On Tuesday 29 March, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Sajid Javid, set out the next steps for living with COVID-19 in England from Friday 1 April.
Key changes include:
- adults with the symptoms of a respiratory infection, and who have a high temperature or feel unwell, should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people until they feel well enough to resume normal activities and they no longer have a high temperature.
- children and young people who are unwell and have a high temperature should stay at home and avoid contact with other people. They can go back to school, college or childcare when they no longer have a high temperature, and they are well enough to attend.
Regular asymptomatic testing is no longer recommended in any education or childcare setting, including in SEND, alternative provision and children’s social care settings. Therefore, settings will no longer be able to order free NHS test kits through their previous routes:
- if they do choose to test, adults with a positive COVID-19 test result should try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days, which is when they are most infectious. For children and young people aged 18 and under, the advice will be 3 days.
- residential SEND settings may be advised by their local health protection team to re-introduce some time-limited asymptomatic testing. This would be an exceptional measure, for targeted groups of staff and pupils or students (secondary age or above) in the event of a possible COVID-19 outbreak.
Most of the DfE COVID-19 specific guidance for education and childcare settings has now been withdrawn from GOV.UK. Guidance specific to education and childcare that settings should now refer to includes:
- UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) health protection in education and childcare settings
- DfE emergency planning and response
- DfE good estate management for schools
New and updated UKHSA guidance for the general population, which will also be relevant to education and childcare settings, includes:
- guidance for people with symptoms of a respiratory infection including COVID-19, or a positive test result for COVID-19
- living safely with respiratory infections, including COVID-19
- ventilation of indoor spaces to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory infections
- COVID-19 guidance for people whose immune system means they are at higher risk
You can access a webinar at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7WKDcUd71g giving an overview from DfE and UKHSA officials on the changes, and what they mean in practice for education, childcare and children’s social care settings.