Covid-19: Sharp increase in education clusters last week

 

The Health Ministry has detected 62 new Covid-19 clusters at educational institutions last week, according to its director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah today.

This is a sharp increase compared to the 15 education clusters detected a week earlier.

“As we all know, the schooling session has started on Jan 9 as decided by the Education Ministry.

“The surge in education clusters is very concerning because individuals from many households would be in the same space and time, which could lead to unwanted clusters if any individual did not follow the standard operating procedures.

“Although most of the adult and adolescent population has been vaccinated against Covid-19, SOP compliance still needs to be emphasised whether before, during, or after school.

“The proper wearing of face masks and hand hygiene is very important for containing the spread of Covdi-19,” he said in his statement today, which includes a weekly epidemiological report.

He also reminded people experiencing Covid-19 symptoms to take a Covid-19 test before going to school or educational institutions.

Earlier today, it was reported that 15 schools in Kedah have been closed due to Covid-19 outbreaks, as well as schools in Johor and Kelantan.

Last week, Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said many education clusters have involved boarding schools, but despite this, there are no plans to order blanket closures of such schools.

“I think that would be a step backwards.

“We will take mitigation action on the clusters, but to say there are no more admissions to boarding schools, no,” he told a press conference on Thursday.

As for other clusters, Noor Hisham said the number of newly detected workplace clusters have increased from 10 clusters during the second epidemiological week (Jan 9 to Jan 15) to 18 clusters during the third week (Jan 16 to Jan 22).

On the other hand, the number of new community clusters has fallen from nine clusters to one cluster over the same period, while imported clusters have fallen from three clusters to one cluster.

Overall, the number of new cases has increased by 7.9 percent to 23,752 cases during the third week, while bed usage at low-risk quarantine and treatment centres (PKRC) increased by 4.0 percent to 4,006 beds.

Nevertheless, the number of hospitalised Covid-19 cases and deaths is still on a downtrend.

“Although the Omicron wave is expected to cause an increase in non-ICU bed usage for short-stay admissions, for the 3/2022 epidemiological week, there is only a four percent increase in PKRC usage.

“The drop is in line with the rising percentage of the population receiving booster doses,” he said.

 - Mkini