Two ad­di­tion­al cas­es of COVID-19 were con­firmed among staff at the Iere High School in Siparia yes­ter­day.

The new in­fec­tions were de­tect­ed among work­ers at the school’s cafe­te­ria, who, Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands, were last on the school’s com­pound last Fri­day.

An of­fi­cial from the school said they were test­ed on Sun­day and re­turned the pos­i­tive re­sults on Wednes­day.

Guardian Me­dia was as­sured that all pro­to­cols were be­ing en­gaged to en­sure the health and safe­ty of staff and stu­dents are pro­tect­ed. Sani­ti­sa­tion ex­er­cis­es are ex­pect­ed to be con­duct­ed this morn­ing. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands the school is al­so await­ing fur­ther in­struc­tions from the Min­istry of Health.

Ear­li­er this week, two sib­lings who at­tend the school test­ed pos­i­tive for the dis­ease and prompt­ed over 60 oth­er stu­dents to be placed in­to quar­an­tine.

How­ev­er, one con­cerned par­ent is ques­tion­ing why the school has not yet been closed.

“If you have to think about the safe­ty of every­body you could shut it down. Re­mem­ber, class­es can be on­line. So it’s not as if the stu­dents will miss class­es,” the par­ent told Guardian Me­dia.

The par­ent added that the school should at least be closed for a few days to al­low for thor­ough sani­ti­sa­tion.

On­ly on Tues­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas said the union sus­pect­ed there were more cas­es of COVID in oth­er sec­ondary schools across the coun­try, in­clud­ing Pa­lo Seco, Ma­son Hall and Rio Claro West Sec­ondary Schools.

She called for prop­er health and safe­ty prac­tices by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion has said it was ex­pect­ed that cas­es of COVID-19 would oc­cur in schools but as­sured the Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict Health Unit was set up and strict guide­lines were al­so es­tab­lished to deal with such sit­u­a­tions.