Avoid panic, fight virus

This was bound to happen. The fear and panic after several cases of Covid-19 infections among students and staff have been confirmed just a week after the partial reopening of schools is real.

The Education ministry may be faced with its most delicate challenge lately.

The resolve to reopen schools after a seven-month closure is, indeed, fraught with danger. Infections have been steadily increasing and so have deaths, sparking fears of what has been described as a looming second wave of the pandemic.

No government worth its salt would willfully endanger the lives of its citizens, especially children.

This is why, initially, the ministry and other stakeholders had resigned themselves to the idea of 2020 being a lost academic year. However, there is no assurance that everything will be okay come January.

As experts have pointed out, the virus is already in the communities, hence the need to strictly enforce the safety protocols to stem its transmission.

In the same way at the health authorities deal with malaria, HIV-Aids, tuberculosis (TB) and other deadly diseases, we must accept that Covid-19 is not going away any time soon and enhance the capacity to fight it.

Learners' safety

However, the phased reopening of schools has, hopefully, given the authorities a glimpse of the kind of challenge they are up against. Schools and other social gatherings provide a conducive environment for infections to spread faster. 

Evidently, many of the public schools that have reopened for the national examination classes were not prepared to observe the Covid-19 protocols. It is, therefore, doubtful whether schools will fully reopen from next week.

The bid to save the year will be futile unless the learners’ safety is guaranteed.

However, the cases in schools, coming so early, provide an opportunity for the authorities to strive to manage the situation much better and avoid unnecessary panic.