Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day con­firmed that 21 peo­ple with­in the sec­ondary school sys­tem test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 last week. This makes it at least 99 cas­es to emerge from with­in the sec­ondary school sys­tem since stu­dents re­turned to phys­i­cal class­es on Oc­to­ber 4.

Fig­ures pro­vid­ed to Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in­di­cate that for the pe­ri­od No­vem­ber 15 to 19, there were al­so 84 peo­ple in quar­an­tine. They were 43 staff mem­bers and 41 stu­dents. For the week pri­or, No­vem­ber 7 to 13, Deyals­ingh said there were 23 pos­i­tive cas­es record­ed.

De­spite these cas­es, he said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s re­port notes: “No stu­dent out to phys­i­cal school, to the knowl­edge of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, has been hos­pi­talised.”

Two weeks ago, it was re­vealed that 55 cas­es were record­ed be­tween Oc­to­ber 4 and No­vem­ber 5. This means there are at least 99 cas­es com­ing out of the na­tion’s schools. The num­ber of cas­es could be high­er by the end of this week.

The dis­trict with the high­est num­ber of pos­i­tive cas­es record­ed last week was Ca­roni with eight. Be­tween Oc­to­ber 4 and No­vem­ber 5, there were just three cas­es in the dis­trict. Close­ly be­hind was Vic­to­ria with six cas­es.

Port-of-Spain, St Patrick and St George East each record­ed two cas­es.

The South East­ern dis­trict record­ed on­ly one case, while the North-East­ern dis­trict did not record any cas­es.

There have been 14 schools with sus­pect­ed or pos­i­tive cas­es to date, in­clud­ing Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, Princes Town East Sec­ondary, Iere High School, Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary School, To­ba­go, St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School, Bish­op Anstey High School East & Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE), Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School, Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary School and St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege.

Cas­es by Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict, No­vem­ber 15-19

Port-of-Spain, 2

North East­ern, 0

Ca­roni, 8

St Patrick, 2

Vic­to­ria, 6

South East­ern, 1

St George East, 2