RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

COVID-19 in­fec­tions have been re­port­ed at the Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary School and St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege in Diego Mar­tin.

A source who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty yes­ter­day said the Form Five stu­dent of Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary fell ill in late Oc­to­ber.

Ten days lat­er, a school staff mem­ber al­so be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing flu-like symp­toms and was sent for test­ing but the mat­ter was nev­er made pub­lic.

In a let­ter sent to Guardian Me­dia, a source at Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary said ad­min­is­tra­tors were tak­ing ad­van­tage of teach­ers and abus­ing their au­thor­i­ty by with­hold­ing the in­for­ma­tion.

“The ad­min­is­tra­tion has op­er­at­ed as though it was safe for staff and stu­dents to re­turn to school as nor­mal the next day. The nurse in­di­cat­ed that there was on­ly one pri­ma­ry con­tact de­spite the stu­dent min­gling at school dur­ing lunchtimes with­out mask and so­cial dis­tanc­ing and the fact that there were teach­ers who taught for 55 min­utes. Many oth­er stu­dents in­ter­act­ed with the said stu­dent. Prop­er screen­ing was not done, as on­ly the stu­dent was con­sult­ed,” the source said.

There was al­so se­cre­cy about the iden­ti­ty of the staffer who was said to have flu-like symp­toms and the COVID test re­sults have nev­er been dis­closed of­fi­cial­ly to the staff.

“Teach­ers are be­ing told that they can­not know who the per­son is. So then how are teach­ers to pro­tect them­selves, their fam­i­lies, know when or if to get test­ed? How are stu­dents who are “care­less and care­free” in their in­ter­ac­tions to know that if they ex­hib­it any symp­toms it is be­cause they are ex­posed? This de­ci­sion not to in­form stake­hold­ers is af­fect­ing in­di­vid­u­als and fam­i­lies,” the source said.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has been in­formed, along with the Min­istry of Health, about de­vel­op­ments at Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary but there was no de­ci­sion tak­en to stop phys­i­cal class­es un­til late last week.

“Prin­ci­pals have no say in whether the class­es can go on­line, on­ly the SS3 can dic­tate this,” the source added.

The source said oth­er schools have han­dled COVID cas­es dif­fer­ent­ly, not­ing that the min­istry should out­line a com­pre­hen­sive pol­i­cy to deal with how sit­u­a­tions are han­dled at school. 

“The cur­rent pol­i­cy leaves teach­ers “naked” to fend for them­selves, re­sult­ing in staff be­ing black­mailed to stay away from school by tak­ing leave. The stu­dents and par­ents are even more help­less, as they are not in­formed at all and can­not take de­ci­sions to mit­i­gate the sit­u­a­tion due to this lack of in­for­ma­tion,” the source added. 

Clean­ers at the Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary School have al­so com­plained about the lack of in­for­ma­tion.

“Many are not wear­ing the prop­er PPE to en­gage in sani­ti­sa­tion, as it is not pro­vid­ed for them. Clean­ers are not aware of how to sani­tise crit­i­cal high­ly-touched sur­faces such as door­knobs or ar­eas un­der the desks or chairs that are held by mul­ti­ple per­sons. Sani­ti­sa­tion is not oc­cur­ring at some in­sti­tu­tions be­fore or af­ter class­es or dur­ing pe­ri­ods. Teach­ers are not be­ing in­formed of whether class­es are sani­tised or not. They are sim­ply go­ing in to teach in some­times an un­clean and un­sani­tised class,” the source added.

Mean­while, at St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, a cir­cu­lar was is­sued in­di­cat­ing that a staffer was COVID-19-pos­i­tive. Stu­dents were urged to con­tin­ue fol­low­ing COVID pro­to­cols. 

The staff mem­ber last re­port­ed for class­es on No­vem­ber 8. Sev­er­al stu­dents are cur­rent­ly in quar­an­tine but are said to be COVID-free. The school con­tin­ues to be sani­tised dai­ly both be­fore and dur­ing lunch breaks.

Over 10 schools in T&T have re­port­ed COVID-19 in­fec­tions since phys­i­cal class­es re­sumed on Oc­to­ber 4.

Among the schools with sus­pect­ed or pos­i­tive cas­es were Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, Princes Town East Sec­ondary, Iere High School, Ma­son Hall Sec­ondary School, To­ba­go, St Au­gus­tine Girls’ High School, Bish­op Anstey High School East & Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE) and Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary School.