Addressing the House of Commons yesterday evening, the newly appointed health secretary Sajid Javid said he had ‘asked for fresh advice' on the requirement. He went on to say that ‘there is a pilot programme in some local authorities at the moment where tests are used instead of isolation’. However, he said he ‘wanted to go further’ and would ‘hopefully be able to say more on the subject as soon as possible’.
Whether the removal of the requirement would also include children attending early years settings is unclear. Nursery World has contacted the Department for Education for clarification.
It comes amid growing calls from educators and parents to end the requirement, after Government statistics revealed 172,000 pupils in England were at home self-isolating due to potential contact with a Covid case, as of 17 June. Of these children, 2.7 per cent were primary school pupils.
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