My child’s classmate has been sent home with Covid so what should we do? – Jayne Dowle

A friend in Lizzie’s ‘bubble’ has tested positive for coronavirus. It’s taken at least a week for this friend to be tested and receive the results. She has no obvious symptoms, but her mother is ill.

No-one knows for sure – yet – whether this friend has passed on the virus to my daughter or to any of the other young people closest to her in daily life.

Despite the school scanning CCTV footage – a fact I found both reassuring and unnerving – to construct a Venn diagram of her closest connections, it’s impossible to say for certain.

We also don’t know when this friend may have become infectious and potentially, started to spread the virus amongst her classmates. Therefore, no-one can say with any certainty how long her contacts should self-isolate for. Seven days? Fourteen days?

I feel huge sympathy for the teachers trying to do the right thing. In the midst of so many potentials and possibilities, the school has had no choice but to send the entire friendship group home to await further instructions.

Our situation is by no means uncommon. Parents everywhere are talking of children being told to go home.

A significant number of parents are also choosing to make their own decision and withdrawing their child until further notice.

At least three of Lizzie’s former classmates have stated, in Year 10, that they will not be returning to full-time education to take their GCSEs. One has already found a job on a building site.

I presume Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, is aware of this precarious situation; schools may remain open, but classrooms are half-empty, learning is hugely disrupted and both teachers and pupils obliged to remain at home. Some will never return. This has huge consequences for this generation, long after the threat of Covid fades, as surely it must.

I can’t argue with the school’s decision. It has a duty to protect all its pupils and staff. It has, however, presented us with a moral dilemma. If all things were equal, which clearly they are not, we would simply take Lizzie for a test and deal with the results accordingly.

Ideally, I’d like to know if she has coronavirus antibodies, which would suggest that she has had the virus already – albeit asymptomatically – meaning the possibility of re-infection may be less likely.

However, I’ve as much chance of getting an antibody test for a non-symptomatic teenager through the NHS as I have of becoming a doctor myself.

In fact, make that a non-existent chance of getting any kind of test at all. This bit is quite simple. No symptoms equals no NHS test, according to the Government website. There simply isn’t enough capacity in the system to deal with ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’.

Should we somehow manage to circumvent the online booking questions to secure a test, we’d be turned away at the testing centre when our temperatures proved normal. And how guilty would we feel then if we had taken several precious test-slots from people who were showing obvious symptoms?

The potential scenarios, however, are not simple at all; what if Lizzie is positive and has already infected the rest of the household? Yet official advice is for us to go about our business as normal, my husband going to work, my son going to work – in a busy supermarket – and college. What if we are all carrying the virus and potentially spreading it to others?

Should we all stay in and isolate alongside Lizzie, just to be safe? If so, for how long? I’ve looked up the guidance, but because we don’t have a precise start point for her friend’s infection, it’s impossible to calculate.

If we did isolate, it would impact on our household earnings, especially as my husband is self-employed, but would that be a price worth paying? Or should we simply carry on, observing social distancing, avoiding busy places such as markets and restaurants, and sadly, our elderly parents, and wait and see?

And all because Test and Trace is a shambles and free and easy-to-access tests are difficult enough to obtain even with symptoms, impossible without.

Covid-19 is the biggest threat to public health in a century. Six months into this pandemic, you might think that finding out whether you test positive or negative would be available without question.

Instead, thanks to a perfect storm of Government incompetence, disorganisation and a reliance on private providers, it’s a total lottery.

I could pay. Private tests cost from £100, but that’s £400 I would have to find. Unfortunately, that’s not an option. Instead, we’re stuck in limbo weighing up the odds.

And the only thing we’re stricken with so far is anxiety, fear and guilt.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson