On 21st February Government announced the Living with Covid-19, link below:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-response-living-with-covid-19
This step removes the remaining legal restrictions used to manage the pandemic and moves the management of the disease towards the Public Health standard approaches for managing infectious diseases.
Routine Testing
- Routine twice weekly LFD testing has ceased for staff and pupils in mainstream schools.
- Asymtomatic testing can be advised by Public Health as part a local response to an outbreak and DfE will be able to deliver tests for this purpose. Self-Isolation and close contacts
- Whilst the legal requirement for cases to self-isolate is now removed from 24th February, adults and children who test positive for Covid-19 will continue to be advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people.
- The national Public Health advice is that anyone who has tested positive for Covid-19 should self-isolate at home for at least 5 full days, with LFD testing starting from 5 days after the day symptoms started (or the day the test was taken if there are no symptoms), and be undertaken daily until there are two consecutive negative tests at which point self-isolation may end provided the case has no fever/high temperature. The advised self-isolation period for cases ends for all cases after 10 full days from the day following their symptom onset.
- The guidance for individuals states that children and young people with COVID-19 should not attend their education setting whilst they are infectious.
- In most cases, parents and carers will agree that a pupil or student with the key symptoms or Covid-19 should not attend given the potential risk to others. If a parent or carer insists on their child attending your school where they have a confirmed or suspected case of Covid-19, you can take the decision to refuse them if, in your reasonable judgement, it is necessary to protect others from possible infection with Covid-19.
- There is no requirement for close contacts and household contacts of cases to self-isolate or undertake 7 days of LFD testing and this includes unvaccinated adults.
- No contact tracing is required to take place in school and routine national contact tracing will end.
- In addition, as rates in the community have reduced, we no longer recommend the use of face coverings in communal areas for all adults and secondary age pupils in school.
