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Coronavirus: Schools to suspend inter-school, external activities until end of March school holidays

A pre-schooler gets her temperature tested at the My First Skool branch in Buangkok Crescent on Tuesday (28 January). (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)
A pre-schooler gets her temperature tested at the My First Skool branch in Buangkok Crescent on Tuesday (28 January). (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore)

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Education (MOE) announced on Friday (7 February) that it will be suspending all inter-school and external activities until the end of the March school holidays, due to the worsening novel coronavirus situation.

These activities include national school games, learning journeys and camps. Such additional measures will help schools minimise exposure of students to the public and avoid mixing of students across schools.

All schools and teachers will also continue to implement enhanced measures announced on Tuesday, such as classroom-based assemblies, school-based co-curricular activities in smaller groups and staggered recesses.

“In primary schools, teachers will take students to washroom to wash hands before their lunch break,” said Liew Wei Li, MOE’s director of schools.

MOE has also rolled out an educational package to teach children about the virus transmission and what they can do to prevent it.

Pre-schools and social/eldercare services will limit the number of visitors to their premises.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health will be implementing temperature screenings and closer control of hospital entry points.

The hospitals will introduce measures to care for patients with pneumonia separately from other patients, in order to reduce the risk of transmission.

The announcement was made during a briefing by the multi-ministry taskforce on the novel coronavirus. The move comes as Singapore raised its disease outbreak response system condition (Dorscon) from yellow to orange.

Three new cases of the novel coronavirus with no links to previous cases or recent travel history to China were announced on Friday, including a female teacher from Victoria Junior College.

This brings the number of confirmed cases with no links to previous cases or travel history to China to four, and the total number of cases to 33.

(INFOGRAPHIC: Yahoo News Singapore)
(INFOGRAPHIC: Yahoo News Singapore)

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