Making isolating 13 yr old not leave her room for 10 days!!

[novaparty12]

My niece is 13 and on Friday she was told to isolate by her school as the girl she sits next to tested positive. She lives in London where transmission is really high. I spoke to MIL today who said that my SIL has told her she is not allowed out of her room apart from going to the toilet or having a shower. All meals are left outside her door for her to collect and my SIL went shopping and spend £50 on snacks and drinks so she doesn't have to leave her room. MIL is really worried about her she keeps phoning her in tears. My SIL is autistic and takes everything very very seriously but surely confining a 13 yr old to her room for 10 days is going a bit far isn't it??

There's a pandemic on, things aren't normal. But shouting about abuse when this is an exceptional situation is just... Useless

There’s apparently a 1.4% chance that the DD will go on to contract Covid after being identified as a close contact. So saying she’s one of the 1.4%, she then has around a 50% chance of passing it on to her mother (household transmission is around 50%). The mother would then have to pass it on to someone outside the household, which would go back to the ‘non household close contacts’ thing, so another 1.4% chance.
Want to shut your kids in their room based on that minuscule chance? Go ahead.
I will never do it, as it is cruel and abusive. Pandemic or not.

She doesn't have covid and even if she did I'd never do that to my child!!!

Im a contact advisor and we have to advise people to stay 2m away from the other members of their household, wash hands regularly, clean surfaces that are likely to be touched with bleach solution and try and use a separate bathroom or if you only have one to clean it after the person has used it. Even if they have a covid test and it's negative they still have to isolate.
She doesn't need to be kept in her room, maybe if she has symptoms. I would've thought this would be every teenagers dream though, locked in your room with an endless supply of snacks and Netflix lol

And actually, based on the fact that I’m in tier 3 (with 93 cases per 100k of the population) so nothing is open, indoor mixing is banned, I wear masks in shops etc, even if my child is was one of the 1.4% then the chances of me then passing it on are absolutely tiny.

Im a contact advisor and we have to advise people to stay 2m away from the other members of their household

Fat chance of that in my 550sq ft flat, where three of us live.

I'm disgusted that there are several posters on this thread encouraging the unnecessary emotional neglect and abuse of children be it teens or younger.

If a teen is happy to spend much of their time alone, that's fine. To force it on them is far more likely to cause long term harm to their health (mentally) than Covid.

If a child is ill and naturally spending more time resting in bed, that's fine, but they need regular checks for their welfare and to still feel loved while they feel fragile.

My attitude to illness is to expect everyone to get it and it's a bonus when they don't. I might take measures such as avoiding the kitchen if I have a sick bug and getting someone less likely to be contagious to prepare food instead, but I don't neglect anyone's physical or emotional needs.

Four not for.

@Randomrebel

I have two friends with 15 year olds both have had positive tests in the last couple of months. One family carried on as per and out of the 5 in the family for caught covid dad without any health issues was hospitalised. Another family only have one 15 year old at home plenty of elderly siblings have moved out. He stayed in his room used his en suite and food was brought up to him on a tray. He recovered and no one else in the household caught covid.

And on the other hand my DD slept in the same bed as her BF for 6 days, spent 4 hours driving another in the car etc and no-one got it

Individual scare stories are not fact or a risk indicator

@Clockstop

I know someone who did this to their 5 yo and then had a household party downstairs to celebrate one of their birthdays and making a big point she wasnt invited. Bizarrely cruel, particularly as none of the rest of the family were in any vulnerable categories.

This is absolutely shocking. There are such strange, unpleasant, people around. I would imagine you self-isolate as a family unit, unless members of the family need to shield? I'm in southern Europe in a sort of lockdown, so don't quite understand how it's working in England.

I hate anecdata. Anecdotally, early on in the pandemic my brother spent four hours in a small unventilated room with five other people, not wearing masks, not 2 metres apart, with one of them symptomatic who later tested positive, two of whom were over 65.

None of the other five people in that room got the virus (or if they did they were all asymptomatic).

That doesn't mean it's a good idea to sit in an unventilated room with five other people!

I'm surprised to hear people saying that she can't have a test because she doesn't have symptoms. Are they still low on tests in the UK? It sounds crazy to me that a person who was in close contact with a positive case wouldn't be tested immediately.

I'm in Australia and we test as many people as possible. Have done throughout the whole pandemic.

Why are people saying this is not normal. This is the actual advice given. To isolate from the people you live with too to reduce the risks. My daughter had to isolate recently and she did stay in her room 90% of the time. She loved being waited on tho. They also advise to clean after them using the bathroom or kitchen etc and it's not the end of the world tbh

I'm surprised to hear people saying that she can't have a test because she doesn't have symptoms.

Yep, it is an utter shit show.

@Crustmasiscoming

I'm surprised to hear people saying that she can't have a test because she doesn't have symptoms. Are they still low on tests in the UK? It sounds crazy to me that a person who was in close contact with a positive case wouldn't be tested immediately.

I'm in Australia and we test as many people as possible. Have done throughout the whole pandemic.

What day post contact would you test? You could test negative on day 5 and develop Covid on day 6, for example.

I'm disgusted that there are several posters on this thread encouraging the unnecessary emotional neglect and abuse of children be it teens or younger.

I’m more horrified that MNHQ have shrugged it off with a ‘yeah, well MNers are good at debunking dodgy crap on the internet so we’re just going to leave the spurious bullshit to fester here’.

Similar to @Bluegreen70 I know countless children who have done this (are currently doing this) having been identified as close contacts of a positive case and separately children who are tested positive.

I agree it feels inhumane to do to a child, but the purpose is to stop the spread and true quarantine is (whether we like it or not) the only reliable way to do this. My grandma tells me she always quarantined her kids (my Mum & siblings) in their room when ill.. often they'd be up there a couple of weeks with mumps, measles, or whatever other childhood disease.

Why has this progressed to locking a child in their room ?

That was not mentioned originally?

It’s the same as other guidance rules . No two families are the same or in the same environment . But if a child has been in close contact they could be asymptomatic so surely if they are able to you would ask them to spend as much time in their room to try and prevent spread .

So depending on age / house situation / mental health of the child / vunerable people living in the house , you would use your common sense ?

A lot of teenagers love spending times in their rooms , in fact rarely come out .

@Pinkyxx

Similar to *@Bluegreen70* I know countless children who have done this (are currently doing this) having been identified as close contacts of a positive case and separately children who are tested positive.

I agree it feels inhumane to do to a child, but the purpose is to stop the spread and true quarantine is (whether we like it or not) the only reliable way to do this. My grandma tells me she always quarantined her kids (my Mum & siblings) in their room when ill.. often they'd be up there a couple of weeks with mumps, measles, or whatever other childhood disease.

BlueGreen70 didn't say they knew them (well they might but that wasn't what they posted)

They said it was the requirement - which it isnt
They said their school told parents they must do this- which is wrong

It totally depends on the child. If the teenager was in some way traumatised or damaged by isolating in their room, then it's not a good idea to keep them in there against their will. Make them wear a mask when around the rest of the family, keep windows open, clean everything they touch etc.

But many teenagers would be more than happy with being in their room! Ds is 15 and isolated in his room for 3 days until his test came back negative. He wasn't ill, we waited on him hand and foot, he spent the time chatting to his mates online, playing games and drawing. And he got out of doing chores

He played with the dog in the garden a couple of times too. I don't see how the hell that's child abuse.

What day post contact would you test? You could test negative on day 5 and develop Covid on day 6, for example

I don't know the exact timeline as it's different state by state and has changed a lot over the last few months as we've got very few positive cases by now, but I know you would always be tested as soon as they realised you were a close contact, and you would be tested again at some point after the initial test. And some people do show up as positive on that first test, obviously, which then means you can immediately track and trace any contacts of that person, and so and so forth.

That's why I asking if you are still low on tests. I can't see any positive outcome of not testing someone as soon as you realise they have been in close contact with someone who has covid. It doesn't mean that you can't test them again a few days later. The only reason behind this that makes sense to me is if there aren't enough tests to go around.

@Unsure33

Why has this progressed to locking a child in their room ?

That was not mentioned originally?

It’s the same as other guidance rules . No two families are the same or in the same environment . But if a child has been in close contact they could be asymptomatic so surely if they are able to you would ask them to spend as much time in their room to try and prevent spread .

So depending on age / house situation / mental health of the child / vunerable people living in the house , you would use your common sense ?

A lot of teenagers love spending times in their rooms , in fact rarely come out .

There’s a 1.4% chance that they have contracted Covid from their ‘close contact’.

@JanetSnakeholeMacklin for 3 days maybe it was a luxury but I doubt it would be the same for 14 days

Gosh so many replies. She loved isolation for the first few days but is really missing human contact now and has realised that her other classmates who are isolating aren't confined to their rooms. She is very close to my MIL her nan as her mum is very neurotic at the best of times and in normal circumstances she spends alot of time at her nans house. My SIL worries about my nephew who is 6 and is autistic and asthmatic catching it but he goes to school every day so imo he is at just as much risk of picking it up there than from his sister who has no symptoms whatsoever and is probably fine. I have just spoken to her and she is a little less down now as has just done a zoom call thingy with a load of friends. MIL is going to speak to her mum tomorrow about allowing her in the garden when her brother is at school. I have just ordered her an xmas duvet and some new pjs which i can pick up tomorrow and then take them round to her. Her mum means well and honestly thinks she is doing the right thing.

“There's a pandemic on, things aren't normal. But shouting about abuse when this is an exceptional situation is just... Useless.“

Abuse is abuse is abuse. I don’t care if there’s a pandemic, a world war or a zombie apocalypse, shutting away a primary aged child alone in their room for two weeks is monstrous. Frankly, while schools are open, shops are open, bloody hairdressers are open... then clearly it’s not such a scary virus that we need to emotionally abuse our children.

@ssd

Unfortunately it's what she has to do but it feels cruel to do that to a 13 year old Mental health is just as important

No it isn’t what she has to do FFS 🤦‍♀️