Coronavirus: closure of schools ‘the new normal’

School shutdowns are likely to ­become ‘the new normal’, the NSW Health Minister says.

Willoughby Public School mother Louise Relf picks up her children, Fletcher, 7, and Zoe, 9, at lunchtime after a student at the neighbouring Willoughby Girls High contracted the coronavirus. Picture: Jane Dempster.

School shutdowns are likely to ­become “the new normal”, the NSW Health Minister says, as authorities trace the close contacts of three students who tested positive to the coronavirus.

Willoughby Girls High School on Sydney’s north shore and St ­Patrick’s Marist College in the west of the city were closed immediately on Monday after students tested positive.

It came as NSW recorded seven new diagnoses of COVID-19 on Monday. Three new cases were also confirmed in Victoria, and one in Western Australia, bringing the national total to 93.

At Willoughby Girls High, a 12-year-old student in Year 7 contracted the virus, and at St Patrick’s Marist College, two students, both in Year 10, tested positive. The ­fathers of the two students — both Australian Defence Force employees from NSW — have also been infected.

NSW Health believes the infections are part of a likely “cluster of transmission” between the schools and another school, Epping Boys High, the Ryde Hospital, the ADF, and the Dorothy Henderson Lodge aged-care facility.

“We are actively investigating a cluster of cases which are linked between the aged-care facility, Ryde Hospital and also the Defence (cases),” NSW Chief Health Officer Kerry Chant said.

“There is an investigation ­ongoing about the links and threads. Our main aim now is to make sure we have tracked down any chain of ongoing transmission and any connections that may have been missed to really slow any community spread of COVID-19.”

Two residents of the Dorothy Henderson Lodge aged-care facility at Macquarie Park in northwest Sydney have died of the corona­virus. Two other residents and three staff members are also ­infected.

A doctor at Ryde Hospital tested positive last week.

St Patrick’s Marist College and Willoughby Girls High School would be closed until Wednesday, Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.

 

But he warned more school shutdowns were inevitable.

“This is likely to be the new ­normal,” Mr Hazzard said.

“I don’t doubt that, like the rest of the world, we’re seeing more and more people who are having transmission by contact and it’s likely that we will see more of this.”

The evidence from China has shown that young people generally do not become very unwell with COVID-19, with older people much harder hit, especially those with pre-existing heart or lung problems. However, although the young may not display many symptoms, they can play a significant role in spreading the disease.

Meanwhile, Australia’s Chief Health Officer, Brendan Murphy ­acknowledged in a letter to all GPs that it had been “challenging” for doctors to keep up with sometimes conflicting public health messages being issued by the various health departments.

Professor Murphy said the federal government was moving to set up a series of primary care COVID-19 respiratory clinics dedicated to the assessment of suspected cases and treatment of patients with mild symptoms.

These primary care clinics would complement “fever clinics” that are being established at hospitals by state and territory health ­departments.

The federal government is seeking expressions of interest from GP clinics that wish to set up the specialist COVID-19 practices, which would have separate entry and exit points from their main ­surgeries.