Coronavirus: Reopen your doors, Gladys Berejiklian tells schools

As NSW cases rise to 267 Premier remains in lock-step with PM over schools that have stopped teaching due to COVID-19.

New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian addresses the media today. Picture: Getty Images

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian has urged schools that have stopped teaching in response to the spread of COVID-19 cases to reopen their doors so they remain consistent with the government in its messaging to parents.

Ms Berejiklian’s remarks were made as the number of cases in NSW rose to 267 infections, a dramatic increase of 50 new diagnoses. These upticks have been increasing rapidly in recent days: on Monday, 37 new coronavirus cases were identified; on Tuesday it was 39.

The premier has remained adamant that schools should remain open in NSW despite the threat of transmission posed by children, who may not show obvious signs of infection as they interact with family members and the elderly.

“We would prefer that everybody is absolutely on the same page when it comes to all the stakeholders in education, and indications we’ve had from different sectors of the education system is that in the main everybody supports our decision,” she said of the decision to keep schools open.

“There are some, very few, that do not,” she added. “But there is no rationale for closing down schools. Every bit of advice we’ve received across the nation in NSW, from health experts, is that schools should remain open.”

The Australian reported on Tuesday that the heads of Sydney Catholic Schools and the Catholic Education Diocese of Parramatta had called their school buildings to close as “a matter of urgency” in response to the pandemic.

The diocese represent about 230 parish schools.

Ms Berejiklian said interstate Liberal and Labor premiers were all united in this view based on the advice they were receiving daily from health officials nationally.

Asked whether these schools were acting hysterically by shutting down, the premier responded she hoped the institutions would closely reconsider their decision.

“We would hope that any school considering acting alone on this reconsider. The peak bodies we’re in regular contact with have assured us that they support this decision,” she said.

On Wednesday Sydney’s Kambala Girls School confirmed it would stop classes on March 23 for the second time in more than one hundred years.

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Posted by The Australian on Tuesday, 17 March 2020

NSW chief medical officer Dr Kerry Chant said more than 25,000 tests had been conducted in the community to date, and that tracking of known cases and their contacts was continuing to prevent further transmissions.

Infections were increasing among overseas travellers returning to Australia, said Dr Chant, but increases were also showing in cases where NSW Health had been unable to track its source, meaning they may have occurred locally.

The NSW Labor opposition leader Jodi McKay said health officials needed to drastically increase the number of tests being conducted. She said stringent testing rules in NSW needed to be relaxed in line with those of the World Health Organisation, which this week called for widespread and repeated testing to be conducted as much as possible.

“We have people being turned away right now, and that should not happen,” Ms McKay said, adding that she knew of a person who attempted to receive tested a week ago but was turned away because they did not meet the criteria. That person has since discovered they were in contact with an COVID-19 patient, she said.

“They tried to get tested today, they live in Parramatta area, they’ve been forced to wait until tomorrow, and they have to go to Blacktown – and they’ll have to wait in a queue. The system is not working.”