Rishard Khan

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

There are 316 con­firmed COVID-19 cas­es from the na­tions’ schools since pri­ma­ry school chil­dren re­turned to phys­i­cal class­es on April 19. 

Re­veal­ing the fig­ures for last week on be­half of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh at Wednes­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence.

He said be­tween April 25 and 29 there were 288 con­firmed cas­es be­tween staff and stu­dents of 243 schools. The min­is­ter was un­able to break down the cas­es by ed­u­ca­tion lev­el be­cause he was not giv­en it. 

Last Mon­day, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly told Guardian Me­dia there were 28 cas­es record­ed across 16 schools by the end of the first week. To­geth­er these make 316 con­firmed cas­es, av­er­ag­ing just over one case per school. 

How­ev­er, with­out a de­tailed break­down of the schools where cas­es were re­port­ed it will be in­ac­cu­rate to com­bine the num­ber of schools af­fect­ed be­tween the first two weeks. 

Guardian Me­dia has been un­able to get a list of af­fect­ed schools from the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion. De­spite this, a list of schools was com­piled based on re­ports com­ing from par­ents. 

Se­nior Pae­di­atric Emer­gency Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist at the North Cen­tral Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty (NCRHA), Dr Joanne Paul, re­vealed yes­ter­day there are cur­rent­ly six chil­dren ward­ed at the Cou­va Med­ical and Mul­ti-Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty with COVID-19. She added that 49 chil­dren were ad­mit­ted to the hos­pi­tal with­in the last two months with the dis­ease. How­ev­er, she said these were in­ci­den­tal ad­mis­sions mean­ing they weren’t be­ing treat­ed for COVID-19 but oth­er ail­ments. 

Par­ents’ con­cerns con­tin­ue to grow over cas­es in schools with some call­ing for their im­me­di­ate clo­sure and re­vert­ing to an on­line sys­tem. How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh is hes­i­tant to sup­port such a move. 

“We are con­cerned about COVID in the work­place, in the home, in our hos­pi­tals and in schools. So yes we are con­cerned about it. But at this stage of the pan­dem­ic the op­tion of shut­ting down and keep­ing peo­ple away from or away from school is not one that is rec­om­mend­ed be­cause the long-term so­cio-eco­nom­ic ef­fects are go­ing to be felt for years to come,” he said. 

Dr Paul ad­vised par­ents to cre­ate a “COVID-19 Kit” at home with all the nec­es­sary sup­plies to treat their chil­dren should they be­come in­fect­ed. 

The items, she said should in­clude parac­eta­mol, ibupro­fen, saline nose drops, salbu­ta­mol in­haler and spac­er if the child is known to wheeze with vi­ral ill­ness­es, gesol or Pe­di­alyte or wa­tered-down Gatorade or wa­tered-down co­conut wa­ter for hy­dra­tion, breast milk if the child is still nurs­ing, Vi­t­a­min C, pro­bi­ot­ic (small ba­by dose), and a vapouris­er or hu­mid­i­fi­er. 

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