Cases Reported of a Possible Exposure to Covid-19 in Schools?

During his statement in Parliament on Tuesday (Nov 16, 2021), while announcing changes to the Covid-19 measures, PM Andrew Holness briefly mentioned cases of children with possible exposure to Covid-19 and how this was dealt with by schools.

Speaking about the country as a whole, he said:

“We are being very cautious in reopening and, just to be clear, we are not going to shut down again.”

He then went on to say:

“So, Madam Speaker, we have reopened our schools. We have seen cases reported of a possible exposure to Covid-19. We haven’t shut them when they have opened. We tell them to sanitise, clean up, isolate the child, keep them at home. But we are not going to close the schools again.”

These cases referred to by the Prime Minister – of possible Covid exposure in children in schools – haven’t been reported in the media nor to general public by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information (MOEYI) or by the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW). In his statement, PM Holness gave no other information about these cases…what schools or parishes they occurred in, when they occurred or how many children or schools were affected, for example.

Other questions needing answers include:

• Has information about these cases been reported to the parents, guardians or families in the schools where these cases occurred?
• Were the children who were possibly exposed to Covid-19 tested to see if they actually had Covid-19?
• Were the other children and teachers in their class or in the school also tested?
• Was any contact tracing done?

And a more general question needs to be asked about what exactly the protocol is when schools have a child in attendance who was possibly exposed to Covid-19, beyond what PM Holness mentioned…”We tell them to sanitize, clean up, isolate the child, keep them at home.”

There is very little specific information in the MOEYI’s Manual for the Reopening of Educational Institutions – Version 3, August 2021 on how suspected/confirmed cases of Covid-19 in students or staff are to be dealt with. And there is no mention of testing. Perhaps it is set out in detail elsewhere. It would be good to know.

PBCJ recording of the sitting of the House of Representatives on November 16, 2021

Advertisement

Covid Reflections: Children and this third wave

The early narrative about SARS-CoV-2 and Covid-19 offered us some comfort at the time; at least it didn’t seem to affect children as much and we were thankful. As the pandemic continued, we saw that though children were infected at lower rates than adults and if infected generally had milder symptoms, it was clear that some children who caught the disease could have severe enough symptoms to be hospitalised and some children died. Others had serious side effects that lasted beyound the acute phase of the disease. But still we took what comfort we could from the fact that these severe outcomes affected children at a significantly lower rate than they did adults.

The Delta variant of Covid-19, which is becoming the dominant strain of the virus in many countries, is changing the narrative. Children are contracting the disease at higher rates and are being affected more seriously. Countries such as the USA are seeing more children being hospitalised and more children dying.

Although Jamaica still has had no genomic sequencing results to confirm the presence of the Delta variant here, we have been told we can assume that it is here. We have been told this by the Minister of Health and Wellness, by the Chief Medical Officer and, most recently, by the Prime Minister. They have pointed to the increases in the various Covid indicators and to the travel between Jamaica and countries experiencing surges due to the Delta variant, primarily the UK and the USA.

Jamaica is in the early stages of a third wave and the indicators are surging.

Information taken from Ministry of Health & Wellness (MOHW) daily Clinical Management Summaries posted online.

The daily number of confirmed cases has been rising sharply. Last week Sunday the number of newly confirmed cases was 281; on Saturday there were 656 new cases. At a press conference last Thursday, August 12, 2021, CMO Dr Bisasor-McKenzie shared a slide of the hospital admissions and pointed out that the average number of admissions (shown by the pink line in the graph below) was now just over 70 per day. She pointed out that this rate was already higher than the rate of admissions at the peak of the surge in March/April this year.

Slide from MOHW press briefing August 12, 2021

Many of the hospitals are already beyond their Covid bed capacity and their ICU beds are full. The pressure on the hospitals is at an extremely high level.

Slide from MOHW press briefing August 12, 2021

One of the hospitals that has exceeded its Covid capacity is the Bustamante Hospital for Children, the only hospital in Jamaica dedicated specifically to children. On Thursday, Director of the South East Regional Health Authority (SERHA) Errol Green said that the hospital is over capacity, which poses a problem, as patients can’t easily be transferred elsewhere. Various measures are being used to reduce numbers, including discharging children who can be sent home and not doing elective surgery, only emergency surgery.

So what exactly is the situation with children so far during this surge?

There have been references by officials to more younger people and children being treated for Covid-19. There have accounts of children and babies being admitted to hospital. And if the Covid beds at Bustamante are full, it signals an increase in the number of cases. But we need some specific information from the MOHW.

• How many children have been confirmed with Covid-19 in the past 6-8 weeks?
• Is this an increase in the rate that the data has shown perviously? If so, by how much? (The daily Clinical Management Summaries refer to babies as young as 1 day old among those confirmed with Covid-19, but the figures don’t tell us how many children are among those infected. Could a breakdown by age be done on a regular basis?

The chart on the MOHW jamcovid19 website doesn’t report children as a separate group, as seen in the 10-19 group and it doesn’t allow for observing trends over time.

• How many children have been admitted to hospital with Covid-19 in the past 6-8 weeks? Is this an increase over the rate of admissions seen previously? How many cases have there been of critically ill children?
• Have any children died of Covid-19 in the past 6-8 weeks? Are any children’s deaths under investigation for Covid-19?
• How many Covid beds are there at Bustamante Hospital? How many paediatric ICU beds?
• How many paediatric Covid beds are there at other facilities across the island? And paediatric ICU beds?
• Is life sustaining equipment for treating children in adequate supply at Bustamante Hospital? Is it available at other facilities across the isaland?
• With Bustamante Hospital full, are children still being transferred there for treatment?
• How is the Covid-19 situation affecting treatment of children with non-Covid conditions?

At the MOHW press conference last Thursday, it was announced that a shipment of Pfizer vaccines is due to arrive in Jamaica this week. Because this is the only vaccine currently cleared by WHO for children, priority is being given to children in its roll out. Children 12 and older with co-morbidities and children 15 and older with parental consent will be allowed to get vaccinated. This is scheduled to start on August 23, 2021. This is an important development. It does not come in time, however, for children to be fully vaccinated before the scheduled start of the school year in September. And it does not cover children under the age of 12.

But with the surge in Covid cases not yet at its peak, it is not likely and not advisible that face-to-face classes start in September as previously planned. And that raises a whole additional round of questions and concerns. For another time.

Sunday Morning with a Two-Year-Old

So much happens when you babysit a two-year-old on a Sunday morning. She climbs up on your lap and sees the lone piece of a building set sitting on your desk beside your laptop and she asks a question, “What is that, Grandma?”

And I know her question isn’t a purely factual one. She doesn’t want me to say, “It’s part of your building set, sweetie.” It is an invitation to enter that world of pretending that she so loves. I suggest it is a cell phone, but that doesn’t catch her imagination this morning. “It could be a crayon,” I say and, yes, that is what she pretends it is. And we use it to colour a pretend sun, a pretend moon and a pretend orange, all on the surface of my desk. “Eat the orange, Grandma,” she says and then the building set piece transforms into a knife, which she uses to cut the pretend orange, so that I can eat it.

Later, as she sits on the veranda ledge, holding onto the grills and swinging her legs outside, we discuss the ways in which we are the same as our dogs outside and different from them. She likes same and different. We have ears, we have eyes, we have mouths. We have hands and feet, but they have paws. “I have toes and Bala has toes.” But no hands. No fingers. And suddenly we are into a long discussion about what we can do with our hands and fingers that the dogs can’t do. Colour with crayons. Put on our shoes. Pick up a piece of tomato to eat.

Tomatoes are red. “Red is my favourite colour,” she says, as she picks up a piece of tomato from the bowl and puts in into her mouth. “Watermelon is red too,” I say, only to be told, “Looks like pink to me.” And now we talk about the colours of all the foods we like to eat. Brown naseberries and lentil stew. Orange carrots and pawpaw and pumpkin soup. Green callaloo and broccoli. And what colour exactly is rice and peas?

Time and perspective shift in the company of my granddaughter. Such a gift.

Curiosity & Wonder: Weekly Photo Challenge – Final Edition – All-Time Favourites

“Welcome to the final installment of the Weekly Photo Challenge. In wishing you a fond farewell, we wanted to share our all-time favorite photos with you. We welcome you to share your favorites with us. Happy photographic trails!”

One of my favourite photos is of my granddaughter at the beach. She has such a sense of curiosity and wonder about the world around her, a sense which is sometimes a bit dulled in us as adults. Photography is one of the things that helps me to keep that sense sharpened!

I have really enjoyed the Weekly Photo Challenge prompts, the first of which I responded to in October 2016. I don’t think I missed one since. It has really been a fun way to look back at photos I’ve taken and to share them on my blog. And it’s been wonderful to see the incredible photos shared by others! Good luck going forward, everyone! 🙂

Weekly Photo Challenge – All-Time Favorites

What Will It Look Like When Enough Really Gets To Be Enough?

In October 2005, Jamaica was dealing with the news of the death of Sasha Kay Brown, a 10-year-old girl who died with her grandparents and aunt, when masked men firebombed her grandparents’ house on Barnes Avenue and then stood guard to prevent anyone from coming to the rescue of the family. Neighbours told of hearing the child screaming for help and saying that she was going to die, but not being able to respond to her cries.

A few weeks ago, in March Pen Road three children – ages 2, 9 and 14 – and two women were killed in an attack on them and their home, which ended with the house being burnt down. A 15-year-old girl and another adult were also shot and injured during the attack. According to the accounts, it seems to have been a horrific deadly blend of family and gang violence. The man who allegedly led the attack is in police custody and has been charged with 5 counts of murder and other crimes.

In an interview on Nationwide News, Horace Levy said that in all his years with the Peace Management Initiative (PMI), since it began in 2002, this was the worst scene in a community that he had ever visited.

Enough is enough. It has been enough for very many years in Jamaica. We have said it at so many points about so many acts of violence, with commitments to make sure that it never happens again. And there are people at various points in the society, in various spheres, who work for the end to the violence that scars our society. PMI is one such.

What will it look like when enough really is enough? Is it gradual persistent change from many different points, addressing the various problems that allow, encourage, support this violence? Or is it one big dramatic event resulting in change? Is it ultimately a problem to be solved at governmental, community or individual level or a combination of all three?

Jamaica is a violent society, though many contest that it is, questioning how widespread the violence is geographically, looking at the types of violence that are most pervasive, pointing to positives about our country and society.

Last week, we continued to be confronted with violence and its consequences as the court case in the murder of 17-year-old Khajeel Mais ended and 14-year-old Nicholas Francis, a Jamaica College student, was stabbed and killed on a bus by a man who was trying to steal his phone.

Will the outrage being expressed be translated into the actions that will effectively protect people, including the children? Will the voices of the students standing in solidarity and protest be heard by Jamaica’s adults and result in effective action?

As we act going forward, one thing we need to consider is the way in which, as a society, we approve of or tolerate some acts of violence and whether this approval/tolerance has an impact on creating an environment in which violence thrives more broadly and more extremely. Mob violence against suspects in crimes? Extrajudicial killings by police/police squads as a method of dealing with crime? Hitting & beating of children as punishment? Some instances of marital rape not being clearly prohibited in law and being accepted by some on religious grounds? Acceptance that sometimes a man is right to hit his wife, baby mother, girlfriend? The state carrying out the death penalty as part of the justice system?

When you place a piece of laundry blue in a basin of clear water, eventually it spreads to colour all the water in the basin. Does the same happen with tolerance of violence?