Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many cases of covid-19 need to be reported in (a) primary schools and (b) secondary schools, to be classified as a covid-19 outbreak in that school.

An outbreak is confirmed in a primary or secondary school when two or more test-confirmed cases of COVID-19 among individuals in a school whose illness onset dates are within 14 days of one another.

There must also be evidence of either identified direct exposure between at least two of the test-confirmed cases in the school - for example, under one metre face to face, or spending more than 15 minutes within two metres - during the infectious period of one of the cases, or when there is no sustained local community transmission therefore an absence of an alternative source of infection outside the school setting for the initially identified cases.