Families rush to have their children tested following positive case of Covid-19 at Auckland school

September 18, 2020

Health authorities are encouraging all students and staff to get tested after a student there tested positive for the virus earlier this week.

A line up of cars has queued today outside Chapel Downs Primary School in southeast Auckland as families race to have their children tested for Covid-19 following a positive case at the school.

It comes after a student attended the school on Monday for half an hour before being taken home.

The Ministry of Health said in a statement to 1 NEWS today the positive test for the student was confirmed at 8.17am Monday. The Auckland Regional Public Health Service communicated the test result to the family at 8.39am.

This is the date the ministry was formally notified and it is the same day it publicly reported the case.

"This timeline means there was a period on Monday morning when the family would have been unaware of the child’s positive result. That is when the child – who was asymptomatic - was briefly on the school grounds but was picked up following notification of the result," the statement said.

However, parents of children at the school were only alerted to the situation on Wednesday after the health service discovered the child had actually been at school on the Monday. Health advice is to remain in self-isolation while a Covid-19 test is pending.

A testing site is now stationed at the school today and tomorrow as all staff and students were asked as a precaution to take a Covid-19 test. 

Some parents were anxious about children passing the virus on. 1 NEWS spoke to a parent who said his 75-year-old mother is a caregiver to his daughter who attends the school.

“We are just concerned about her as well because elderly people are more in trouble with this disease,” he said.

The health service said five people have been identified as close contacts of the positive case, and will stay in self-isolation for 14 days until the end of Monday September 28.

"The child who was briefly at school was not symptomatic, but was waiting for results from a Covid-19 test from 13 September. The child left school before children began classes for the day, further reducing the risk to the school community,” a statement said yesterday.

The health service said it has worked with the family closely "to communicate the importance of staying in self-isolation and the family has been cooperating with public health and members have been tested and have stayed in isolation until this event".

The school said today via its Facebook page that it would still open on Monday as per the Auckland Regional Public Health Service's advice. 

A Ministry of Health spokesperson confirmed to 1 NEWS the Chapel Downs case has been epidemiologically linked to the Botany sub-cluster, which has six cases in total.


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