Hundreds of Thirroul primary school children may miss out on their favourite Christmas festivities including carols in the park and meeting Santa at the mall after they were plunged back into a harsh lockdown this week.
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Thirroul Public School issued an email to parents of kindergarten, year one and year two on Monday afternoon which confirmed "a member of the school community had tested positive for COVID-19".
The notice said there was no requirement for the school to close as they had been operating strict cohorting but encouraged every student in the three junior year groups to self-isolate as a precaution while NSW Health carried out thorough contact tracing.
Parents of more than 250 school children then received a letter from NSW Health on Tuesday identifying their child as a close contact to the positive case and advised them to self-isolate for 14-days from the exposure date - allowing them to return to Christmas festivities in the community at midnight on Christmas Eve.
Overnight 26 new COVID-19 cases were recorded in the Illawarra Shoalhaven.
While NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet relaxed the rules around close contacts today, the parents were yet to hear whether it would affect their current lockdown situation.
The news came as a blow for mother-of-three Pete Muller who was forced to cancel her plans to travel to Parkes and celebrate the festive season with her family when her daughter April, seven, was named a close contact.
"The letter suggested I try to arrange for my seven-year-old to self-isolate away from the other children but how can you possibly do that?" she said.
"I've had to take carer's leave and pull the other two out of school and daycare.
"We're renovating at the moment so it's pretty hard keeping all of them busy in a tiny cottage.
"It has ruined our Christmas plans because we were supposed to be travelling back to my home town next week to celebrate with my family.
"We've hardly seen them this year due to the pandemic."
The latest lockdown was a further disappointment for Alex Etherington, who said she had only just got her three children back into a "normal routine" after they were forced to self-isolate for a fortnight because they visited Thirroul Surf Club for a Halloween party.
"It seems incredibly heavy handed, especially when you think that as of today you can go in to a retail store without wearing a mask," she said.
"It's so tough on the kids because they were only just getting back to nippers, swimming lessons and ballet.
"My husband and I both own our own businesses and we can't have anyone come to the house to look after our children so we are having to take turns at going to work for the day.
"It's tricky because we don't get paid for these days and you get no compensation for them either."
Questions to NSW Health failed to shed light on the Thirroul situation. A spokesperson said: Fully vaccinated contacts will only have to isolate until they receive a negative PCR result. However, household close contacts and close contacts in any other settings identified by NSW Health will still be required to isolate for seven days and comply with PCR testing requirements.
"The vast majority of people currently isolating were identified as close contacts because they are household contacts, or are linked to high risk settings or high risk exposure. These people will be required to stay there until they have completed seven days of isolation and returned a negative PCR result on day one and day six.
"NSW Health will contact the small minority of people currently isolating who will now be advised they can leave isolation after returning a negative PCR result."
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