The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Teachers set to get rapid Covid tests
PERTH: Race to find contacts as pupil confirmed positive
Teachers could be set to receive rapid coronavirus testing to ease staff fears about working in schools.
Education secretary and Perthshire North MSP John Swinney made the announcement as he restated his determination to keep schools open.
His comments came as pupils at Perth
High School were forced into self-isolation yesterday.
Senior staff spent the day scouring CCTV images to trace contacts of a sixth-year pupil who tested positive for the illness.
It is believed more than 20 pupils have been told to stay at home for 14 days.
In Fife, 25 schools reported cases, with one – Auchmuty High in Glenrothes – reporting half its 1,300 pupils are absent.
Hearing many teachers now feel unsafe at work, Mr Swinney said: “We will bring for ward plans, in the near term... potentially including and rolling out in-school rapid testing of staff.”
However, new evidence from the Covid19 advisory sub-group on education said there is no increased risk to school staff in comparison to other working groups.
Around half the pupils at a Fife secondary school are off as it strives to contain a coronavirus outbreak.
Sixteen people at Auchmuty High School have tested positive for Covid-19 – 10 pupils and six staff members – as the number of cases linked with schools around Tayside and Fife continues to grow.
Around a third of the Glenrothes school’s 1,300 pupils and 13 staff have been advised to self-isolate but rector Alan Pithie said around half of its youngsters were absent.
A significant number of pupils are also understood to be absent from Viewforth High, in Kirkcaldy, where five cases have been confirmed this week.
They were among 25 Fife schools and nurseries listed as having new cases of the virus in NHS Fife updates since Sunday.
Cases have also been confirmed at Perth High School and Harris Academy and Grove Academy, in Dundee, in recent days.
At the Perth school – the biggest in the city – a single instance of the illness contracted by a sixth year pupil, has forced more than 20 others into isolation.
It is understood senior staff spent the day scouring CCTV to ensure all possible contacts were traced and informed.
In a message to worried parents, Mr Pithie said: “School attendance is round about 50% at the present time.
“This sounds an incredibly horrendous picture and it is. This is an incredibly difficult situation to be going through.”
However, he said there were signs the “firebreak” had contained the outbreak.
In his recorded message, he said there had been no more positive cases this week – although NHS Fife has since revealed one more – and that pupils who tested positive were already self-isolating.
He said: “The hope is that means we are containing this outbreak and we are going to now see an improvement and no more positive cases.”
Auchmuty High School has already had to call off its prelim exams, which were due to start later this month, as a result of the outbreak.
Pupils were praised for wearing face coverings in school and they were urged to continue following the protocols both in school and in the community.
NHS Fife said: “Where there is more than one confirmed case, this does not necessarily suggest transmission within the school and may relate to a sibling or household group, or it may be separate incidences of communityacquired infection .” It directed parents to its website and that of Fife Council for more information on Covid-19 in schools.
Meanwhile, pupils at the three Dundee and Perth secondary schools identified as close contacts of those who tested positive have been asked to self-isolate.
At Harris Academy an S1 pupil has contracted the virus. At Grove Academy the case was in a member of staff. People at other Tayside schools are likely to be tested positive but NHS Tayside has stopped providing school updates.
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The hope is we are containing this outbreak