To think the nursery's got it wrong re. Self isolation?

[TheBoots]

Arrived to drop off DS at nursery today to find it closed until next Tuesday due to a positive case in DS's class. The advice from the member of staff was that DS needs to self isolate for 10 days from his last day in.
BUT...now they've sent an email through to say that the child who tested positive hasn't been in to nursery for several days! So shouldn't they count 10 days from the last time the child was in as being how long they need to close for? So they can in fact open sooner than they're saying?
And...if the child hadn't been in and wasn't in nursery at the same time as DS, does he need to self isolate at all? I've taken him for a PCR test just in case.
YABU - you've misunderstood the guidance, do what they've told you.
YANBU - you're right, they can open sooner and DS doesn't need to self isolate if he wasn't in nursery at the same time as the positive case.

If ds hasn't been in contact with the psotive case he doesn't need to isolate.

Isolation period should be from when postive child was last at nursery (assuming that's the day they developed symptoms and got tested) for 10 days.

They don’t need to close at all. You only need to isolate if you’ve been close to someone in the past 48 hours who has just tested positive. Since the child wasn’t even in nursery for days before they tested positive, nobody in nursery needs to isolate.

As long as your ds hasn’t been in contact with poorly child for 48 hours before either he became ill or tested positive your ds does not need to isolate

However I’d be very surprised if nursery remained closed If they didn’t have to.

It could be that the child tested positive several days ago but only just informed the nursery?

But you are right unless there are other positive cases the latest they should reopen would be 10 days after the child was last in. Although the date the child was last in is day zero not day 1.

You have to isolate if you have had contact with someone within the 48 hours before they developed symptoms (regardless of when they tested positive).

If the isolation period ends next Tuesday then the child likely developed symptoms last Friday-ish and 48 hours before that is Wednesday so it’s very possible the child was last in then and anyone who had contact with them on that day (48 hours before symptoms started) needs to isolate.

(I work for the NHS and with Public Health)

What day was the last day the child who tested positive was in? At the school I work at people are considered a close contact who needs to isolate if they’ve had contact with the positive case in the 3 days before a positive test or onset of symptoms.

So if he tested positive on the weekend but symptoms started Friday then it would be anyone from the Tuesday onwards would need to isolate.

If your DS wasn’t a close contact he doesn’t need to isolate, but the staff will be close contacts so they will need to isolate, meaning there will be no staff from the class to look after him?

Here to reinforce the 48 hours pre symptoms or a positive test. The guidance is clear on the NHS website. I’ve successfully challenged nursery over this for DS before.

Thanks all, they're now saying they'll get back to me to let me know if DS needs to self isolate or not but that they definitely are staying closed till next Tuesday...Good luck to them if that's what makes them comfortable but if I can take him out and about at least life will be a bit more bearable!

it sounds like they have a staffing issue. Tbf to them in terms of closing I don't think they would be doing so unless they had to but it looks like they were wrong to say that your son had to self isolate

I'm guessing they're closed due to staff isolating.
Surely track and trace would contact you if your son needs to isolate? I'm not sure how that works.