Suspected Omicron outbreak closes Paisley primary school

A primary school in Renfrewshire has been forced to close for a week after a suspected outbreak of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Parents of children at Todholm Primary in Lochfield Road, Paisley, were told by email about the closure on Sunday.

Renfrewshire Council said the decision was taken as they were unable to maintain necessary staffing levels.

Todholm pupils have been switched to remote learning from Monday 6 December until Friday 10 December.

Two class groups in P1 and another in P2 are self-isolating, as well as multiple staff members.

Renfrewshire Council said they were required to isolate following NHS Test and Protect contact tracing.

A spokeswoman added: "This is due to Covid-19 cases linked to the school confirmed as being, or with the potential to be, the new Omicron variant.

"Following identification of cases, a further risk assessment was carried out by public health and environmental health teams and all appropriate health and safety measures were found to be robust.

"We have apologised to parents for any disruption and will keep them updated."

In an email from the school, parents were asked to be vigilant for symptoms of Covid-19 and to isolate and book a PCR test as soon as possible if symptoms develop.

Early indications from South Africa suggested it may be more transmissible than the Delta variant and it may carry an increased risk of reinfection.

Prof Paul Hunter, an expert in infectious diseases from the University of East Anglia, told the BBC the Omicron variant will probably become the UK's dominant Covid variant "within weeks".

Omicron "is spreading rather more quickly than the Delta variant", he said, pointing to a "rapid increase" is in cases in South Africa.

"How it's likely to spread in UK is still uncertain, but I think the early signs are it will probably spread quite quickly and probably start outcompeting Delta, and become the dominant variant probably within the next weeks or a month or so at least."

He also said the remaining question was how harmful this variant was.