BRIDGETOWN, Barbados– The Ministry of Health and Wellness has recommended that schools remain open despite the current surge in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases.

Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Anton Best, said schools were not significant drivers of COVID-19 transmission in Barbados, emphasizing that serious outcomes from COVID 19 infections continue to be rare among school-aged children, particularly those three to 18 years old.

“Although we are amid a COVID-19 surge with very high rates in Barbados, the Emergency Operations Centre, the Ministry of Health and Wellness has not advised on the introduction of any new public health and social measures such as curfew or lockdowns, and in that same vein, we are suggesting that schools remain open.

The resumption of face-to-face school has been very safe. School protocols are working; that’s the take-home message. Schools must be regarded as essential services.

He said that during the last school term between February 21 and April 8, just over 1,600 cases of the virus were recorded among school-aged children or about 60 points per 1,000 school population.

However, the Deputy CMO noted that the rate of infection was slightly higher in primary school children compared to those in secondary schools.

The cumulative incidence within primary schools was 17 cases per 1,000 population, while it was 14 per 1,000 in secondary schools. Dr, Best said that the positivity rate in schools mirrored the positivity rate health officials saw in communities.

He said that the infection rate among staff at schools is not a cause of concern for the Ministry of Health and Wellness.

We have no evidence of transmission happening in schools. That is a critical point that I need to make about the roadmap we developed. We are implementing the roadmap with our partners to protect the staff and the students. It’s helping keep the rates as low as possible.

Dr. Best said that over the last three weeks, Barbados recorded over 7,000 new cases of viral illness, with the average age of a positive person being 36.

Additionally, over a seven-day average, the positivity rate was 32 percent, which he regarded as “very high.” He added that the seven-day moving average was 340 cases per day. The cumulative incidence over this same timeframe was 810 cases per 100,000 population which were well over the 500 per 100,000 population benchmark health officials prefer.

Dr. Best noted that while there have been 386 deaths since the pandemic, the country’s case fatality rate was 0.6 percent – one of the lowest.

He blamed the highly transmissible Omicron sub-variant BA.2, which was confirmed in Barbados, for driving the number of cases seen locally