School Clusters In Padang Cause COVID-19 Cases Skyrocket

Head of the Padang City Health Office, Ferimulyani Hamid. (ANTARA / Ikhwan Wahyudi)

JAKARTA - The Padang City Health Office has revealed an increase in COVID-19 cases in the city, so that the status of Padang has risen to an orange zone. This was triggered by the results of tracing the history of contacts at one boarding school, namely the Ar Risalah Islamic College.

"From the end of November 2020 to the beginning of April 2021, new cases of COVID-19 can be controlled but entering the third week of April has increased again because the Health Office conducted massive examinations at one of the boarding schools and many positive cases were found," said Head of the Padang City Health Office, Ferimulyani Hamid. in Padang, reported by Antara, Wednesday, April 28.

Feri said that the initial findings of this case began with three students at the school who came home to be picked up by their parents because they had a fever and after being checked they were positive for COVID-19.

Finally, the Padang Health Office conducted a massive examination at Ar Risalah and found 30 people who had close contact with the initial three patients and were subjected to swab tests.

"Of the 30 people, 25 were positive and in the end, because they did not want to take risks, the Health Office visited the school and consulted with administrators and foundations to conduct mass swab tests," he said.

At that time it was decided that all the people at the Ar Risalah Islamic College were swabbed as many as 1,500 people in several stages.

Stage I was swabbed for 614 people and found to be positive 122 students and three educators. Then the next day continued with a swab test and a total of 239 people were found positive until Wednesday, April 28.

"All positive ones we isolate because the majority are without symptoms and mild symptoms are isolated at the school, then the negative ones are returned to the parents," he said.

Therefore the increase in cases that occurred was due to the mass swab tests that were carried out and the cases did not spread in the community.

The finding of an increase in new cases is a consequence of the efforts made by the Health Office in conducting contact tracing with those who have been exposed first for swab tests.

"Instead of being left with no COVID-19 symptoms but not knowing, it is better to carry out a mass search and swab test, although statistically the status of Padang has changed from a yellow to orange zone," he said.

He said that Padang would not move from the yellow zone to the orange zone if a mass swab test was not carried out.

"But the impact is that the students are positive but it is not known that they will return to their respective homes and can transmit to their families secretly because they are not symptomatic," he said.

"Moreover, if it is infected to the elderly it will have a more fatal impact. It is better to do a mass swab test but the findings are increasing rather than being ignored," he continued.

Epidemiologically, the more positive case findings, the better, because new cases will not be found if tracing is not carried out so that the link can be broken, he said.

Meanwhile, until April 27, 2021, the total number of Padang residents exposed to COVID-19 reached 17,387 people, recovered 16,319 people, and 320 people died.