NASSAU, BAHAMAS — Classes ended early at Stephen Dillet primary school yesterday after officials confirmed several cases of COVID-19 among staff.
Education Director Marcellus Taylor said this was the first time in more than a month that class schedules were disrupted at a school because of COVID-19 concerns.
“I can’t confirm the number but I think there are about four or five cases,” he said. “To my knowledge it was staff, I haven’t heard of students but I really can’t speak to that.”
“There was a nurse at the school and once she was aware of one or two persons presenting symptoms she connected with the surveillance unit. They determined who should be tested and those persons were tested and anyone who was positive for the test, they did their contact tracing.”
Taylor continued: “When they did their contact tracing, it was determined who should remain or should be isolated or who should be quarantined, and then what happened after that is they prescribed a regimen. And then today they advised all the teachers, just as an extra step of precaution, to go and get tested, and then once they got their results, the Ministry of Health would follow up with a further risk assessment just to ensure that they were negative and whether they should be isolated.”
Taylor said he hopes classes will resume today but that will depend on how many people have been assessed and cleared.
He said outside the Stephen Dillet incident, there have been few COVID-19 challenges at schools recently.
“We’ve had one or two cases here or there but as of this point the Ministry of Health has been good enough to provide us with a nurse at every school in New Providence so the nurses perform screening actions and they have the people assess and test them if necessary,” he said.
“In my recollection, this is the only case in the last month or so where we have had this number of cases but also the interruption to the delivery of education in terms of the school had to close at 12.30. In other instances, they’ve been able to just continue on without any challenges.”
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