London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Friday, Sep 12, 2025

Daily testing can keep pupils in school, study suggests

Daily testing can keep pupils in school, study suggests

Daily rapid testing of school pupils who are close contacts of a Covid case did not lead to more virus spread than sending them home, a study has found.

Around 2% of close contacts with test results turned out to have coronavirus.

The findings, which have not yet been peer-reviewed, did not prove that a policy of rapid testing led to fewer Covid-related absences.

But the study authors say that schools that successfully implement daily testing should see fewer absences.

Covid rules in many UK schools will be different for the new school year.

But the policy has created huge disruption to children's education since September.

Any requirement for children and adults to self-isolate as close contacts will be removed in England from mid-August, as already announced by the government.

The Scottish government is reviewing its approach to self-isolation for school children, who return to lessons in August. In Wales, the education minister has said he wants to minimise the number of pupils self-isolating.

Since March, schools have offered twice weekly rapid tests to all pupils, with those testing positive having to self-isolate, along with close contacts, for 10 days. They replaced PCR tests, which were sent away to a lab for results, when students had symptoms.

But that's meant growing numbers of pupils absent from school - around one million were off due to Covid in England last week.

But only 47,000 of those actually had Covid - the rest were defined as close contacts so had to self-isolate and stay off school, even though they were in the routine of taking tests to establish whether they had become infected.


This pre-print study, in 200 secondary schools and colleges in England, between April and June 2021, suggests there is another way, with less than 2% of children exposed to Covid-19 in schools ending up infected in tests done on pupils without symptoms.

'Breakthrough'


Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace said the study was "a major breakthrough"

"Children and parents have made enormous personal sacrifices throughout this pandemic by isolating when needed, and we all know the disruption it has caused in their lives," she said.

"We've been trying to find safe alternatives, and this study gives us evidence of safe alternatives to isolation for school contacts."


The University of Oxford study asked half of the schools to continue with the current policy while the other half invited close contacts of positive cases to take lateral flow tests every day at school. If they tested negative, they were allowed to attend school as normal.

Involving more than 200,000 students and 20,000 staff, the study found no evidence that the rate of students and staff developing Covid symptoms was different in the group doing daily testing compared with the group of close contacts isolating at home.

The study could not prove that the policy cut school absences, but the researchers claim that daily contact testing could reduce absences by up to 39%.

Overall, the study found:

* daily testing of students and staff who were exposed to Covid was as effective as isolation at controlling spread

* around 98% of contacts in the trial did not develop Covid during the isolation period

* rates of Covid in school staff were lower than in students and mirrored community levels

The researchers said pupils and staff were more likely to take daily tests because there was no social penalty to doing them, as there was with isolation when friends had to be named as close contacts.

Although they admit lateral flow tests aren't perfect, they say the tests are good at identifying people who are most infectious, who can then be withdrawn from school.

'Good news'


David Eyre, study author and associate professor at the University of Oxford, said the findings were "good news for students, parents and teachers".

"The study supports earlier findings from Test and Trace data showing that most children who are in contact with Covid-19 in schools don't go on to get infected.

"Daily testing was able to identify most of the small number that do, which allowed them to safely isolate at home, while allowing the large majority of other students and staff to remain in school."

Prof James Hargreaves, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said there were some limitations with the study, and better follow-up in the schools studied would have been reassuring.

Prof Paul Hunter, from the University of East Anglia, said schools would probably still need some controls on their return.

"At least daily testing... will have less harm on children's education than the current exclusion policy, whether or not it has real benefit in controlling the epidemic," he said.

The researchers said they were now doing whole genome sequencing to understand whether coronavirus cases in the study were linked to each other. This will help them understand how the virus is spread in schools and colleges.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Volkswagen launches aggressive strategy to fend off Chinese challenge in Europe’s EV market
ChatGPT CEO signals policy to alert authorities over suicidal youth after teen’s death
The British legal mafia hit back: Banksy mural of judge beating protester is scrubbed from London court
Surpassing Musk: Larry Ellison becomes the richest man in the world
Embarrassment for Starmer: He fired the ambassador photographed on Epstein’s 'pedophile island'
Manhunt after 'skilled sniper' shot Charlie Kirk. Footage: Suspect running on rooftop during panic
Effective Protest Results: Nepal’s Prime Minister Resigns as Youth-Led Unrest Shakes the Nation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
King Charles and Prince Harry Share First In-Person Moment in 19 Months
Starmer Establishes Economic ‘Budget Board’ to Centralise Policy and Rebuild Business Trust
France Erupts in Mass ‘Block Everything’ Protests on New PM’s First Day
Poland Shoots Down Russian Drones in Airspace Violation During Ukraine Attack
Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum
Trinidad Leader Applauds U.S. Naval Strike and Advocates Forceful Action Against Traffickers
Kim Jong Un Oversees Final Test of New High-Thrust Solid-Fuel Rocket Engine
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Macron Appoints Sébastien Lecornu as Prime Minister Amid Budget Crisis and Political Turmoil
Supreme Court temporarily allows Trump to pause billions in foreign aid
Charlie Sheen says his father, Martin Sheen, turned him in to the police: 'The greatest betrayal possible'
Vatican hosts first Catholic LGBTQ pilgrimage
Apple Unveils iPhone 17 Series, iPhone Air, Apple Watch 11 and More at 'Awe Dropping' Event
Pig Heads Left Outside Multiple Paris Mosques in Outrage-Inducing Acts
Nvidia’s ‘Wow’ Factor Is Fading. The AI chip giant used to beat Wall Street expectations for earnings by a substantial margin. That trajectory is coming down to earth.
France joins Eurozone’s ‘periphery’ as turmoil deepens, say investors
On the Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s Death: Prince Harry Returns to Britain
France Faces New Political Crisis, again, as Prime Minister Bayrou Pushed Out
Murdoch Family Finalises $3.3 Billion Succession Pact, Ensuring Eldest Son’s Leadership
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
×