Plan for testing in schools in New Year

[Orangeblossom77777]

Just wondered what you thought about the new plans for using the lateral flow tests in schools in England after the New Year?

www.gov.uk/government/news/secondary-schools-and-colleges-to-get-weekly-coronavirus-testing

@Poshme Did the kids have to get to school earlier than usual to get tested or was it incorporated into the usual school day?

Different child, different school.

During school day

I think they could pool tests like Oxford University have been doing. And then double check if they get positives.

That way, you could cover 60 students with 1 test and be fairly sure you didn't have a case. 3 tests per year would cover 180 students.

There is an issue re false positives and false negatives, there must be a protocol that the universities use to deal with those.

This doesn't however preclude the need for isolation if students are contacts of a case, but picking cases up early would prevent the numbers risingand help keep kids in school.

If it helps to detect asymptomatic cases, even if at around a success rate of 50% is something? Aren't the ones that we need to be finding to help reduce the spread? Plus we already know getting a test is hard for children because they don't present with the typical symptoms.

If this semi accurate test shows a positive, the proper test can then be done?

Plus the parents can refuse testing and still go down the SI route?

Schools should be told the results, although if they are testing, parents cannot deny the results.

But then of course, it loops back to who is doing the tests.

The when - during morning registration?

I reckon send each child and staff member home with a box of them, email a link to the training video and say they have to submit a photo of their negative test kit result twice a week like handing in homework.

If you fail to do it you get a detention and have to do your test in detention

If it's positive you have to self isolate and so do your close contacts

"So that means that staff could force children to have it done. Surely it should be up to the parents?!?"

If a child refuses then no one can force them to have it done. Testing for children in special schools would have to be done at home. Mine would refuse at school but I could coax at home.

And- Obvs I don't know if the roll out in January will work exactly as my child's school did it in terms of SI after close contact.
Was just sharing my experience.

I think the 'staff permission' was staff giving permission for themselves...

Bit of a shame for primary school staff, looks like they won't get access. I know it's supposed to spread less in primary schools but teachers at ours have been dropping like flies so I know they will be disappointed about this announcement.

I genuinely don't understand how any school staff could facilitate this alongside their normal jobs. So say we get a positive case and identify sixty close contacts - do they then come in every morning and wait in the main hall whilst we swab them all and wait for the results? That would take ages and there is literally nobody who would have the time to oversee this!

What do we then do with all these samples every day?

As others have said - mass testing to find asymptomatic positives - great. These tests are apparently pretty good at NOT giving false positives.

Where they are not so good is at giving false negatives - i.e. not picking up a positive case. About 50% ish.

So - Bob in year 9 is positive. Usually you'd send home those students who have been sitting right next to Bob in lessons. Not any more - they are to come to school and get tested every day - if they are positive there's a 50% chance it'll get picked up at some point.

Can anyone see a potential problem with this?

Staff permission could also mean that the staff have agreed to do this.

Give it until the night before they are due back to school to know the full details given the history so far.

It won’t find 50% of asymptomatic cases, it will find 50% of asymptomatic cases who sat within 2m of a positive case who will now have been in school until they triggered the positive test when previously they would have been at home. And only up to 7 days, so if they develop it later (14 day quarantine was for a reason) it will not be discovered. In the meantime the asymptomatic cases in the wider bubble are still spreading as they are now.

@poshme How do your DC (or any other DC who are possibly CV positive after being in close contact with a confirmed CV case) get to school?

Because mine get the bus...

Do you see any problems with that? I do, especially as someone in the CEV (shielding) category, I see a massive fucking problem.

This is actually so badly thought out it seems to put people at more risk of harm - pupils, staff, parents, family members, anyone who has contact with a possibly positive DC.

@ItRubsTheLotionOnItsSkin I don't know what guidance was given to close contacts as my DC wasn't one of them.

I think it's a move in the right direction but do have some concerns:

1. some teachers in the current pilot areas have been told it is the responsibility of staff to carry these out. There are a series of potential issues there, particularly when it rolls out to primary towards Easter.

2. The test doesn't have a great level of accuracy meaning that there may well indeed be some positive students left in school because they got a false negative. They won't seek out a more accurate test even if they have symptoms because the 'at-school' test said they were negative.

3. People can choose to take daily tests instead of self-isolating. However, you can still test negative when you are presymptomatic whilst still being able to transmit the virus. We may find, as a result, that we increase the number of presymptomatic people transmitting the virus in educational settings because, before, they would have been at home.

These kinds of tests would surely only be useful to do random testing on the whole school population or a year group cohort or whatever.
Using them in the way indicated by today's reporting is putting students and staff at increased risk compared to the current (already awful) situation.

It amazes me when people have so little thought to how other people may live in different situations...

Also, read the small print not the headlines....

"All secondary staff and pupils to be tested" is not what is happening here. It's, as so many PP have explained, replacing self isolation with unreliable testing solely for possibly positive pupils. The logistics of things like how the tests are carried out, how the DC avoid infecting others on their way to get tested and waiting for the results...none of this addressed.

Surely they don't expect teachers to do this as well

Isn’t this all a bit too late to save next years exams?

[quote poshme]@ItRubsTheLotionOnItsSkin I don't know what guidance was given to close contacts as my DC wasn't one of them. [/quote]
So you actually know very little about how it works.

How do your DC get to school, or do you prefer not to say? I don't want to be intrusive, just make the point that it's things like this that make all the difference. As you say, your DC weren't actually affected though..:

@timeforanewstart

Surely they don't expect teachers to do this as well

I wouldn't be surprised, it's happening with other aspects of the coronavirus response. Take Track and Trace for example. If there is contact tracing in school, it is the responsibility of the school to contact all people who need to isolate. In fact, in some scenarios, the entire process, including identifying any isolaters, has been left to the school's leadership.

Also, it's seven days of daily testing for possibly positive close contacts instead of ten days isolation (which would have been two weeks a few days ago).

I certainly don't feel reassured, and I'm a parent not even a teacher!

Rather not say.

I do know how the system worked in terms of the whole school testing, and the guidelines they sent us, and what my DC told me about who did the tests, and where, and how long it took, and which year groups got tested more often etc etc.

No, my DC was not a close contact. But as so few schools were in the trial, I thought it'd be helpful to share our experience as the parent of a child at a school where mass testing has been happening.

I'm not saying it will be the same in all schools. The system changed over the weeks they were doing it- I presume as they tweaked the system.