SA Health gives boarding students a social isolation reprieve following ‘weeks of angst’ over tough close contact rules

Tough isolation rules were regularly sending boarding students hundreds of kilometres away – but now, they’ve finally been given a reprieve from the rules deemed a “mental health risk”.

Boarding students are finally getting relief from tough social isolation requirements that led to dozens of them being sent home hundreds of kilometres away.

Colleges had been crying out for a rethink of SA Health rules requiring students to go into isolation for a week if someone in their boarding house contracted Covid-19.

SA Health says it has advised schools that they can introduce ‘test-to-stay’ measures for close contacts, where boarders complete rapid antigen tests (RATs) each day for seven days since their last contact with a positive case.

While welcoming the changes, Loreto principal Nicole Archard said they should have been brought in much earlier to eliminate “six weeks of angst” among students.

“I think the changes are being more driven by the election than anything else,” Dr Archard said.

“It certainly did put families under a lot of unnecessary pressure.”

Dr Archard said the tough restrictions had risked students’ mental health.

Loreto College students Hillary, 16, and Georgia, 17, are among those who have been affected by tough social isolation rules. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Until now, students deemed a close contact in boarding houses have been either sent home to their parents’ properties to isolate, or have quarantined in their rooms away from others.

At Loreto, students have also been testing three times a week, wearing masks in all communal areas, and were asked to socialise locally and not stay overnight at friends’ houses.

Year 11 student Hilary Longstaff has spent 22 days in isolation this year after Covid-19 went through her family in January; then in February, she was classed a close contact of another case.

She had to leave the Marryatville boarding house and return home to the Yorke Peninsula to isolate.

“It was pretty challenging,” the 16-year-old said.

“Being in year 11 with lots of assignments … you feel pretty behind sometimes and not where you should be.”

The school’s head girl Georgina Tenny, 17, isolated for six days in the boarding house because she was deemed a close contact after another boarder tested positive.

The Year 12 student isolated in her room rather than travelling home to Hindmarsh Island, because that would have risked her mother’s ability to work.

“I’m scared it will happen again, so I’m scared of going out because I don’t want to go back in (to isolation) again,” she said last week before the changes.

Andrew Meaney’s daughter Ella was among about 20 Seymour College year 10 boarders who left the house in February following a Covid-19 case.

The family lives in Darwin, so Ella went to stay with a fellow boarder’s family on the Eyre Peninsula.

Mr Meaney said SA Health had been treating boarding houses “like a nursing home”.

An SA Health spokeswoman said earlier requirements were necessary to allow SA Health to assess the effects of Covid-19 cases in boarding schools, and while rates of vaccination were increasing.

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