sto­ries by RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Calls are be­ing made for par­ents to keep their sick chil­dren at home af­ter six pupils from three Pres­by­ter­ian schools test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19.

This brings to 18 the num­ber of pupils who have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 in eight schools across the coun­try.

A source at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion yes­ter­day con­firmed that a to­tal six pupils had test­ed pos­i­tive at Guaico Pres­by­ter­ian, Cunu­pia Pres­by­ter­ian and Grant Memo­r­i­al Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry schools late last week.

 Al­ready, 12 more pos­i­tive cas­es have been iden­ti­fied at Pe­nal Rock SDMS, Tul­sa Trace Hin­du, Al Hu­da Pri­ma­ry, Dayanand Memo­r­i­al Vedic and San Fer­nan­do AS­JA Pri­ma­ry schools.

Apart from these 18 stu­dents, three se­nior school of­fi­cials from the Pres­by­ter­ian schools were sent in­to quar­an­tine, with one of them lat­er test­ing pos­i­tive. 

“Two teach­ers have test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 and two more have been sent in­to quar­an­tine. In to­tal, six stu­dents from the Pres­by­ter­ian schools test­ed pos­i­tive, while four more were await­ing their COVID-19 re­sults,” a source said.

Mean­while, a par­ent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said many peo­ple were now con­sid­er­ing keep­ing their chil­dren home.

“We do not think it is safe at this time be­cause the chil­dren have not been vac­ci­nat­ed. Now, we are hear­ing those sick chil­dren are in school. What about screen­ing? What about the pro­to­cols,” the par­ent said.

With three chil­dren sit­ting at a desk in their child’s school, the par­ent said there is no way to so­cial­ly dis­tance.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, chair­man of the Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School Board, Vick­ram Ram­lal, said when chil­dren go to school sick, it places an ad­di­tion­al bur­den on the school staff.

“We are say­ing the child has a fever and cold and some par­ents are re­fus­ing to test. The child should stay home dur­ing the nor­mal quar­an­tine pe­ri­od of 10 days. If a child is in my school on Mon­day and the child has a fever, that child should not be al­lowed to come back to school. The min­istry must al­so give guide­lines on that,” Ram­lal said.

He al­so not­ed that in dif­fer­ent ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts and coun­ties, dif­fer­ent quar­an­tine di­rec­tives were be­ing is­sued and this has been con­fus­ing to prin­ci­pals and par­ents.

He ex­plained, “In dif­fer­ent ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts and coun­ties, the Min­istry Ed­u­ca­tion Health Unit is giv­ing dif­fer­ent guide­lines. In one school in North-East­ern, a First-Year child test­ed pos­i­tive and they told the en­tire class to go in­to quar­an­tine. In St George East, a child test­ed pos­i­tive, they told the four chil­dren who were sit­ting around the child to go in­to quar­an­tine. In Vic­to­ria, a child test pos­i­tive, they say sani­tise the class and con­tin­ue class­es like nor­mal. We don’t know which guide­lines they are us­ing to de­ter­mine who quar­an­tines when a child is pos­i­tive.”

Ram­lal al­so lament­ed that “chil­dren are be­ing sent to school de­spite hav­ing fam­i­ly mem­bers of the same house­hold in quar­an­tine.”

He al­so called on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ad­dress the short­age of fur­ni­ture, not­ing that some schools had space to ac­com­mo­date more desks.

On Fri­day, in re­sponse to COVId out­breaks in schools, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said when cas­es crop up in schools, the prin­ci­pals get sup­port to man­age these cas­es from the staff of the Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Health Unit. 

“There are clear guide­lines for COVID-19 case man­age­ment, which all Prin­ci­pals have been ap­prised of, which in­clude com­mu­ni­ca­tion to the school com­mu­ni­ty,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said.