Now is not the time to scrap free Covid tests for schools
It’s hard to think of a time during the pandemic when the disconnect between Scottish government policy and the reality on the ground has seemed more stark. Schools are being forced to send pupils home as they contend with the highest levels of staff absence to date and we are told by first minister Nicola Sturgeon the pressure on hospitals is “significant” and “a real concern” - but the government is setting out its plans to remove one of the few remaining mitigations that slow the spread of coronavirus: regular testing.
As the government’s plans stand, by mid-April - when schools return from the Easter holidays - the advice to test twice a week will end for the general public and that includes “routine asymptomatic testing in education settings”, which it says “will cease at the end of the current term”.
By the end of April, under the plans, access to free tests will also end in Scotland.
- Background: Routine testing of Scottish staff and pupils ends 18 April
- The data: Covid-related school staff absence hits record high
- News: Life in schools ‘tough’ amid ‘exceptionally high’ absence
- England: Heads urge Zahawi to keep Covid tests free
This coincides with the start of exam season in Scotland. So, just as schools are planning to bring together large number of students into gym and dining halls, students’ ability to know if they are infected - and therefore in danger of spreading the virus to their peers - will disappear.
Already things are “tough” in schools, as School Leaders Scotland general secretary Jim Thewliss put it last week.
Staff absence peaked last week, with over 6,000 teachers and support staff off work because of coronavirus.
That is higher than the level of staff absence schools reported after the Christmas break, when it was uncertain if primaries and secondaries would be able to reopen because of the rapid spread of Omicron.
In recent days, we know that some schools have had to revert to remote learning for entire year groups and that some councils, such as Dumfries and Galloway, have written to parents warning them online learning could be back on the cards “as a direct result of staff unavailability”.
So why has the up-to-now cautious approach extolled by the Scottish government changed?
Most of the remaining legal Covid restrictions in Scotland officially came to an end yesterday - although plans to remove the requirement to wear masks in enclosed public places have been put on hold for now.
Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament last week that this was because of “the current spike in case numbers”. Why, then, not also retain testing?
The issue is funding.
In England, the requirement for twice-weekly testing for secondary schools ended last month and tests will no longer be free to the general public from 1 April.
Sturgeon says the Scottish government also wants to scale back testing but it believes “the transition should be longer”. And it will be - free tests will be around in Scotland for a month longer than in England.
But she also says: “That is as far as we can go within funding constraints.”
We hear regularly that the virus carries a very low risk for children and young people - most recently from Jason Leitch, Scotland’s national clinical director, who has written to parents, carers and young people reminding them of that ahead of the changes to testing and isolation next month.
But that doesn’t mean young people experience no symptoms.
The problem that the education system faces, therefore, is not just that there has been huge disruption ahead of the exams, but that this could continue during them.
By the end of April, the advice will be “to stay at home if unwell”. How many students will be too unwell to sit their exams remains to be seen, but the fear is that those numbers will be higher as a result of the removal of testing.
Certainly, that’s the concern being expressed by school leaders south of the border, who say the worry is that once free testing stops the number of staff and pupils coming to school with Covid will increase “and lead to even more disruption to education”.
Scotland’s largest teaching union, the EIS, is also opposed to the ending of asymptomatic testing, arguing this will have “a detrimental impact on teacher confidence and absence rates”. It is urging its members to lobby the education secretary, Shirley-Anne Somerville.
Then there is, of course, the impact this decision will have beyond the school gate.
The University of Edinburgh’s chair of public health, Professor Devi Sridhar, told BBC Scotland television programme The Nine that “giving up testing is a huge mistake” and “will cost us, not just in terms of infection spreading, but [in] the people it finds and kills in the end”.
We might hope that the Easter holidays act as a firebreak and that when staff and pupils return, case numbers will be lower, perhaps giving schools the breathing space they need to limp through the remainder of this school year.
Still, with little over a term to go the feeling among weary educators is, why take the gamble? Why not wait until this turbulent school year is behind us before taking away free testing?
In other words, can we not ca’ canny for a little longer for the sake of schools and of wider society?
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