid, you are not risking other people contracting it. If everyone took this approach we would probably have fared better over the last year.

If you're worried about a fine then Covid absences are being marked differently to normal absence and shouldn't lead to that.

Of course you need to test her every time and everyone in the household needs to isolate until you know it’s negative

Schools would rather kids take a couple of days off while you test and wait for results than risk bringing covid into school and having the whole class sent home to isolate.