Testing is now available to members of school staff who are not symptomatic but who are concerned that they have been at risk from infection.
Staff who have Covid symptoms, or who share a household with someone who has symptoms, are already able to book a test.
In Aberdeenshire both groups can request a test through the AskHR portal:
https://abshire.cherwellondemand.com/CherwellPortal/HRCOVID19Testing
If you click that you are symptomatic, you will be taken to the government site to request a test yourself.
Where you are not symptomatic the link will take you to a form to complete where HR will request a test on your behalf. These requests will be uploaded once per day.
Scottish Government advice warns that it’s important to note that whilst asymptomatic testing can be reassuring it can also be misleading and cannot exclude the possibility that the virus is present, or that the person may go on to be infected or to develop the illness.
It states: “The COVID-19 tests used in Scotland work by detecting evidence of the virus in a person’s nose and throat sample (which is collected using a nasopharyngeal swab to collection secretions from the back of the throat and then the back of the nose). These tests cannot tell us whether or not someone is incubating the disease, but only if evidence of the virus is present at the time when they are tested.
“This means that testing is a single point in time assessment of whether a person may be infectious but it cannot tell us whether a person is going to become ill in the future. Therefore a negative result cannot reliably be used to inform individual risk or as the basis for reducing mitigations to reduce the risk of transmission such as hygiene and distancing.
“Sometimes when the test is taken and returns a positive result, it needs to be repeated. Self-isolation must continue until the repeat result is available and further advice provided thereafter by your NHS team.
“Individuals who are concerned they may have come into contact with an infected person, but are unsure about undertaking testing, also have the alternative option of approaching NHS Inform for further information.”