STAGED RESPONSE TO SCHOOL CLOSURES
SCHOOLS will be closed in a staged way rather than through a statewide ban to halt the spread of coronavirus in coming months.
News of the targeted plan comes as parents were told closing them now could actually cause more deaths.
The Palaszczuk Government will next revise the decision on Friday to keep schools open, as principals today scramble to cancel school assemblies, arrange staggered lunch breaks and reschedule in-school gatherings and events to thwart the virus.
But Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said closing schools now could prove devastating for the health sector responding to the deadly bug, as doctors and nurses were forced to stay home to care for their kids.
“But also too, we don’t want to see children placed with their grandparents – the most vulnerable,” she said.
“There is no need to stop going to school.”
Queensland’s Chief Medical Officer Jeannette Young said school closures would be a strategic move made when the time was right.
Dr Young said authorities would respond to local clusters, for example closing all schools in Toowoomba, or Townsville, if there was an outbreak.
“This is going to be a decision made depending on the need of a particular community and the requirement there,” she said.
“Our state is so big I’m sure that we’re going to see things happening here (in the southeast) before they start happening in Cairns or Townsville.”
She said it had been prudent to cancel mass gathering, which include school fetes, fairs and concerts attended by 500 people or more to stop the virus taking hold.
But it wouldn’t be until there were mass outbreaks that students would be kept home to slow the transmission.
“Now’s not the time when you’d do it, it’s a bit further down when you have a lot of cases and you just need to dampen it down,” she said.
“We’re not there yet, that’s where Italy is at, that’s where other countries are at.”
Education Minister Grace
Grace said principals had been asked to cease full school assemblies, arrange staggered lunch breaks and reschedule large gatherings. “Schools should also pay extra attention to health and hygiene measures including increasing the frequency of the cleaning of toilet facilities and providing additional soap and sanitiser.”