Stoke-on-Trent families urged to get tested before children return to school
Thousands of children across the city are making their way back into classrooms on Monday
Families in Stoke-on-Trent are being encouraged to do everything they can to keep homes and households covid-free before children return to the classroom on Monday.
It comes after the city's coronavirus rate increased for the first time since 10th January - at 6.4% per cent on the previous seven days.
Thousands of pupils are expected to return to school on Monday in the first stage of the governments roadmap and exit from lockdown.
"Coming out of lockdown really does depend on us all ensuring that the cases within Stoke-on-Trent and wider across the UK continue to fall" said Cllr Abi Brown, Leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council.
"We mustn't jeopardise these easing of restrictions"
"At the moment it's about us all being vigilant, to understand what we need to do to support children to go back and ensure that we can all do the correct thing so that the return to school on Monday goes as smooth as possible."
Cllr Brown said the focus is to limit any further pressure or burden on schools as they transition back to normality.
"Numbers are still increasing in certain areas and the only way we're able to maintain a drop in the number of cases is by people following the guidance and people getting tested." she said.
Uptake of lateral flow testing has ranged between 20-30% since Stoke-on-Trent City Council increased capacity; however last week the uptake of community testing dipped to 14.32%.
Cllr Brown said "We've been doing lateral flow testing in Stoke-on-Trent for months now - and we've been working very closely with schools and we're confident we're able to support parents to ensure children can be tested along with their wider families in readiness for Monday."
"It's vital we all listen to the advice if the national roadmap to ease lockdown restrictions is to happen."
The return of schools on Monday 8th March is the first stage of the exit from lockdown.
• Secondary school and college students will receive three initial tests at school or college before transitioning to twice-weekly home testing.
• Primary school children will not have regular asymptomatic tests due to low levels of transmission between younger aged children, but will continue to need to come forward for tests if they have symptoms.
• Regular, twice-weekly testing using rapid lateral flow tests will also be extended to households of school children, members of support bubbles, childcare and those in related occupations, via assisted testing at community test sites, Community Collect or Direct to Home testing (there are more details on this below).
Cllr Brown is urging families to use this weekend to get a test at one of the city's community venues for peace of mind and to make sure children haven't been in contact with anybody who has the virus before setting off back into the community on Monday.
The are 18 community testing venues in action in Stoke-on-Trent, the latest addition being Trentham Rugby Club. Over 17,000 tests are available to visit on early mornings, late nights and weekends. Last week the five most utilised test centres were:
• Christ Church in Tunstall
• City Centre Mosque in Hanley
• Dimensions
• Baddeley Green Working Men’s Club
• Penkhull Village Hall
• a high temperature
• a new, continuous cough
• a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
More information about the back to school guidance can be found at www.gov.uk/backtoschool.