Why the mystery about covid19 in schools?

- Photo courtesy Pixabay
- Photo courtesy Pixabay

Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly told Newsday on Thursday that the Education District Health unit is managing reports of covid19 infection in schools.

Once the decision was taken to reopen schools to both vaccinated and unvaccinated students, the risk of exposure increased.

Iere High in Siparia, Bishop Anstey-Trinity College East in Trincity and Signal Hill Secondary and Bishops High School in Tobago have reported cases among students and teachers.

On Wednesday, Signal Hill Secondary and Bishops High were closed for sanitation following the discovery of a case at each school.

Technical Director of Epidemiology at the Ministry of Health, Dr Avery Hinds has reported that there are 55 covid19 cases in educational districts in Trinidad as reported by the Education Ministry. Tobago has not offered any reporting of cases in schools.

But there has also been little information about these cases that might inform classroom and schoolyard management procedures.

Dr Stephen Sheppard, chairman of the board for Bishop Anstey-Trinity College East, noted that the four positive cases at the schools are all members of staff and that the school has been deep sanitised.

When schools are closed for sanitising, education reverts to virtual methods, causing further disruptions

The health ministry has said nothing about the vectors for these infections in the school system, but mystery does little to reinforce public confidence in the government's handling of the situation.

On Saturday, the signals from the pandemic response team were dire.

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh acknowledged that the national covid19 vaccination programme had stalled, with 600,000 citizens declining vaccination.

Principal Medical Officer Dr Maryam Richards explained that occupancy of the parallel health system is at 86 per cent.

While parties and public fetes are banned, fears of local inventiveness in socialising are merited.

"We are in a dangerous place," the Prime Minister said.

In the US, the correlation between low vaccination rates in communities and infection rates in schools is worrying.

New York now has a full vaccination rate of 67.5 per cent but by the third day after school opened on August 16, 169 classrooms were closed and 125 more had partial closures after 403 students and staff tested positive.

In Florida (now 58.6 per cent fully vaccinated), in early September, 26,000 children tested positive in a week quadrupling the count of children testing positive.

In San Francisco (90 per cent vaccination for students 12-17), no schools have been closed since school began in August.

As the state adapts its strategy from containment to coexistence with the virus, monitoring of potentially dangerous social practices, identification of vectors for infection and clear advice to communities must become a higher profile aspect of the management of the pandemic in TT.

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"Why the mystery about covid19 in schools?"

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