[UPDATED] Rowley: Vaccinated students in forms 4-6 may return to school October 1

The Prime Minister has announced that fully vaccinated secondary school students preparing for examinations will be allowed to return to face-to-face classes from October 1.

He said if there was no significant change in the country’s covid19 numbers, the vaccinated students would have the option to return to classes physically.

Fully vaccinated students in forms four, five and six would be allowed to return to school while unvaccinated students would continue participating in online classes, Dr Rowley said during a covid19 media conference at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann's on Saturday.

“That option is going to be offered to vaccinated children only. And those children who are not vaccinated will get their education at this time, by an alternative means which the Ministry of Education will outline in the near future.”

Most children have been doing online classes since March, 2020, which will continue when the new school year begins on September 6.

The roll out of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged 12-18 began on August 18. Since full vaccination occurred two weeks after the second dose, physical classes would begin after the vaccination of children concluded. Therefore, children who intend to attend physical classes should be vaccinated by September 14.

“Without going into too much detail, and I’m speaking to parents and guardians, online lessons do not a substitute for education make. It is largely private business for profit and I’m cautioning parents that this is not a substitute to your children going to school.

“In fact the government will be monitoring this situation very closely and will take appropriate steps as required to ensure that the pandemic does not establish new policies to the detriment of parents and children.”

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said 22,330 children, ages 12-18, were vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine, including 35 migrants.

He said children getting vaccinated at mass vaccination sites was the first phase. The second would be pop-ups at various schools where students could get vaccinated.

“We are going to start to roll it out to specific schools and have the school population comes in on a specific day to get vaccinated, all in an effort to decrease and eliminate any barriers, physical or otherwise, to vaccination so that the honourable Prime Minister’s objective of having face-to-face classes with as much students (as possible) who are fully vaccinated can be fulfilled.”

Rowley added, “It appears as though, given the initial enthusiasm to get vaccinated at the opening of the programme for the children, it appears as though the conversation against them being vaccinated has now morphed into one of defending their rights to not be vaccinated.”

He said the bottom line was that 75 per cent of children who could be protected by vaccination were not protected.

Both Rowley and Deyalsingh urged parents and guardians to have their children vaccinated as soon as possible even as more children were getting seriously ill with covid19.

In a television interview on Friday, Rowley spoke about a parallel system of schooling if the school-aged population was not vaccinated by the time in-person classes resumed.

Speaking on Brighter Morning with Bhoe on MCTV, Rowley said he was waiting to see what the voluntary vaccination programme looked like before making any decisions.

“We will be guided by those who know best. If people are not doing what they are supposed to do, there is a role there for the government.

“We’re not saying we are prepared to have separate populations of vaccinated and unvaccinated students and teachers, but it depends on the levels of each. If there (is) a high level of vaccinated people, then the science will tolerate having a low level of unvaccinated people, but if there is a high level of unvaccinated people and a low level of vaccinated people, that risk is too high.”

Rowley noted then that students in forms four to six were the majority of those between 12-18 being vaccinated and said government will go to schools and further encourage vaccinations.

Also on Saturday, principal medical officer Dr Maryam Abdool-Richards reported growing cases of covid19 infections in children.

“We’ve been noticing a trend of an increasing number of children being hospitalised and admitted for management of covid19,” she said.

There were ten children in the parallel health care system being treated for the virus, she said. One was in the intensive care unit, one in the high dependency unit, and eight were in hospital wards.

This story has been adjusted to include additional details. See original post below.

The Prime Minister has announced that fully vaccinated students preparing for examinations will be allowed to return to face-to-face classes from October 1.

Dr Rowley said at a covid19 media conference on Saturday that fully vaccinated students have the “option” to return to classes physically.

Fully vaccinated students in forms four, five and six will be allowed to return to school while other students will have to continue participating in online classes.

Since the middle of August, children aged 12-18 have been allowed to take the Pfizer vaccine.

Most children have been doing online classes since March, 2020, which will continue when the new school year begins on September 6.