Set up special taskforce to tackle school clusters – FCAS
KOTA KINABALU: The Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) has called for the setting up of a ‘special taskforce' to monitor and tackle the spike in Covid-19 cases involving schools, or the “school clusters”.
Urging this, its President Tan Sri T.C Goh also opined that the government and the relevant authorities, especially the National Security Council (NSC), should act promptly to address the pressing situation, including issuing orders for temporary closure of affected schools, if need be, before the situation gets worse.
He said the school authority should take the Covid-19 infection seriously, and to act promptly, even if there was only one confirmed case detected.
“Temporary closure of school is definitely one of the key measures. The duration of such a move should be based on the severity of the situation. If it's a serious one, the school authority must make sure that the situation is fully under control, before allowing students to return to school,” he said.
He continued that temporary closure of school does not mean that the classes are completely suspended, and the students are on ‘special holidays', as just like the movement control order (MCO) period in the past, the school could still conduct classes for the students via online.
In a statement issued yesterday, Goh who is also President of the Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) underscored that the government must not allow Covid-19 to breach the education/ school sector, citing that this sector is made up of 18% or 1/5 of our total population.
He said this was especially crucial in view of the drastic spike in Covid-19 cases involving schools where, since the schools reopened, as of 17 April, there had been 42 clusters detected; and it further increased to 83 clusters within a short span of three days, from 17 to 20 April, with a total of 4,868 confirmed cases reported.
Likewise, the situation in Sabah too was worrisome where, out of the 172 new cases reported on Wednesday, there were six fatalities, with 72 cases from the Khidmat Cluster, and one religious boarding school was placed under enhanced MCO (EMCO). Besides this, a few schools including Kota Kinabalu High School and SJK (C) Chung Hwa, Likas too were reportedly affected, and the teachers and students there were required to undergo Covid-19 test and quarantine. This has inevitably raised concern among parents.
“The situation has obviously gone from bad to worse. Hence, it is only appropriate that the government must take it seriously and to take effective and decisive measures to deal with it,” Goh said.
Besides this, he also called on the government and the relevant authorities to strive to provide uniformed, fast-and-accurate public information on the Covid19 situation, so that the public, the school authority and parents included, could react accordingly and calmly, without doubts and speculations, thus sparing them unnecessary mental distress.
In addition, he also urged the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough disinfection of the affected schools, besides carrying out Covid-19 tests and quarantine.