Students COVID testing discrepancy still raising concerns

Adam Holmes | Advocate | 8 February 2022  

PUBLIC Health has outlined why it chose not to recommend Tasmanian school children undergo mandatory rapid antigen testing, describing their risk as “very low” and that other states had higher rates of transmission.

Tasmania has less stringent recommendations for testing, including that school children only use the two RATs in their back-toschool pack – and two more per week – if they develop symptoms.

In other states and territories, it was recommended that school children be tested before they return to the classroom, and that they undergo two tests per week.

The discrepancy in advice prompted concern from Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb, who said the decision to have less surveillance testing of school students meant parents and children were being asked to take on more “risk” than those in other states.

Acting director of Public Health, Scott McKeown, said children were at lower risk of hospitalisation than adults.

“There are very different levels of risk between people who are older, and people and who are younger around COVID in the community,” he said. “We do know that young children and children are much less likely to experience severe disease and very unlikely to require hospitalisation.

“We’ve had very few children have required hospitalisation, with many thousands f of cases involving children.

It’s a very low risk.

t “Other states are putting in e place other testing regimes, e they have much higher levels d of transmission.”

” Dr McKeown said Tasmania’s advice was based on a n review of outbreak data interstate and of trials into the d effectiveness of regular RAT – use at the end of 2021.

State health commander Kathrine Morgan-Wicks said 56.5 per cent of children aged five to 11 had received one dose of the vaccination, and there were still 20,000 children in this age bracket without any vaccination.

Tasmania recorded 443 new cases in the Monday morning report, 3359 active cases and 528 people released from isolation. Fifteen COVID-positive people are in hospital, eight of whom are being treated for COVID as their primary condition.

One person is in intensive care.

Labor education spokesperson Josh Willie said he was concerned the government would need to change its advice again if outbreaks in schools outpaced predictions – like with the border opening – while Greens health spokesperson Rosalie Woodruff said parents were being asked to take on “unacceptable risk” during the school return.

See Meg’s Media Release.

See more of Meg’s recent media.