COVID Update
As we near towards the end of Term 1, please see the information and guidelines below about the continued management of COVID in our community.
RAHTS
Surveillance testing continues to be an essential tool for the School, so I would like to continue the twice-weekly testing regime until the end of this term. Please give your daughters a RAHT test on Monday and Wednesday next week, as this is an important tool in catching instances of the virus before it comes into the school itself.
As many families will be interacting differently and perhaps travelling in the school holidays, we would also ask every student to do a RAHT test on the morning of Wednesday 27 April before coming back to school for Term 2.
It is important to make sure that you follow the instructions carefully for any RAHT test that you have, but in particular, the requirement to not have ANY food or drinks for 30 mins prior to using a saliva test. This is the key to ensuring that these tests are at their maximum effectiveness.
Vaccinations
As we move into the cooler months, we would encourage all SCEGGS families to help us all maintain a high level of protection against serious illness in our community by increasing the COVID vaccination rate at SCEGGS.
Children aged 5 to 11 years are eligible to receive their first dose and many may now be available for their second dose, generally eights weeks after the first. In addition, people aged 16 years and over are eligible for their booster if they received their second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at least three months ago. NSW Health also provides advice about when to get these booster vaccinations if a student is recovering from COVID too. For most people this is around 4-6 weeks after infection.
If you have any concerns about the vaccinations, we strongly encourage you to speak to your GP or other health professional. Educationally, we know that vaccines reduce potential disruptions to learning through absences and allow girls to continue to attend school and extracurricular activities too.
Ongoing Monitoring
Please remember that staff and students cannot attend school if they are showing any symptoms of COVID-19. If symptoms occur at any time, your daughter should not attend school and should undertake a rapid antigen test. Even if she tests negative on a RAHT, please keep her home for 24 hours and then test again.
Even if multiple COVID tests (RAHT and/or PCR) come back negative for COVID-19, students should not return to school until all symptoms of the illness have gone.
NSW Health advice is that students who are sick – whether with COVID or any other illness such as the flu or a cold – should always stay home to rest and recover and avoid putting other students and staff at risk of getting sick.
Isolation
There have been a couple of changes to health rules recently, so here are the amendments to the answers to two questions commonly asked of us:
What happens if a student who has recovered from COVID-19 comes into contact with someone with COVID-19 within 12 weeks after they are released?
The Public Health (COVID-19 Self-Isolation) Order was updated on 28 March 2022 to amend the isolation requirements for household contacts who have previously tested positive to COVID-19. Specifically, a household contact is not required to self-isolate as a contact if the person previously had COVID-19 and it has been less than 12 weeks since the person ceased self-isolating as a case (this was previously 8 weeks).
Does a household contact need to recommence their isolation if another member of the household subsequently tests positive?
A household contact is not obligated to self-isolate as a contact if they are subsequently notified by another household contact and it has been no more than 14 days since the contact completed their self-isolation period. This means a household contact does not need to self- isolate as a contact more than once in a 21-day period unless the person is diagnosed with COVID-19, in which case they will need to self-isolate again for 7 days as a confirmed case. If more than 14 days has passed since a household contact completed their self-isolation and they are notified of a new case within their household, they will need to isolate again for 7 days unless they have previously tested positive, and it has been no more than 12 weeks since they ceased self-isolating as a positive case.
Jenny Allum
Head of School
