School closures by default

[2X4B523P]

I’ve mentioned this in another thread but thought it deserves one of its own.

So with the fiasco over testing and prioritising certain groups of which schools are not currently included it may force schools to close bubbles or whole school by default. If there are suspected cases but no option to test and carry on if negative then schools might have to treat this as positive test(s) as a precaution.

I can see that there could be many many schools closing over what would have turned out to be something else and not of concern.

Source within this article, which also quotes second national lockdown not ruled out.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8740183/Boris-FAILS-rule-second-lockdown-admits-testing-cope.html

2X4B523P as per noblegiraffe - symptomatic child self isolates, the rest of the 'bubble' continues as normal until test result is known.

A school in this area has apparently (according to local news) sent a whole year group home to self isolate for 14 days as a pupil in the year has a close family member has a positive test.

@noblegiraffe
@123456abcd

Let's hope that's the case however the Sky report doesn't expressly say that. Just that to stay in school until someone in the bubble tests positive.

What Boris said today has been standard advice so far

Symptomatic kid or teacher = stay home and get tested.

If test is positive = phe make decision on closing bubble for secondary but essentially they treat the bubble as potentially infected so isolate for 14 days from when the infected case was in class/school. No point in immediate test here as may not develop symptoms for days

But

If isolating from bubble then develop symptoms get tested

@ceeveebee

No it shouldn’t - they should self isolate for 14 days, and only get a test if they show symptoms. Getting a test before symptoms show is a waste of a test

Not if you want to contact trace and halt outbreaks.

2X4B523P I comment as someone who's DS18 has had to self isolate, along with his 'bubble,' from Sunday until this evening whilst waiting for a test result (fortunately negative). If the 'bubble' had been able to continue as normal until the 'contact' received a negative result life would have been a bit easier.

"Not if you want to contact trace and halt outbreaks."
Much as I was in favour of mass testing in at least some schools to determine the size of outbreaks or how prevalent an " outbreak" might be we clearly do not have capacity to this

Right now the assumption is that only the tested case is positive. Anyone newly infected by them will have insufficient virus levels to trigger the test anyway. Hence waiting to see if symptoms appear.

....just to clarify that should have read - waiting for 'test result of a contact (bubble member)'

It feels like a mess created on purpose to me. This level of incompetence is not possible is it?

@walksen

"Not if you want to contact trace and halt outbreaks." Much as I was in favour of mass testing in at least some schools to determine the size of outbreaks or how prevalent an " outbreak" might be we clearly do not have capacity to this

Right now the assumption is that only the tested case is positive. Anyone newly infected by them will have insufficient virus levels to trigger the test anyway. Hence waiting to see if symptoms appear.

I'm not saying the UK can do this now, but we are not testing the right people imo, as we wait for symptomatic cases rather than finding asymptomatic cases.

We've had 2 positive cases in our school today(2 different year groups) but the powers that be have decided that the bubble doesn't have to isolate because the risk assessment suggests "only close contacts"
So only the kids who have sat next to the positive covid case kids, are being asked to isolate. Not even the rest of the class, staff or year group.

But staff are now worried and we have 10 off for whatever reason (and the positive students' form tutors who have to iso for 14 days)

Problem is, if we hit 15 staff off, then we don't have the staff to student ratio required to safely run the school and will have to close anyway

So just 5 more staff and game over

But we don’t need to test the contacts under track and trace, we need them to self isolate for 14 days or until symptoms show (at which point they can get a test). Testing people who are still in the incubation period will likely give a negative and give a false level of comfort.