Covid symptoms but not recognised by school

[Realitea]

This is so bloody difficult
The school still only recognise the three main symptoms yet these aren’t the common symptoms in children!
Dd came home Friday saying her new classmate was coughing all day, felt hot, had sore throat and headache, totally bunged up. He told the teacher and they told him to sit down and he’d be fine.
Now dd has a sore throat and a bit of a cough but not continuous, she’s really tired and feels sick.
I just know it’s going to rip through the school if the school don’t recognise the symptoms and if they have symptoms just keep them in anyway 😫
Dd was looking forward to a school trip, the last one was cancelled and this has kept her going for so long just knowing she’ll get to go on this trip. I feel so sad for her and all the children going through this at school.
She did ask her classmate if he’d been tested and he said no. 😢

The definition of a continuous cough is less frequent than you would think. It was always more than 3 episodes of coughing in a day, so I suspect she'll meet that definition and you can get her a PCR if you want to.

Yes I think it’s PCR time for us tomorrow

so the child doesnt actually have it?

Probly you will be ok..

so the child doesnt actually have it?

The child hasn't been tested

Yes. She has a cough, get a test

“a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours”

We have covid at the moment. For me and dh it's been like a really heavy head cold, with flu like symptoms, shivery, very high temp and awful aches and exhaustion. Ds has it and the only symptom he's had is he feels sick now and then and looks pale. Less appetite. For a week he's been like it. Fine other than that. I would test for any unexplained symptoms tbh, we've been through hell this week and I would do anything in my power to prevent another family having to endure it.

If the child was coughing a lot and hadn’t been tested, school should have sent them home.

Hope she feels better soon.

My DS had those exact symptoms this week and tested negative (antigen and then PCR as the school insisted on the latter) but my friend’s children (completely different town so not in direct contact with us) has exactly the same symptoms and both her children tested positive. It seems so confusing.

These are symptoms though. He should have been sent home.

My kids has had these exact symptoms since Friday evening. Non stop cough, hot, sore throat, snotty, miserable. DD2 has been similar, less of a cough. Tested them both on Saturday, just got the results & negative.

Difficulty is covid in kids is fairly indistinguishable between a cold. Kids get colds constantly. Honestly, my kids would be off school waiting for a test every other week. They’d miss so much school/nursery.

It’s going to be a long winter 🤦🏼‍♀️ they need to develop better rapid tests, that would really help!

I've just booked my 10 year old a test, I'm pretty sure it's just a cold, but she is coughing and our school are being (rightly) strict on no children in with a cough unless negative pcr result.