President Lazarus Chakwera says schools which meet the government’s safety standards on Coronavirus prevention will be allowed to reopen in early September.
Chakwera revealed this in his weekly national address on Saturday.
He said Malawi has started to set some benchmarks for the restoration of social order which include the reopening of schools.
“For instance, in the education cluster of the Taskforce, guidelines have already been developed on what schools need to do to reopen safely. In fact, we will start assessing the readiness of each school this coming week so that the schools that meet our safety standards can reopen in early September,” said Chakwera.
Malawi closed schools in March when there were zero cases. The first cases were confirmed in April and the number of recorded cases is now at 5,026. There have been 157 deaths and 2,623 recoveries. The number of active cases is 2,246.
Chakwera in his national address thanked the Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 for coordinating and spearheading efforts to fight against the spread of the virus
The Malawi leader also hailed health workers for continuing to defend Malawi from the virus with their expertise in matters of prevention and treatment.
He noted that although 5000 cases have been confirmed in Malawi, only 5% of patients have gotten sick enough to need hospitalization.
“Even among the 389 health workers who have contracted the virus, we have lost only one and the rest are in recovery,” he said
He further said that over 37 thousand people have now been tested in Malawi, including close to 2,000 tested in one-day last week which is the highest single day testing Malawi has had.
Chakwera then urged Malawians to continue to observe Coronavirus prevention rules so that places of worship and business places should continue to be open.
I fail to grasp what the president wanted to communicate when he says only those schools that meet the safety standards for covid will reopen. Because from my common sense there’s not even a single govt sch in town that meets any safety standards. Does this mean that a few schools will open leaving the majority schools closed? Again what will be the fate for those that do not open? How is the govt going to harmonised the school calendar in this scenario? So many questions than answers.