Covid-19: 47 students, 12 staff members from St Anthony’s Canossian Sec under quarantine, on leave of absence

SINGAPORE — Forty-seven students and 12 staff members from St Anthony’s Canossian Secondary School who had been in close contact with an infected Secondary 4 student have been put on leave of absence or are under quarantine.

The 15-year-old student was one of five community cases out of the 347 new infections reported by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Saturday (June 13). She had tested positive the day before.

Ms Liew Wei Li, director of schools at the Ministry of Education (MOE), said that a form teacher noticed on Wednesday that the student was unwell during a screening exercise.

The student was immediately isolated and sent home, and has not returned to school since, Ms Liew said. “She was later tested positive for Covid-19,” she added.

“As announced by MOH, the student also tested positive in her serology test, which indicates that this was a past infection,” she said.

“This also suggests that she was likely to have been infected during the circuit breaker period, and not after school re-opening.”

The 47 students who have been in close contact with the infected student have all tested negative for the coronavirus.

As for the 12 staff members, TODAY understands that those who are under quarantine were tested today and their results are pending. The rest of the staff members are under leave of absence and will not be tested.

The students and teachers are presently well, Ms Liew said, adding that the school premises have also been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

“In-school lessons for Secondary 1, 2, 4 and 5 students will continue as per normal tomorrow, based on the weekly rotation schedule previously announced.”

On June 7, the authorities announced that four students and one non-teaching staff member across five schools had tested positive for Covid-19, after MOH stepped up testing.

Since June 2, surveillance testing for Covid-19 had been extended for all school employees and students above the age of 12 who are diagnosed with acute respiratory infection at first presentation to a doctor, instead of only for those with prolonged symptoms.