Nau mai haere mai!

I hope that you and your families are coping well as we are seeing an increase in confirmed cases of Covid in our community. We have a significant number of students that are isolating due to a confirmed positive test or because they are a confirmed household contact. It is heartening to hear that the majority of students are having mild symptoms or are asymptomatic. These students are across all the school and all classes. We have not been communicating to families when cases are happening due to protecting the privacy of the students and families involved, so apologies if it has felt like the communication around this has been lacking. If your student is a confirmed case please ensure that they have isolated for at least the seven days and are symptom free before returning to school (A negative RAT test is not required to return to school.) 

The guidelines for isolation can be a bit tricky and are constantly changing. 

The Ministry of Health has provided further clarity on when household contacts should isolate.

What does it mean if I am a household contact? – Ministry of Health

For households where someone has COVID-19, the Ministry of Health recommends you apply the following guidance.

• If someone becomes a confirmed COVID-19 case, then that case and all other people in their household must isolate for seven days.                                                                        
• If someone else in the household then tests positive for COVID-19 during those seven days:
  • the isolation period for that person only re-sets – that person must isolate for an additional seven days from the day they test positive or symptoms begin
  • other household contacts who do not test positive are still able to leave isolation after the original case has completed their seven days isolation.                                 
• For the next 10 days after a household completes seven days isolation, evidence shows that due to their exposure to COVID-19 they are less likely to catch or transmit the virus. This means:
  • if someone else in the household tests positive within those 10 days, the whole household will not have to re-isolate, only the positive case
  • if someone else in the household tests positive and it has been more than 10 days since the household completed isolation, household contacts should re-isolate along with the new case for seven days.                                                                       
• Any person who has had COVID-19 within the last 90 days/three months will not need to isolate as a household contact unless they become symptomatic and test positive again. This is because reinfection rates for people who have had COVID-19 are low for the three months after they have the virus.                                                                           

Remember, Day 0 for isolation is the day symptoms began or the day the positive test was taken (whichever came first). You should then count your seven days from there.

I hope that this clarifies any questions you may have at this time. We will be operating as normal at the school as long as our teachers remain Covid free. Students isolating at home should have work to complete online through Google Classroom and associated Google Suite functions. If you are having any issues accessing this work please get in touch so we can help find a solution.

Nga mihi nui

Marcus Cooper

Prinsipal

East Otago High School