'Three hundred children forced to stay at home due to one case? Absurd!'
28 June 2021, 12:17
Nick Ferrari discusses the 'farcical' school self-isolation rules
This is the moment Nick Ferrari branded rules which force hundreds of children to self-isolate due to one positive case as "absurd."
Branding it "extraordinary" Nick Ferrari spoke to a caller about millions of school days being lost for pupils forced to self-isolate.
Chris from Bristol called in and explained his son was currently forced to self-isolate with his whole year facing similar restrictions.
He revealed 300 children were being forced to stay at home because one person in the entire year group tested positive.
"Three hundred children?" An incredulous Nick Ferrari asked branding it "absurd."
Chris said the identity of the pupil who tested positive was known and that his son has no interaction with them.
"The irony was, the day he was told to isolate he'd actually done a Covid test that morning and said he was negative."
"The whole thing is frankly farcical."
The conversation comes amid The number of outbreaks in schools and colleges jumped from 96 to 148, a rise of 54 per cent, in the week to June 20. It was the highest weekly number of outbreaks reported to Public Health England since December.
The latest government dashboard figures show a 70% weekly rise among children aged five to nine testing positive for Covid-19, mostly for the Delta variant first identified in India, and a 56 per cent jump among children aged 10-14.
Around 214,000 pupils were self-isolating at home due to “potential contact” with an infected person, up from 71,900 the week before, the Times reported.
