COVID-19 Cluster Appears, Several Schools In Solo Closed

Head of City Health Department (DKK) Surakarta Siti Wahyuningsih. ANTARA/Aris Wasita

SOLO - The Surakarta City Government temporarily closed several schools following the emergence of a cluster of COVID-19 outbreaks in the area.

Secretary of the Surakarta City Education Office, Dian Rineta, said that several schools are currently discontinuing face-to-face learning (PTM) and replacing them with distance learning (PJJ), including SDN Sayangan School, SDN 16 School, SMP 4 Surakarta School, and SMA Warga School.

"Surveillance continues and positive cases of COVID-19 have been found, most of them from outside the city", she said as quoted by Antara on Monday, January 31.

She said that PJJ itself would be carried out for one week while waiting for the development of cases of the spread of COVID-19.

Regarding this, the Head of the Surakarta City Health Service (DKK), Siti Wahyuningsih, said that the Surakarta City Government is currently conducting surveillance by involving several schools. In this activity, tests were conducted on hundreds of students.

During the surveillance, tracing or contact tracing efforts were also carried out following the emergence of positive cases of COVID-19, including at SMA Warga School, SMA 1 Surakarta School, SMA 5 Surakarta School, and Mikael High School.

She said that as a follow-up to contact tracing, a partial holiday policy was also implemented considering that not many positive cases of COVID-19 were found.

"This case started from one by one. There are teachers, there are students, this starts from a suspect. This means that progress and you have to be careful, masks are a fixed price", she said.

Asked about the anticipation of the emergence of new clusters in schools, the Mayor of Surakarta, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, said that the government continues to conduct surveillance or observation of PTM activities.

"The booster vaccine has already been directed to the teacher, don't worry, it doesn't matter, don't be afraid", he said.