Our readers asked us to look into claims that positive Covid-19 cases amongst students were being recorded at their home local authorities—rather than their university towns. 

They will indeed be recorded as a positive case at their usual home address, unless they have registered with a new GP surgery at university, the government has confirmed (although their term-time addresses can also be stored in the system).

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care confirmed to us that NHS Test and Trace “uses the most up-to-date address held by the individual’s GP”.

Although many universities encourage students to register with a local GP when they arrive, the Office for National Statistics has previously noted that young healthy adults, including students, tend to be slower to register a change of address or re-register with a new GP after they move.

But there is no official data on how many people fail to do this.

The left-wing news blog Skwawkbox, and a number of prominent social media accounts have shared an allegedly leaked document from the NHS staff bank NHS Professionals, claiming it tells Covid-19 contact tracers not to trace cases that occur in schools or other educational settings.

This is not true—the document does not say this. Contact tracing work in England will continue in these cases. However, the document does say that the way contacts are traced is changing in educational settings.

The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed that single cases of Covid-19 linked to an educational setting will be handled through the schools advice line or professional clinical contact tracing staff, instead of being dealt with by Public Health England and local authorities.

Potential outbreaks will still be fully investigated. So single cases linked to educational settings are now traced centrally, instead of locally.

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