2 weeks ago we told you about Wesley's lower schools' closure after it was revealed that their standard I and Standard III classes had been exposed to the COVID-19 virus. It was part of a COVID cluster that originated when parents working at the Princess Casino went home to children who attended Wesley lower.
But while Wesley lower was the first school to be exposed it wouldn't be the last. That very week classrooms at Queen Square Anglican were also exposed, forcing that school's closure. And yesterday there was news of two more mid-pandemic closures: this time at Hattieville's Seventh-Day Adventist Church & School as well as another Wesley, this time Wesley college. Cherisse Halsall reports.
This is the tent in the Wesley college schoolyard where students with even a cough, a headache, or a sniffle are banished to quarantine until they can be picked up by their parents. It's a harsh measure that vice principal Edgar Pacheco says shouldn't be the case but, even ahead of this week's forced closure, the school's hand has been forced by parents, students, and now, staff who aren't taking flu-like symptoms seriously enough.
Edgar Pacheco - Vice Principal
"Anything, any, any, anything right now we are not playing with anything, if the child says, my belly is just starting to gripe me, go home, I have a slight headache, go home anything because we don't want to run the risk. When we call some parents it takes them an hour, two hours before they come for their children, and that is being unfair to the children, and to everybody else."
And especially unfair this week was the closure of the entire school after a science teacher from Cayo tested positive.
Edgar Pacheco
"We had a teacher who was showing some symptoms so we decided to call on the ministry and they came in and they did some swabs and unfortunately, one of our teachers came out positive at least with the rapid test and so we immediately set our COVID response in action. We informed our parents through our medium and we dismissed our students and teachers alike and then we got in touch with ministry again to come and give us the assistance to sanitize, and so we would be, hopefully, we'll be reopening back until Monday. Our campus is very small and so I thought it best to just do everything but the area of concentration for this particular person, was in the labs, since he is a science teacher, you know and give the parents the assurance that we are doing all that we can to keep them safe, or as safe as possible."
Cherisse Halsall
"How do you think it will affect the overall school reopening process if schools continue to have to close down due to incidents like these. It's a deliberate personal choice parents have to do and make and they are the ones who have to really say, is my child safe, they have all the rights to say I will not send my child to school, they have all those rights."
But Wesley College isn't the only school that COVID closed down this week. 16 miles away in Hattieville flu-like symptoms also struck at Hattieville Seventh-Day Adventist Church & School.
We spoke to one concerned aunt about that closure and what she feels needs to be done differently.
Janet Arnold - Concerned Aunt
"On Monday I thought I saw children coming home and I was wondering what was the problem. When my son came home he said mom, you know COVID is out at the Adventist school and I said what, Covid is out there I said no that shouldn't happen, I said with the changes that government says should happen out there but my thing is parents just need to be careful with their kids and I believe that the parents need to be more careful because I think it's the parents that are taking it home to their kids because then they work. I told my son it looks like you'll have to go with 15 masks on your face now because then school is an opportunity and you have to go to school. The minister of education needs to work harder and do more better than this because then, apparently now more than one school, I get to understand they found it in so, something is wrong logically wrong, they need to close down the school and fix the situation because then I won't put my child to jeopardize his life out there. That's all I have to tell the minister of education, he needs to do better."
Edgar Pacheco
"My plea to parents, teachers, the public in general, if you are having any signs and symptoms, if you are a teacher, a worker and you're getting signs and symptoms, whatever, call in and say I can't come in. If your a parent and your child says my head is hurting me, my throat is itching me, keep your child at home."
These latest school closures come in the wake of Belize's 325th covid death. And while that's a grim number we're much better off than our Caribbean and Latin American brothers, that's because increasing cases and deaths in those regions have nearly doubled in the first five months of the year.
