“I FEEL very sorry for anybody who grows up knowing they killed an elderly relative.”

That’s the message from the leader of Bracknell Forest Council as he urged youngsters across the borough to treat self-isolation seriously in the run-up to Christmas.

This comes after a string of coronavirus outbreaks at schools in Bracknell Forest, which have contributed to the steep rise in the borough’s coronavirus case rate.

READ MORE: All the schools in Bracknell Forest reporting full or partial closures

Since the second national lockdown ended on December 2, Bracknell Forest’s coronavirus case rate has risen from 87.3 to 159.1 per 100,000 over the past seven days, according to the latest available date from the government.

The rise has even prompted claims Bracknell Forest could be moved into Tier 2 from Tier 3.

Bracknell Forest Council leader Paul Bettison said the rise is “being driven by younger people”.

He told the News: “Our increase, and it is a huge increase, unlike the previous increases we had which were down to community transmission, these increases seem to be down to transmissions in schools.

“The interesting thing about the numbers of over 65s are still very low indeed. If you were to produce those numbers just based upon on our residents over 65, then you’d have a figure that was less than 40 [per 100,000 over seven days].

“Unfortunately, our rise is being driven by younger people.

READ MORE: Brakenhale School closed to all students

“One of the challenges for younger people who test positive is that most of them are asymptomatic.

“They don’t know they’ve got it. For the majority of people under 20 years of age, the biggest inconvenience of getting it and testing positive is the fourteen days isolation [set to be lowered to ten days from Monday, December 14].

“As such, we’re not sure how seriously these people are taking isolation.

“They’re sent home from school and that means they should be isolating and not nipping down to the park to see their buddies when they come out of school or going shopping with mum in The Lexicon.

“Anecdotally, we’re hearing of a lot of young people being seen out and about. They’re of school age so they should be in school, unless they’re not in school because they’ve been told to go home and self-isolate.

“The clue is in ‘go home and self-isolate’.

“If they don’t then there will be a lot of people having a lovely Christmas with granny and it will be the last.”

Cllr Bettison added: “One of the real problems is there will be some young people who have it but don’t know they have it because they haven’t been tested, and they’ve got no symptoms.

“If you were working in a laboratory trying to create a super spreader you would put the super spreader in the body of a child.

“People do need to be very careful indeed.

READ MORE: School forced to bring in ten temporary classrooms after roof collapse

“Parents do need to ensure if one of their offspring is sent home from school to self-isolate, that they self-isolate as seriously as anybody ever has done.

“The council can’t do anything at all. I feel very sorry for anybody who grows up knowing they killed an elderly relative.

“It would be an awful thing to bear on your conscience for the rest of your life.

“All the council can do is keep repeating this message of ‘treat self-isolation very seriously indeed’ and even to the extent that somebody is told to self-isolate on the last day of term.

“That means no Christmas for them.

“They have no symptoms but they are just as dangerous to be near as somebody who we know has it who has a cough and a loss of sense of smell and taste. A child who has no symptoms is just as contagious.”

Brakenhale is the latest school to report a coronavirus outbreak and as such teachers have shut the site for all pupils from years seven to thirteen.

The school joins a dozen others which have reported full or partial closures due to coronavirus outbreaks recently.