RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Just four days af­ter the re­open­ing of in-per­son school, class­es at the Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, have been sus­pend­ed af­ter the rel­a­tive of a teacher test­ed pos­i­tive for COVID-19 yes­ter­day.

Six­ty-one pupils and 41 mem­bers of staff were ad­vised to evac­u­ate the school dur­ing lunchtime yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing di­rec­tives from the Coun­ty Med­ical Of­fi­cer of Health. 

A sani­ti­sa­tion crew ar­rived there­after and thor­ough­ly sani­tised the school.

In a note is­sued to par­ents fol­low­ing the in­ci­dent, a se­nior school of­fi­cial said no stu­dent or teacher had test­ed pos­i­tive for the virus.

How­ev­er, the of­fi­cial said there will be no on­line or phys­i­cal school to­day be­cause of a planned teach­ers’ con­ven­tion.

“The stu­dents who would have been in the teacher’s class would be those in Form 5C and those do­ing Eco­nom­ics in Form 6,” the of­fi­cial said.

A to­tal of eight stu­dents had been in con­tact with the teacher.

The of­fi­cial told par­ents that they will be ap­praised of de­vel­op­ments be­fore Mon­day.

The teacher went for a PCR COVID-19 test at a pri­vate med­ical fa­cil­i­ty reg­is­tered with the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day and the re­sults of the test are ex­pect­ed to­day. 

Just about 100 stu­dents of Shi­va Boys’ are ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed, but not every vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dent has been re­port­ing for school since in-per­son class­es res­mumed. On Mon­day, there were 70-plus stu­dents but this de­clined as the week pro­gressed. 

A par­ent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said while no stu­dent or teacher has test­ed pos­i­tive at the school, she was still con­cerned about stu­dent safe­ty.

“We are hap­py that they sani­tised the school but I am very wor­ried about send­ing back my son there,” she added. 

The school has 46 staffers of which 41 re­port­ed for du­ty on Thurs­day.