Update COVID-19: Advice to all students, parents & carers – 27/11/2020
Dear students, parents and carers
Further to my last communication to you on 20th November 2020, I would like to update you on the current COVID-19 situation in the College.
REPORTED COVID-19 CASES: LATEST DATA
The table below gives the most up-to-date picture of COVID-19 infections at South Devon College in all areas.
| Weekly cases: 8 (Total cases reported during the last 7 days – this gives an indication of the number of current cases) |
| Total cases: 34 (A running total of positive/presumed positive cases reported to the College by students and staff since the first case was reported on Wednesday 7th October 2020) |
Transmission
I would like to remind and reassure all students, parents and carers that each time we are alerted to a positive or presumed positive case, we undertake a forensic risk assessment process. We do this with Torbay Council who are responsible for local outbreak management and the professionals at Public Health England who provide the specialist expertise. We do this to quickly identify close contacts of the case and instruct those individuals to self-isolate following the national guidelines. From these risk assessment processes to date, we genuinely believe there is no evidence of any transmission within the College of this virus. Students and staff who have tested positive are usually able to identify where they caught the virus. In our cases to date the virus has been contracted through household or work contacts outside of the College.
Torbay to be in Tier 2 COVID restrictions from 2 December
The government announced yesterday that Devon, including Torbay, will be in Tier 2 of the local COVID restrictions until at least 16 December. This is to help tackle the spread of coronavirus in Torbay. As a College we will remain open and there will not be any change to our COVID secure measures currently in place. Further details outlining Tier 2 restrictions are available here.
Please remember to complete the ‘out of hours Notification of a POSTIVE COVID-19 test result’ form to alert us if you, a member of your household or other close contact identified through Track & Trace, receive a positive test result in the evening or during the weekend. This online form is available via our main website.
Please note, if you are required to self-isolate because you have been told to do so by the College, the NHS App, NHS Test & Trace or a member of your household/close contact is symptomatic and then you subsequently develop COVID symptoms, please do notify your tutor immediately.
As promised, we will continue to issue a weekly update of the number of confirmed cases within the College. We will provide this update at 2pm on Friday afternoon each week including during College holidays.
Everything possible is being done to safely keep the College open for students and staff. The College remains open and, providing you and your family members remain well, coming to College and work can continue as normal. This continues to be a real team effort and we ask every single student and staff member to keep doing everything possible to keep each other safe and well.
Thank you very much for your ongoing support.
Yours sincerely,
Laurence Frewin
Principal and CEO
South Devon College