Is the school right?

[Fortheweekend]

My friend tested positive for COVID on Sunday after displaying symptoms on Saturday.
Her 15 year old son started showing symptoms on Sunday morning and has been off school all week.
He had a postal test which has this morning come back positive.
My son is his friend and they sit together in class and on the bus.
My son was last in contact with him on Friday last week (all day).
I’ve just contacted the school and they are confident that he won’t need to self isolate and come continue coming to school as the advice is for 48 hours between contact and symptoms but Friday afternoon to Sunday morning is less than 48 hours?

The school are correctly acting on the information they've been given. They can go back to the parent and ask if they are sure about the dates but there's not much they can do if the parent continues to lie.

This exact same scenario happened at our school and we were told that our children did not need to isolate based on the guidance they were given. It's all totally bonkers.

Trouble if it's almost pointless now. If last Friday was day 1 you were on day 8 by the time school were informed. He will be out of isolation by Monday when the isolation period reduces to 10 days.

I think they need to restrict postal tests to those who really can't get to a test centre as they take so long to process... possibly that is the case for your friend but if she'd gone to a test centre Sunday morning the result would have probably been back on Monday.

Totally wrong and this is why we are in the type of mess we are in again.

At my DC's School, they would be off for 14 days, obviously that's just changed to 10 days. DD was off until last week because her teacher was positive, even though she only walked behind her to observe what she was doing, they didn't talk face to face or get near one another but she and the rest of her class all got sent home.

I think some schools are over cautious- no bad thing as you can't be too blasé over how easily it spreads, and some are not doing even the basics. No way should your child be being told to go in, and I think you should take the decision to keep him home. Frankly if they get silly with attendance fines and warnings they won't have a leg to stand on.

@Fortheweekend - you are right, your ds should be isolating. Following DfE guidance at our school resulted in covid 19 spreading from one class to another via a supply teacher and multiple cases in that class which spread to parents and children in other classes in the school. All because they interpreted the 48 hours thing to mean 48 hours before reporting one of the 3 testable symptoms, not 48 hours from when the teacher started to feel unwell.

Still, I’m sure ignoring all but the classic 3 symptoms even in people known to have covid and having the affected class and siblings continue to attend school until classic symptoms emerge in the children (rather than stomach aches and headaches, which have to be ignored) is an excellent plan for keeping schools open.

I am disappointed with the school for I and a couple of the other mums had informed the year head that my friend had told us her ds had symptoms on Sunday but he hasn’t challenged her. There is nothing I can do now other than monitor my ds for any possible symptoms but I just hope my friends son hasn’t passed it on to any of his friends and they are asymptomatic and spreading it around. I am not concerned for us but for the clinically vulnerable people I am in contact with (obviously I take the necessary precautions and that is all I can do in this situation) but I suppose this is the whole fiasco surrounding the management of this virus, many of us do what we can to protect ourselves and those around us and others? Well, not so much!

"my friend has told them her son came out with symptoms at the beginning of the week yet she specifically told me and a few mums that it was Sunday morning"

Well this is the issue then, school can only go on what they have been told by the parent. In which case school are not doing anything wrong. A really tricky situation for all I think and i would not blame you for keeping your son off but I think it's extremely difficult for schools just now and they will be forgiven for wanting to keep as many kids in school as possible.

as @RaggieDolls said it seems pointless arguing now as 10 days from last friday will be monday anyway?