COVID cases increasing ... detected in school
KUWAIT CITY, Dec 29, (Agencies): The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health announced 15 cases of corona infections were reported from an intermediate girls’ high school from the Farwaniya Educational District earlier this month, reports Al-Rai daily.
The infected people included teachers and students, however only six of them are said to have been quarantined including a student, an administrator and an instructor.
The source indicated that the school administration, in coordination with the Chamber, has taken health measures followed in such cases, the most important of which is closing the classroom, sterilizing it and examining contacts under the supervision of the health team.
The Ministry of Health said Monday that 329 people tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) taking Kuwait’s caseload to 415,678.
The recoveries went up by 56 to 411,442, the Ministry’s Spokesman Dr. Abdullah Al-Sanad said, noting that the recoveries represent 99 percent of the overall infections.
The death toll from the pandemic remained unchanged at 2,468, he told KUNA.
There are four Covid-19 cases at ICUs, 1,768 others being treated at home and 21 patients at hospital wards.
As many as 17,690 swab tests have been conducted which raised the total to 5,900,204, Dr. Al-Sanad added.
More than 40 people in the U.S. have been found to be infected with the omicron variant so far, and more than three-quarters of them had been vaccinated, the chief of the CDC said Wednesday. But she said nearly all of them were only mildly ill.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the data is very limited and the agency is working on a more detailed analysis of what the new mutant form of the coronavirus might hold for the U.S.
“What we generally know is the more mutations a variant has, the higher level you need your immunity to be . ... We want to make sure we bolster everybody’s immunity. And that’s really what motivated the decision to expand our guidance,” Walensky said, referencing the recent approval of boosters for all adults.
She said “the disease is mild” in almost all of the cases seen so far, with reported symptoms mainly cough, congestion and fatigue. One person was hospitalized, but no deaths have been reported, CDC officials said.
Some cases can become increasingly severe as days and weeks pass, and Walensky noted that the data is a very early, first glimpse of U.S. omicron infections. The earliest onset of symptoms of any of the first 40 or so cases was Nov. 15, according to the CDC.
The omicron variant was first identified in South Africa last month and has since been reported in 57 countries, according to the World Health Organization.