COVID 19 update from Cheshire East

Advice on management of household contacts of positive cases

In October 2021 Cheshire East Public Health and the Education COVID Support Team revised its local advice on the management of positive cases in schools and settings. This followed a significant rise in positive COVID cases from the start of the autumn term. The revised case management toolkit included the following recommendation:

Pupils who are household contacts are advised to stay at home for 5 days, limit social contact and get a PCR test before coming back. Eligible pupils to do daily LFTs on their return for remainder of the 10 day period. Arrangements for other pupils to be made by the school in consultation with LA/PH COVID team.

This week, we have again reviewed the current measures with our Public Health colleagues. We have also sought feedback from the Education Recovery Group, in particular on the need to retain the above measure. The decision at this stage is to retain the current measures.

The main reasons for this are that:

• Our current measures have supported the overall reduction of our positive cases from mid-October to date for all under 18 age groups

   

• The reduction in cases is not currently on a sustained downward trajectory for all age groups:

   

  • There was an increase in cases for 4-11 year olds and 17-18 year olds last week from the previous week.

     

• Positive cases in 5-10 year olds are still the highest in the Cheshire and Merseyside region

   

• Positive cases for 10-14 year olds are still the third highest in the Cheshire and Merseyside region

   

• Feedback from schools is that limiting household contacts has prevented a number of children coming into school who have subsequently tested positive for COVID-19 some days later.

   

We will review these measures again on 30^th November and provide a further update. This will include any proposed changes to the measures advised.