There are 28 stu­dents from 16 schools na­tion­wide to test pos­i­tive for COVID-19 since the start of the third aca­d­e­m­ic term one week ago. This is based on in­for­ma­tion col­lect­ed by the Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Health Unit. There are 18 stu­dents who are still await­ing re­sults while 92 have been quar­an­tined since. In all, 49 of the na­tion's 830 pub­lic schools have had stu­dents test­ed for the dis­ease.

Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, the Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Health Unit of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has been as­sist­ing Prin­ci­pals with the man­age­ment of COVID 19 cas­es since phys­i­cal school re­sumed in Feb­ru­ary 2021, to present. 

Pul­mo­nolo­gist and Dean at the Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Pro­fes­sor Ter­ence Seemu­n­gal told Guardian Me­dia the cas­es in the school sys­tem is not sur­pris­ing.

"The Omi­cron vari­ant has not been caus­ing se­vere dis­ease so we would ex­pect that when schools open up, not just schools but the pop­u­la­tion and of course...the East­er week­end was a lit­tle while ago, that you will ex­pect a rise in cas­es," he said.

On Mon­day the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion dis­missed a ru­mour cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia as "fake news." The ru­mour claimed that talks would be held at the end of this week to close schools and re­vert to a hy­brid sys­tem in light of the cas­es.

While the num­ber of cas­es may be alarm­ing, Pro­fes­sor Seemu­n­gal said the best ac­tion would be to "stay the course." He said the cur­rent out­break in the coun­try and schools did not war­rant the rein­tro­duc­tion of re­stric­tions. "Once the hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion isn't go­ing up, I think we just have to be pre­pared to ride it out," he said.
"The price is very high to start back clos­ing down again. You have to bal­ance. It's an eco­nom­ic cost against a so­cial cost."

There is yet to be any de­fin­i­tive word on when the pae­di­atric Pfiz­er COVID-19 vac­cines for chil­dren 5-11 years old will ar­rive in T&T. Spain has agreed to do­nate 40,000 dos­es to the coun­try and the Min­is­ter of Health signed off on the draft agree­ment on April 13. 

Re­porter: Rishard Khan