Parents to do covid tests on kids?

[herecomesthsun]

"According to the Telegraph
here-
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/02/17/exclusive-parents-test-children-covid-twice-week/

Parents will be asked to test their children twice a week under plans for a phased return to the classroom, The Telegraph can disclose.

Families of secondary school pupils will be asked to administer lateral flow tests at home during term time under plans being drawn up by the Government.

Schools will only oversee the mass testing of secondary students once, at the start of term, after education unions struck a deal with ministers, it is understood.

All schools in England are expected to open on March 8, but secondary schools will be allowed to stagger the return of some year groups so every pupil can be tested on arrival. Large secondary schools may take up to two weeks to get all pupils back to the classroom, education sources said."

Hmmm. I wonder whether that could work? What do you think?

My DS is in Y11 and has just had Covid. How is the lateral flow testing going to work for him as it can obviously still show positive for up to 90 days?

[quote Maryann1975]**@Toorapid* The home test is different to the test that's being used in schools (which isn't actually that straightforward to use). These things are developing all the time*
I can’t read the article As I don’t subscribe to the telegraph, but the op has stated that Families of secondary school pupils will be asked to administer lateral flow tests at home during term time under plans being drawn up by the Government
This indicates that the tests are lateral flow tests, to be administered at home. So how are they different to any other lateral flow test that an employee would be given to do at home?

So my point still stands. Why do the government think that as a professional person Working in early years, I am incapable of reading and following instructions to test myself, but as a parent I am competent to test my child?

Complete disregard for early years staff who are working with no PPE and No social distancing to the children we are caring for.[/quote]
The process for getting the result is different. The tests schools have been using involve separate vials and adding liquids to test tubes. The home tests are self contained.

I don't think they do think you can't do it, they're setting priorities related to the numbers on where transmission is the biggest problem. I'm sure it will come to early years but they can't suddenly produce and distribute tests to everyone. For everything that's been wrong through this crisis, this has been a mammoth logistical task done fairly efficiently.

I wouldn't trust parents to do it properly, or at all.

We're testing students once a week at the moment (different year each day) plus staff twice a week. We've uncovered one positive in that time. Everything has worked really well.

No reason why we couldn't ramp up testing, it's just the government need to sort out a bulk upload of reporting test results, as that's currently an absolute ball ache and very admin heavy.

It still worries me that people don't know the rules (why have you sent your child in with a fever? Oh, it's fine, he doesn't have a cough)

Also people that get a negative lateral flow test who then think it's fine to visit someone (not in their bubble)

Parents send in their kids with D&V, still don't understand it's not all 3 covid symptoms together but just one, so I don't think it's wise getting them to make sure the test is done at all/correctly.

For secondary, I think we need vulnerable and key workers still in, plus the year 11's. We need to focus on them and getting their grades, understanding where they want to be in September and helping them get there.

If it’s just nose only and not all the way up then my year 7 will be ok but if it’s throat too he’s already said he can’t do it and won’t go to school if he has to. Nightmare.

Oh blimey, this could be interesting if rolled out to primaries and EY settings. We’ve had two separate instances in our small school this term of children being sent into KW care after a family member received a positive covid test, relying on the fact that their young child wouldn’t understand/tell us that their family should be isolating...

Begs the question of how honest some parents would be if they desperately need to work.

I'm part of the volunteer lateral flow testing team at my children's school. Currently we are testing boarders, key worker/vulnerable children who are attending school, staff and ourselves weekly. There's about a dozen of us in the team doing various roles from registration to uploading the results on something of a production line, and last week we tested about 80 people an hour between us. The children swab themselves and have been extremely good - we've not had any problems getting them to do it. They have the option of swabbing throat and nose or both nostrils and apart from watering eyes and the odd sneeze I've seen no adverse effects. It's not complicated but I would have some doubts about leaving parents and children to do their own. How children behave in a school environment is quite different to at home.
Mass testing can be done successfully in schools, but it is resource heavy. I reckon we could probably do the whole school once a week fairly easily if enough volunteers could be sourced to staff the test area 5 days a week, but twice a week would likely be impossible. We have got pretty slick at it now and have got much quicker since week one, but I don't think there are any more significant time savings to be made. The only way we could increase throughput would be to increase the number of production lines, and whilst finding enough volunteers to staff 4 lines once a week is doable, we'd probably need to run about 10 lines all day, every day. I can't see there being enough people to make that work, and that's before you think about the space required, and the cost. We are getting through a great deal of PPE even though we are only doing a fraction of the schoolat present.
So if the government really want mass testing in the long term I think they are either going to find a different way of delivering it and/or provide more support and resources to schools. The head teacher and senior team at our school have worked their socks off setting all this up and I think it is unfair to expect educators to take on a public health role. It's not as if they don't have challenges in their day job just now !

Sorry - don't know where the paragraphs in my last post have gone - I did put some spaces in.

@Toorapid I don't think they do think you can't do it, they're setting priorities related to the numbers on where transmission is the biggest problem
They’ve said we can’t have lateral flow tests to do at home because it is too complicated to train us all to use them. They’ve managed to train other sectors to use the tests at home, but have no inclination to teach early years staff. So It’s nothing to do with transmission rates. The other (even more ridiculous) reason is that we can’t put used lateral flow tests in normal rubbish because they are clinical waste. Completely ignoring that’s what every other government/council department are doing with theirs and what they would expect school children to do with theirs. Basically, the government couldn’t give two hoots about early years.

@herecomesthsun

Ah, there is an easier test. There is a saliva test being tried out by Southampton University. It is being rolled out across Hampshire at the moment. It is a lot more likely to give a useful result as well

www.southampton.gov.uk/coronavirus-covid19/covid-testing/hiow-testing-programme/about-the-saliva-test.aspx

Saliva test samples analysed using the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) technique have been ‘double tested’ against tests using the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing method and LAMP has been shown to be highly accurate in detecting active infections - 100% specific (the ability to correctly identify those without the virus) and over 95% sensitive (the ability to correctly identify those with the virus). This means that false positives are extremely rare and false negatives can occur but are not common.

I'm not sure why the lateral flow tests are being used instead - cost maybe?

Oooohhhhh I'm Hampshire hope we get to try it. Currently we do weekly LFT!

Its a no from me.

I think this makes sense. This age group can mostly cope with doing it themselves and, for those that struggle, it's better to struggle at home than at school (I know this - I have to do mine at school and I vomit nearly every time, it's so embarrassing. I'd much rather do it in my own bathroom!)

We are going to continue testing all the staff and secondary children on the school site but we only have about 80 pupils old enough plus we have a full time school nurse on site.

I don't really know that there's much point in testing the children though, given that 80% of our pupils won't be tested as they below Year 7.

We already do LFD twice weekly in my primary (staff only). It’s nose and throat-exactly the same as the PCR ones are, and takes half an hour to get the result.

I have no problem with my teens doing then, though am fully aware they aren’t very accurate. As long as they AREN’T being used to replace self-isolation as that was a really stupid plan, thankfully dropped. Anyone with symptoms should still be staying at home and getting a PCR test. Close contacts of positive cases will still need to self-isolate.

I doubt the government will provide any saliva tests as they have given millions to Dominic Cummings on his little project of making these crappy LF ones and they need to all be used up somewhere. No one else wanted them apparently.