New strain is scarily infectious!

[annie987]

I’m a teacher and we’ve had the odd case of Covid in school since last March but nothing that has spread beyond immediate close contacts. With proper safety measures and isolating it was easy to manage.
We’ve had a few cases since Christmas that have spread like crazy - taking out huge numberS of staff and students that didn’t have particularly close contact with the positive cases.
It’s a totally different beast!

You’re not wrong.

My twins started attending a specialist school after October half term. Their school didn’t have one case last year.

This term they’ve been in twice for two days each time, and have had to self isolate both times after exposure to a positive case.

We had 3 bubbles close between September and December.
We now have less than 10% of the kids in, 2 bubbles closed within 2 weeks.

So I guess there is something in it.

At DS's school they have only had 2 cases, both before October half term. None at all this year.

@Fieldofyellowflowers

I thought that our standard covid tests that you get at testing centres etc can't detect what strain it is?

The standard tests can’t, but a sample of all tests done in the UK are pulled in for further genetic testing so we can see whether new mutations are spreading and where. So while the OP didn’t know for certain whether her particular school has been hit with the new strain we know enough about prevalence in the UK in general to know that that’s the way to bet.