A Queensland father is upset his son's school fails to notify parents about COVID-19 cases despite sending out alerts for head lice infestations and chicken pox infections.
Govinda Lange, whose son Zen attends Ironside State School at St Lucia in Brisbane's west, informed the school about the eight-year-old testing positive for COVID-19 last month.
He was disappointed when the school did not tell other parents of children in year 3 about the case.
"By not passing on that information, parents or even staff and students, are not fully informed, they don't have the best information on which to exercise their personal responsibility," Mr Lange said.
"It just denies us the opportunity to make an informed decision about how we want to protect our children and ourselves."
Mr Lange said he had recently received alerts from the school about chicken pox and the school also sent out notifications about cases of head lice, while understandably protecting the identities of the children involved.
"Relative to the impact of someone catching COVID, I think head lice is far more mild, so I just don't get the disconnect between the two," he said.
"Consequences with COVID have the potential to be far more severe than something like head lice."
No nationally consistent advice to schools
Guidelines vary from state-to-state about whether principals are expected to advise parents and staff about COVID-19 cases in their schools.
The Queensland, Victorian and Northern Territory governments do not require schools to routinely notify parents but a NSW Education Department spokesperson said: "NSW schools continue to inform their community when a school reports a positive case of COVID-19."
In a statement, the Queensland Education Department said if students or staff were unwell, they were told not to attend school, and that included if they had chickenpox or COVID-19.
"In contrast, having head lice is not a disease and a child with head lice may still attend school," it said.
"The school community is therefore informed so parents/carers can proactively check children's hair for lice and carry out a treatment if needed."
In South Australia, schools are encouraged to "consider reporting to parents publicly, noting this also requires additional administrative work for schools".
A Tasmanian Education Department spokesperson said it "continues to work with public health if COVID-19 cases or absences in a class or cohort increase more than expected, to determine the most appropriate response. Communication with families often forms part of this."
And the ACT Education Directorate no longer requires schools to notify families of confirmed cases, except in the case of an outbreak, defined as greater than 25 per cent of a "class or cohort".
'My first concern is with my child'
Mr Lange developed a chronic post-viral illness, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), after catching Epstein Barr virus as a teenager and was diagnosed with long COVID after being infected with the pandemic virus last year.
"I am vulnerable," he said.
"I have previously had COVID and it really knocked me down for a prolonged period.
"I'm still in the recovery phase."
Given his medical history, and Zen's asthma, Mr Lange said Ironside State School's decision to withhold information about COVID cases made him feel "somewhat discriminated against and deprived of the information that I need to make the best choice for my family".
"For people who are vulnerable it's still very much a concern and also there seems to be mounting evidence that repeated COVID infection can lead to serious consequences down the track and that really concerns me as a parent," Mr Lange said.
"My first concern is with my child."
Zen spent his seventh birthday in the Gold Coast University Hospital after contracting COVID-19 when Ironside State School was caught up in a coronavirus cluster in August 2021 and his father suspects he contracted the virus again at school earlier this year.
"Usually it feels like a cold, but sometimes it makes me much more tired," he said.
"I like going to school, but I'm just a bit afraid of the COVID. When I had it, they didn't tell anyone about it, so I kind of worried about my friends."
The ABC unsuccessfully tried to contact Ironside State School's principal Damian Johnson about Mr Lange's concerns.
But in an email, seen by the ABC, Mr Johnson told Mr Lange that Ironside followed the processes and procedures established by the Queensland government in relation to COVID-19.
"There is no 'reporting' requirement to the whole of community," Mr Johnson wrote.
Bringing COVID-19 home from school remains 'potentially catastrophic'
COVID Safe Schools founding member Karen Armstrong, who is based in NSW, said very few Australian parents were receiving notifications when there were COVID-19 cases in a school, even when people were actively requesting the information.
"Parents need to be made aware of whether or not there are cases in the classroom or the schools so that they can make an informed decision about whether or not it's safe to send their children to school at any given time," Ms Armstrong said.
"Or, if they're going to send their children to school, to ensure that they're taking extra safety precautions, such as masking, at times of high transmission.
"This is particularly important for families where there are medically vulnerable children or children who have medically vulnerable family members because for those families, they face potentially catastrophic consequences if the children bring home a COVID infection."
Ms Armstrong said it was "absurd" that some schools were notifying parents about head lice cases, but not COVID-19 infections.
She said schools were not doing enough to combat COVID-19 transmission.
"Schools and education authorities have a duty of care, that is a legal obligation, as well as an ethical responsibility, to keep children safe while they are at school," Ms Armstrong said.
"At the moment, what we're seeing is widespread breach of that duty of care which is, quite frankly, negligence."
In the long term, Ms Armstrong said COVID Safe Schools would lobby for HVAC systems — considered gold standard equipment for ensuring clean air — to be rolled out across Australian schools.
