The Department of Education has launched a pilot program trialling Rapid Antigen Home Testing (RAHT) kits to reduce disruption at schools.
Announced by Minister for Education and Early Childhood Learning, Sarah Mitchell, the pilot began on Monday (1 November) with students and staff in Albury.
“We will be trialling the tests in two ways: A broad surveillance approach, along with close contact testing to reduce initial positive cases on school sites and reduce the amount of time close contact students need to spend away from school,” Ms Mitchell said.
“The surveillance method will see the kits distributed by schools for use at home by staff and students, who are asked to do a test twice a week as part of community surveillance,” she said.
“People with a positive result would need to follow up with a regular (PCR) test at a NSW Health testing centre and those who test negative will go on with their normal day-to-day routines assured that they are not infected or at risk of spreading the virus.”
Ms Mitchell said unvaccinated students who were close contacts of a positive case would also be able to reduce their isolation time by using the kits on a daily basis.
“NSW Health has advised us that close contacts of COVID-positive cases will have their isolation period halved to seven days provided they receive a consistent negative result,” she said.
The Minister said it was important to note that a positive rapid antigen test did not mean an individual had COVID-19, it meant they needed to get a standard Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test straight away to confirm the result.
“It is important to note that use of the RAHT kits will be optional, but close contacts who opted not to undertake the daily tests would need to self-isolate for the full 14 days,” Ms Mitchell said.
