A study by the University of Oxford has suggested forcing hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren to self-isolate because a classmate had Covid was unnecessary as daily testing would have been as effective, according to the study.
The results of the study were revealed on the last day of term for most schools, when more than one million pupils are off because of the virus and after months of disruption to education.
The team behind the study said the results also offered reassurance for MPs trying to end the pingdemic because it showed that the virus could be controlled in a less “destructive” way.
It came as the latest figures revealed that up to one million people a week are being asked to isolate in England and Wales, with record numbers being pinged by the NHS app and advised to self-isolate.
The Oxford study found that 98.4 per cent of children who were sent home for 10 days never went on to develop Covid.
Jonathan Ball, professor of molecular virology at the University of Nottingham, said the study showed that “unnecessary disruption” could be avoided with daily tests.
“It is always going to be tricky to define the relative effectiveness of isolation versus testing, as there are a lot of assumptions that need to be made,” he said. “That aside, what this study shows is that daily testing rather than isolation of contacts is effective in preventing onward transmission.
“Crucially, it also highlights the unnecessary disruption that isolation rules have had on countless numbers of children. Isolation of contacts is an important weapon in infection control, but it is also crude. Rapid testing circumvents needless isolation, and it should be used more widely.”
Tim Peto, professor of medicine at Oxford and the principal investigator in the schools trial, said “This will give comfort to people who want to work out a better and easier way to stop transmission than pingdemics and these rather destructive ways of controlling disease,
“It increases the opportunity for people to contain transmission in a much more comfortable and socially acceptable way.”
Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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