Keechiu explains his plan.
Chan Chun Sing
Like This Page · 12 August ·
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For the last 20 months, we have been evolving the measures to keep our children safe from
#COVID19. We would not be here without the hard work and cooperation of our parents, Teachers, staff and students. Thank you all!
As the virus evolves, so must our methods for prevention, containment and remediation. However, our goals remain unchanged – to continue managing the virus in sustainable ways, outlast the virus threat, and emerge stronger.
Thus far, we have implemented Full Home-based Learning (HBL) twice as part of national efforts to lower the general level of activity to mitigate the spread of the virus. However, Full HBL has its limitations and is disruptive to students, parents and teachers. It is not a sustainable option and must be our last resort.
More recently, from May to July this year, when there were confirmed cases in schools,
Ministry of Education, Singapore took a more targeted approach to place entirelevels on HBL. But even with the HBL limited to specific levels, the disruption to student learning and family schedules is still quite significant. Over the past 3 months, some 100 levels across 50 schools were placed on HBL at different times and for varying time periods. This affected more than 20,000 students. Fortunately, none of them were COVID-19 positive, as all close contacts had already been swiftly placed on Leave of Absence (LOA) or Quarantined Order (QO).
With more evidence pointing to the efficacy of our previous measures and as we transit towards living with COVID-19 as an endemic situation, we will finetune measures further to minimise the disruptions while keeping our children safe.
Since early August, we have moved towards a more targeted approach which impacts a more narrowly defined group of students. This means that where possible, we will place close contacts and students from the same classes or CCA groups under LOA or QO, instead of putting the entire level on HBL. The disruptions are further minimised this way.
Going forward, we want to expand our options for less-invasive testing methods, to enable our children and families to experience even less disruptions. Testing would allow us to be much more targeted in terms of who should stay away from school, and for how long. For example, with more regular and faster testing using self-administered Antigen Rapid Tests (ART), students and staff who are tested negative can return to school earlier.
As new scientific evidence emerges and we accumulate more experience, we will further calibrate the suite of measures and apply them based on the circumstances, to keep our schools and children safe. Where necessary, we will tighten the measures, balancing the considerations for risk management with the impact of the disruptions.
Like any community space, schools are not spared from transmission risks, despite our best efforts to put classes in cohorts, and the strict enforcement of SMMs.
From May to July, 216 students from our 600,000 student population got infected, with vast majority from household transmission. 103 of the 216 were primary school students. More than half of the cases were isolated through LOA or QO even before they tested positive, which meant that no contact tracing was required in schools as these cases did not pose any risk to their schoolmates.
To continue to keep our schools safe, we will need the cooperation of families, teachers, staff and students. Families who have household members experiencing symptoms should keep their students at home, and away from schools and tuition centres where other students gather.
In schools, teachers and staff will continue to be vigilant due to the infectious nature of the current variant and send students who display even mild symptoms home.
Even so, this will not mean zero cases in schools, as long as there continues to be cases in our community. But we will do our best and remain watchful so that students can keep learning in schools.
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We are determined to do what we can to keep our children safe, based on a robust scientific approach:
- From 1 Oct, twice-weekly ART testing for non-vaccinated teachers and staff in schools will start, under the new “Vaccinate or Regular Test” regime.
- This will also apply to non-government employees who have regular contact with students aged 12 and below, including those working in tuition/enrichment centres.
The fight against COVID-19 is a contest of evolution and adaptation. It is also a test of our resilience, vigilance and cohesion. Most significantly, it is an opportunity for us to work together to exemplify for our children the values we believe in. May we emerge stronger as a nation. CCS
[: Holy Innocents' Primary School ]