Outbreaks in schools

[Trustisamust]

Since schools have returned there have already been major outbreaks in both my child's secondary and the primary I work at.
The majority of school staff remain unvaccinated.
For how many other schools is this already the case?
I just don't know what to think any more.

I consider that cold for a bbq , but then I’m from Southern Europe.

Our secondary school (my kids attend and I also work there) we’ve had 2 positive tests in yr 10 and sixth form this week.

Article on infections in schools is taken from a peer reviewed study and based on figures from September to December.

Also reported here:

www.itv.com/news/2021-03-19/school-attendance-has-minimal-impact-on-serious-covid-19-infection

I’m sure I heard cases are declining in England and rising in NI and Scotland today

Not sure about Wales

This is current isn’t it?

We have one week to Easter then break. I think it’s doing ok, considering predictions on here of rising cases.

I hope vaccinations will continue apace soon then going back pre Easter seems a good decision

Apparently some government guidelines have been updated this week. Although the bubbles obviously need to be kept in place they don't have to send the whole bubble home if one kid has symptoms before a positive test.
After only one week back my child has just had a whole week at home because someone in the bubble had symptoms last weekend; we were informed Monday morning - they got a negative result today! The delay was because child had to do a postal test as parent doesn't drive; why didn't they get a relative or friend to drive them to the local test site? Instead 2 whole classes missed a whole week of school unnecessarily. I'm so cross about it.....

2 more weeks until Easter..

@Humberbear

2 classes at school we pick up from (after school club), 2 classes school across the road from me, grandchildrens school had 2 classes on sunday night, but ending up closing school last night because it had spread and that is a big school. Also other schools in our city were named in the local paper. A lot of the cases happened within first couple of days of kids going back to school which makes it look like they had been mixing whilst off.

I'd take the positives as false positives because any lateral flow tests done in schools weren't to be followed up by another test but were to be considered 'true'. My daughter is in y12, they had one test on the Thursday before school was back, then the next on their first day back on the Tuesday. A few in her year group (kept as a year group 'bubble') tested positive and so they were all off again on the Wednesday while close contacts were decided upon etc. The students who tested positive took further lateral flow tests at home (negative that same day) and then also PCR tests which also came back negative. BUT due to the guidance, they were considered to be 'positive' and therefore them and contacts had to isolate. Fortunately they're all now on home testing and if they get a positive at home they are told to get a confirmatory PCR test and if that is negative they're not considered to be positive. There are bound to be issues with so many taking tests and chances are the majority if not all will be false positives. These tests are designed to be used by people with SYMPTOMS! Saying 'it had spread' was probably because of the 'bubble system' meaning that the class/year group were required to self isolate rather than there actually being people ill with Covid. Remember, they're most likely to get it from an adult (family member) rather than another child

@MrsHerculePoirot

2 more weeks until Easter..

Oh right just checked

1.5 more of school term

Last day Wed 31st

So far, touch wood no outbreaks in our schools. Staff are doing lateral flow tests twice a week.

Our last day before Easter holidays is March 26th.

@Waxonwaxoff0

There probably are some false negatives but I'm not sure why it's hard to believe that rates in kids are low if the majority of them have been at home for 2 months?

exactly! They've been at home, they haven't been able to go anywhere generally to 'mix' indoors (risk of transmission outside is considered to be teeeeeeny!) and they've had 'school' during the day at home! They're now all likely to get ill with colds etc due to lack of 'germ exposure' for the last few months! Some may have been 'breaking the rules' but not that many! 'Cases' are also likely to rise in general with the amount of testing going on and the chances of false positives

None in ours but every single pupil are doing their lateral flow tests plus the parents.

A local primary school has completely closed due to Covid. 2 of the local secondary schools have bubbles burst.

@motherrunner

To those saying ‘no cases’ in schools, how would you know?

We only alert the year group affected, not the whole school.

varies between schools, my daughter's 5 form entry secondary school plus 6th form notify all parents via their parent communication app whatever year group it is. Close contacts are then identified and notified. I appreciate this may not be happening in 'all schools' but it's certainly happening!

Year 6 are isolating following pupils with positive results where I work.

Trustisamust
@Itsalonghaul But from what I understand, if an LFD test comes back positive then that individual already has Covid? So the spread may well have already started?”

Yes, a Covid test will only come back positive if you already have Covid! (Unless it’s a false positive). Like any other test I can think of, these don’t come back positive if you might get it in future....so yes, people who test positive probably have been spreading it. But the tests identify asymptomatic people who would otherwise have continued to spread it without knowing.

We only get told of cases if it directly affect my children, both at different secondaries.
I know about the other cases through friends.

It's the same formula for the schools I work with - they only tell those affected.

I think my children's large secondary has had 2 cases since we came back which doesn't seem bad. No staff as yet. We are testing twice a week.

Not a big fan of lateral flow tests - my husband was given one before admission to hospital for minor surgery and tested positive, despite having shielded for 12 months and us hardly venturing out at all. He was placed immediately on a ward with other Covid patients and by the time the results of the two subsequent negative PCR tests were made available it was too late and the hospital had already exposed him to the virus. We both got Covid as a result, and the next two weeks were a nightmare. I also know of two other people who tested positive on lateral flows and the PCRs were negative. Not sure they’re reliable despite the government reassurances that they have confidence in them.

I'm doing the lazy thing of not reading the full post so i may be wrong but I highly doubt there have been "major outbreaks" but i can quite imagine that numerous children have had to self isolate because a very small number of students have tested positive. Also, would be interesting to know out of those students who have tested positive how many are actually unwell. A "major outbreak" makes it sound as if there are 100s of poorly children.

No many cases in my kids school either. And they are sent home before spreading it around further. The testing and masks give me some peace of mind I am not as likely to catch it from them. I think you are being a bit unreasonable because I really think the test is working so far. It should have been started much earlier

I work in a Primary school. We’ve had 5 bubbles close over the last seven days.
Spreading quicker than it ever did.

DS’s class has 13/29 self isolating due to testing positive on a lateral flow test or sitting next to someone that has. Something is amiss here as our overall cases are really low and there were no confirmed cases in his class before Christmas 🤨.

yes it is true that if they don't have a test they can still attend school. I found this out because no way I could test my youngest and they were talking about testing primary kids. He has SEN and couldn't cope the last time we did it when he had symptoms and gets violent so we have said in future we will just isolate for 10 days. No way would I attempt weekly tests with him.

Of course they are still allowed to attend . Why wouldn’t they be ? Testing and masks are not mandatory .