Daily contact testing of pupils who have been in close contact with a positive Covid case is a safe alternative to home isolation, according to this research from the University of Oxford. In total, 201 secondary schools and colleges took part in the trial, with more than 200,000 pupils and 20,000 staff participating.
Around half of the participating schools, 99, acted as a control group and sent contacts home to self-isolate in line with guidance at the time, while the others tested contacts daily, though they were also told to self-isolate after school and on non-testing days.
Both groups were then also invited to provide two PCR tests following contact to determine how many close contacts became infected.
However, the study also acknowledged it had several limitations - schools “were not always able to participate due to competing pressures, and it was likely as a result that data capture was imperfect.
Overall, this study shows that in secondary school and college of further education students and staff infection of following contact with a COVID-19 case at school occurs in less than 2%. There was no evidence that switching from isolation at home to daily contact testing, at least in the settings of the schools studied, increased rates of symptomatic COVID in students and staff.