Covid19-positive Tobago student to miss SEA

One Secondary Entrance Assessment (SEA) student in Tobago has tested positive for covid19 and will miss Thursday's national exam.

This was disclosed by Secretary of Health, Wellness and Family Development Tracy Davidson-Celestine at Wednesday’s post-Executive Council media briefing at the Victor E Bruce Financial Complex in Scarborough.

According to Davidson-Celestine, several SEA students were swabbed and tested and one returned positive.

“There is one positive SEA student and that person would not be allowed to sit the SEA exam,” she said.

Cognisant of patient confidentiality, the secretary did not to divulge the child’s gender or the school but hinted arrangements would be made for the student to sit the exam at another time.

“We have said it time and time again, I really don’t want to profile anyone at this point in time. What we do, we give general information on the case; we speak about how many persons are positive, that kind of thing without going into specifics of age and gender and address and that kind of thing. At this point in time, the information is one of those students have since tested positive and would not be able to sit the SEA exam. I am advised that arrangements… I’m not sure, might be made for another time, that is yet to be confirmed,” she said.

School reopened for SEA students only on July 20 but had to be closed on August 5 after several schools in Trinidad were shut down owing to students testing positive for covid19.

Questioned about when the student may have contracted the virus, Davidson-Celestine said, “From my information, no, that student was not at school at that point in time, based on the information I have.

“In terms of the contact tracing that was done, apparently, there was a mother-child transmission and so those persons are to be quarantined today. They are the last of the three cases that were unearthed sometime this morning so that is being dealt with, but from the information that I have it did not happen at the school facilities and like I said, the other students who are to sit the SEA exam tomorrow would not be exposed to that individual because that individual, that person would be quarantined.”

On Wednesday, the division in a press released notified the public that three additional people had tested positive for covid19 on the island, bringing the total covid19 cases in Tobago to 25.

According to the release, all three are contacts of a recent positive case, adding that all established protocols have since been implemented, inclusive of contact tracing which is ongoing. It noted that consequently, there are currently 18 active cases being treated in Tobago.