All kids will need to wear masks in school
The team headed by Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly (front) demonstrate sitting 3 feet apart in a classroom at the Red Bay Primary School 
MEYSAL Acting Chief Officer Lyneth Monteith uses one of several recently installed hand sanitisation stations at the Prospect Primary School 
Lighthouse School displays some of its personal protective equipment that will be available to its staff during the new academic year 
DES Acting Facilities Manager Glen Arek Gardner shows DES Acting Director Tammy Banks-DaCosta (left), Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly (centre) and Prospect Primary School Principal Matthew Read (right) some of the proposed plans for the school’s reopening. 
Lighthouse School Acting Principal Janice Headley shows Minister O’Connor-Connolly some of the measures the school has implemented for the new academic year
(CNS): With government schools expected to begin classes either online or in person on 26 August, officials have inspected facilities to ensure they are ready for students in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. While Cayman appears to have contained the virus, schools are still considered high-risk environments for transmission. All school students as well as staff and teachers will be required to wear masks and keep their distance.
In a press release issued Monday, the Ministry of Education did not indicate any exemption from the mask-wearing for the youngest students in government schools, some of whom will be just four years old when they start school. The public health department, has provided an exemption for pre-school children at early learning centers and kindergartens.
Officials said that all students and school staff must “wear masks while inside school buildings, as required in the government’s Prevention, Control and Suppression of Covid-19”, referring to the partial lifting of restrictions No.3 Regulations, 2020. The regulations state that masks are required for everyone over the age of two years old.
“In order for children to feel comfortable in the tutoring learning environment, to aide development, and minimize the misuse of mask or face covering etiquette, ECCE children will NOT be required to wear mask / face covering whilst indoors,” said Chief Medical Officer Dr John Lee
The wearing of masks for everyone else indoors is necessary unless they are sitting silently, the public health boss added.
“There is a higher chance of airborne transmission of the COVID-19 virus while students are talking, especially in enclosed spaces such as classrooms,” Dr Lee said.
The ministry has confirmed that all teachers and other staff in government schools and the DES will undergo COVID-19 testing before the schools open. Students will be required to stay three feet apart in their classrooms and eat their lunches at their desks. While they are moving around on school premises, they must stay six feet apart.
To facilitate this, schools have had to make changes to their environments and Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly, accompanied by officials from the ministry and the Department of Education Services (DES), visited the school sites last week.
Classrooms, corridors and common areas were inspected for overall cleanliness, social distancing markers and signage, as well as adequate hand washing and sanitisation facilities, officials said in a release. The team also inspected specific areas that have been identified as supplementary classroom and storage space to maintain appropriate social distancing.
O’Connor-Connolly said she was satisfied with the efforts expended so far on health and safety protocols but more work was to be done before schools open. “I recognise that we have not yet achieved a complete state of readiness, still I am confident that DES will continue to work closely with our schools to ensure that all the necessary measures are put in place before students return,” she said.
The ministry developed general guidance for the reopening of all schools several weeks ago and the DES has provided a supplemental document to all government schools, which are expected to prepare school-specific reopening guidance and to communicate this to parents and guardians this past week.
“Preparations and communication of those preparations are ongoing,” said Acting DES Director Tammy Banks-DaCosta. “I encourage parents to remain in contact with school leaders, especially if they have questions in relation to this guidance and any other school related concerns.”
Issues relating to daily operations, hygiene practices and provisions, wellness, school buses and after school activities are also addressed in the guidance.
Contact information for government schools leaders as well as the General Guidance Document for the Re-opening of Schools and Early Childhood Care and Education Centres are available here.
Category: Education, Health, Local News, Medical Health
From The Guardian Newspaper (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/21/coronavirus-iurope-dozens-schools-report-infections-berlin-germany-spain
The disclosure by Berlin city education authorities that hundreds of students and teachers have had to quarantine has underlined once more how little is known about the risk of infection in school settings, despite the insistence of governments and experts, including in the UK, that reopening schools is safe given the right precautions.
Is there a need to say more?
This is ridiculous, our children should not be compelled to wear masks. There is very little risk for kids from Covid. There’s a much greater risk to their mental, physical and social development from this continuing hysteria.
A number of other countries have reopened their schools, and none have experienced a significant rise in cases as a result: https://rs-delve.github.io/reports/2020/07/24/balancing-the-risk-of-pupils-returning-to-schools.html
This is the official guidance from Public Health England, where there are no rules requiring students to wear masks:
The majority of staff in education settings will not require PPE beyond what they would normally need for their work. PPE is only needed in a very small number of cases, including:
where an individual child or young person becomes ill with coronavirus (COVID-19) symptoms while at schools, and only then if a distance of 2 metres cannot be maintained
where a child or young person already has routine intimate care needs that involves the use of PPE, in which case the same PPE should continue to be used
Let’s have these incompetent education leaders, of the public school system, go back into the classroom and replace the teachers for the first 2 months.
Believe me, they will then and ONLY then be able to say they have earned their cushy salaries.
Walking around, taking pictures with the media and spatting sh** for the sake of it, aggrevates me to the core.
Don’t you all remember you all could not manage your classes under normal circumstances and you think teachers will be able to do so under these COVID measures.
Lord help us!!!! You so-called education leaders are so out of touch with the reality of a classroom that it is becoming a joke.
They were put in those positions when they failed in the classroom
Whilst I applaud the outcome CIG have achieved so far, if not every decision along the way, this is just idiotic. Clearly MLA’s priority is drinking alcohol and not education; how many MLA’s have kids under 11/12? Let schools return to relative normality, no nonsensical delayed start either and keep regularly testing… only a matter of time before we open our borders and shut down again; stop wasting time that could be spent in school!!
https://www.change.org/p/ministry-of-education-remove-the-requirement-for-masks-in-schools?redirect=false
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover-guidance.html#not-wear
Will they stop the children from running too?
I believe this will cause other health issues to develop and when that happens, the loss to the parents…perhaps and you can rest assure……a very BIG lawsuit.
If Govt are requiring kids to wear masks all day whilst in the classroom, then they should lead by example and all wear masks whilst sitting in their offices and whilst sitting in the LA.
So if a teacher sets up class indoors at a restaurant or bar – socially distanced tables of course at say Tilly’s then there’s no need for masks …..!
Exactly. All offices open and adults are not required to wear masks. But they really expect kids esp under 12 to wear masks all day. Really?
What the f@#king different when we can go to bars/restaurants without masks while kids must wear masks!
This measure and the 2 week staggered start just show how out of touch these people are. The importance of seeing a smile can never be underestimated! Kids need to be able to see facial expressions and we need to be able to read theirs especially the 4-7 year olds and those just going to “big school” for the first time.. It was already a daunting prospect for them and now it is worse!
Kids playing together in summer camps all summer….no covid in Cayman…..flu now killing 6 times more people in the Uk than covid as per an article in the Daily mail this morning. Asymptomatic kids are the least likely group to spread Covid……
I wonder if they teach Science anymore, because none of these measures taken are backed by Science at all.
Just take a look around the different establishments we go to on a daily basis, and pay attention to how many ADULTS are not using a mask the way it is intended to be used…yet they expect CHILDREN to do better.
People out there are afraid of FRESH AIR still to this day when there are no active cases of Covid-19. I wonder if people actually realize how important it is for the blood to have the correct amount Oxygen it needs…this mass lack of Oxygenation definitely explains the STUPIDITY which is currently so prevalent on this tiny Island.
Masks do not cause oxygenation issues. They teach that in science.
Having said that I agree kids should not need to wear masks in schools. They’ve been in camp / summer school without them.
Keep testing.
Do you know that no 2 people are alike? Common sense.
So speak for yourself only if you have no oxygenation issues.
The other day I asked a kid (teenager) who was sanitizing shopping carts at Publix how does he like his face mask, for it looked much different from mine.
He said he has asthma and was nearly fainting wearing regular surgical and cloth masks. So he got a special mask.
I am severely asthmatic (daily medications/inhalers) & have no problem with my mask (I’m also a surgeon).
Read real medical articles (www.lung.org) & they will tell you that a mask does not case oxygenation issues.
Why the 🤬I need to read 🤬articles if I faint? I am the evidence that face mask cause fainting in some individuals!!!
Are you that dumb??????
Science supports the wearing of masks in public during a pandemic. Please stop watching Fox News.
My science is better than your science.