Research is showing that schools are not the super-spreaders of COVID – Premila Kumar

Education Minister Premila Kumar says research is showing that schools are not the super-spreaders of COVID-19.

As Year 8 to 13 students will start school next Tuesday and Early Childhood Education to Year 7 students will start school on the 10th of January 2022, Kumar says in-fact the virus comes from the community to the schools.

Many parents have contacted fijivillage and raised concerns about schools reopening despite the increase in COVID cases throughout the country.

The Education Minister also says the question is whether the children are safer in schools or at home and that is the comparison she is trying to show.

She adds that if the children are back in school there are lot more gains as compared to being at home.

Kumar further says that Fiji is not the only country that is re-opening schools.

She says they will be guided by the Health Ministry, UNICEF and WHO.

Kumar says they are having daily discussions with the Ministry of Health, WHO and UNICEF and if the situation changes, she will make an appropriate announcement.

The UNICEF’s Pacific Deputy Representative, Vathinee Jitjaturunt says in Fiji there are more than 200,000 children who have lost an estimated 1050 hours each of in-person learning since April.

She says the latest evidence has so far indicated that in-person schooling does not appear to be the main driver of community transmission and school starts do not appear to be a higher relative risk compared to the general population.

Jitjaturunt adds that UNICEF supports the Education Ministry’s announcement to re-open schools and allow learning in safe school environment.

She says they hope that 2022 cannot be yet another year of disrupted learning, it needs to be the year that education and best interest of children take precedent.

Meanwhile, 29,297 children aged between 15-17 years are fully vaccinated while 10,657 children aged 12-14 years have received both doses of a COVID vaccine.