There is no outbreak of COVID-19 at the Princess Margaret Secondary School and no reason to panic.
So says Minister of Health and Wellnes Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic who this evening sought to quell fears that the respiratory illness was rampant at the St Philip institution as well as at the St George Primary School.
During a nationally-televised press conference Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kenneth George confirmed that health authorities were investigating exposures at the two schools.
He said while one student at Princess Margaret had tested positive, no positive cases had yet been identified at St George Primary.
However, the affected classes have been suspended.
The development comes just four days following the resumption of face-to-face classes for students across the island.
Dr George said the infections had been linked to two extended family clusters.
He revealed the student of concern at St George Primary had returned a negative test result on the first test and a second was scheduled for the next 48 hours.
Dr George said there were 58 contacts from two fifth-form classes at Princess Margaret, however, two persons were considered to be close contacts and had been quarantined and would be tested today.
He said while three teachers had already been tested all contacts would eventually be tested.
“These cases are linked. As I said there are two extended families which we continue to look at and in that family group we have identified several persons who have been positive and those persons are being managed at Harrison’s Point,” he explained.
Bostic gave the assurance that health authorities were on top of the situation.
While he staunchly defended the current protocols in place at schools, he said having a positive COVID-19 case at a school was “par for the course”, in reference to last year’s scare at the Ellerslie Secondary School.
“It is important for me to put this into perspective. At this point in time, we do not have a problem at the two schools even though we have concerns. One positive case and the fact that this is a really a family cluster that we are dealing with which has spread its wings into these two schools,” Bostic pointed out.
“We’ve taken all of the public health measures that we can take at this point in time and based on the experience that we would have had with dealing with the situation at Ellerslie, we are applying that experience to this situation and we are confident that we will be able to deal effectively with the situation at the schools.
“The major point here is that we do not have an outbreak at the Princess Margaret Secondary School, at least not at this point in time. We will follow the science and do the necessary testing and by the time we are finished with the testing we will know exactly what is going on,” the minister added.
Acting Chief Education Officer, Joy Adamson acknowledged that some fifth-form students at Princess Margaret might be affected by the incident. She said the ministry would be closely monitoring the situation next week.
However, she said she expected minimal disruption at St George Primary.
Bostic said testing would be made available on Saturday for all staff at Princess Margaret.
Both the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT) and the Barbados Secondary Teachers’ Union (BSTU) were opposed to the timeline for the resumption of face-to-face classes.
The minister of health admitted that in a meeting with union officials today some concerns had been raised.
Bostic said the issues related to the transportation of students as well as large gatherings of students after school had been dismissed.
He said the ministry was looking at deploying more community health liaison officers from the COVID-19 Monitoring Unit to schools to help manage those situations. (randybennett@barbadostoday.bb)
