Mum under fire for wanting to send her son back to school with Covid

People were left baffled when the mum said her son wanted to go back to school even though he had Covid, but she didn’t know what to do so asked other parents for advice

If someone in your child’s class had tested positive for Covid, you’d likely expect their parents to keep them off until they were feeling better, or had tested negative if they still had access to lateral flow tests. One woman headed online to ask whether people thought she would be unreasonable to send her son in when he tested positive for Covid.

On Mumsnet, she explained that he’d tested positive a couple of days before he was set to return back to high school, but the test was still ‘a glaring positive’ when he was set to go. She explained that he wasn’t really symptomatic and that she and her husband hadn’t contracted the virus.

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She wrote: “My son tested positive on Saturday, and was still a glaring positive last night.

“He’s due back at high school tomorrow. Very few symptoms apart from a snotty nose, and my husband and I seem to have swerved it.

“He’s desperate not to miss the first day of term, and I’m aware that official guidance means that you no longer have to isolate etc. if you test positive if all reasonable steps (masks, distancing, etc.) are taken. However, I wouldn’t be confident he’d remember to do this (little scatterbrain!).

“On the flipside though, I don’t want to unleash a new infection that will no doubt spread through the school like wildfire. What would you do? Send him because Covid isn’t going anywhere, or keep him off until he’s negative?”

People were confused why the mum chose to make her son do a test if she was going to ignore the result.

One wrote: “Why on earth did you test? There’s no point testing if you’re going to ignore the result. We won’t be testing again.”

Another said: “My daughter’s school says not to send them in. It seems obvious to me that you wouldn’t, especially as there could be immunocompromised kids there.”

“I’m waaaaaaaaay over covid but I don’t think I could send mine in with a positive test to school”, one mum added.

Someone said: “Obviously you don’t send a sick child into school.”

Another said schools usually provide individual guidance, writing: “In addition to the government guidance didn’t your school send their guidance as well? Ours said not to send them with symptoms.”

What would you do in this situation? Let us know in the comments.