Two schools ‘cleared’ of COVID-19

Minister of Health and Wellness Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Bostic on Sunday announced that the St George Primary School and the Princess Margaret Secondary School are now “cleared” from a public health perspective.

Last week Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kenneth George confirmed that health authorities were investigating COVID-19 exposures at the two schools.

At a news conference this afternoon, Bostic said seven of the new positive cases of COVID-19, identified by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory in its most recent report, were attributed to two family clusters that health officials have been following for the past several days.

He said one of those family clusters had three new cases, while the other had four. 

The family with three new cases now has 17 members positive.

“[In] the other family, there are two households with eight positives,” Bostic said.

“Of interest is the two households with eight positives because that is the family cluster that has impacted on two of our schools — one primary and one secondary.”

Regarding the primary contact and close contact of a positive case at the St George Primary School, the Minister said that contact previously tested negative, and the exit test has also come back negative.

“The result came back today and that student is now negative and therefore cleared,” he said.

“As a result of that, there is no requirement from a public health perspective to do any contact tracing within that particular school, because this particular student would have been in quarantine in a government quarantine hotel for the past five or six days. So, from a public health perspective, that school is cleared.”

Meanwhile, the Minister said the members of staff and students of the Princess Margaret Secondary School all had negative tests today. 

“They are also free and cleared to return to school,” he said.

“At this point in time … thankfully we do not have an outbreak in any of our schools, and these two situations, from a public health perspective they have now been closed.”

Minister Bostic said the Ministry will continue to offer testing that individuals attending the schools may request.