The Asymptomatic Spread of Coronavirus

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Education – in the Senedd at 2:58 pm on 25 November 2020.

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Photo of Kirsty Williams Kirsty Williams Liberal Democrat 2:58, 25 November 2020

Well, Jayne, the best thing we can do to minimise disruption to education is to get community transmission levels down in all of our communities, because it is community transmission that is leading to cases in our schools and the disruption that you discussed. We are working and providing best advice and examples of good practice to all schools with regard to bubbling and what constitutes a close contact, and therefore to try and reduce the number of children who are asked to self-isolate for these periods. Sometimes it is dependent on the advice that individual local TTP teams are giving to headteachers, and sometimes it is down to the way in which schools have operated their bubbles. We are, as I said, providing ongoing advice to schools and to local TTP teams to minimise the numbers of children who are asked to stay at home.

Lateral flow testing does indeed offer us that hope of minimising that disruption, especially to those who are regarded as contacts and do not have symptoms themselves, as a possible way of administering a daily test over a number of days that then would allow them to go into school. But as I said, the TAC paper asks us to explore the viability of offering an asymptomatic testing programme. It's not simple, and, as I said, we're keen to learn the lessons from both our universities and our schools before we can roll that out further.