Jakarta Closes School Again Due To COVID-19 Case Findings, Education Office Reluctant To Comment

Illustration of students attending school in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Between)

JAKARTA - The DKI Jakarta Provincial Government has again temporarily closed schools due to the findings of COVID-19 cases. However, until now the DKI Jakarta Education Office has not commented and explained further regarding the closure.

"Indeed, since yesterday there has been no official statement from the office, meaning we cannot comment yet," said Head of the Public Relations Sub-Division of the DKI Jakarta Education Agency, Taga Radja Gah, to reporters, Wednesday, July 27.

Taga emphasized that his party is still coordinating with the DKI Health Office regarding the findings of the COVID-19 case that infected a number of these students.

"There are still coordination meetings with the health department for consolidation," said Taga.

As is known, the temporary closure of schools due to the findings of COVID-19 cases in Jakarta was again carried out amid an increase in global COVID-19 cases, after previously sloping down.

Previously, the DKI Jakarta Provincial Government had temporarily closed schools in early 2022, starting from the application of face-to-face learning (PTM) with 100 percent capacity to 50 percent PTM.

It was noted that 706 schools were temporarily closed at that time. The school was closed due to the findings of COVID-19 cases in students, teachers, and education staff.

Now one school in Jakarta, namely SMPN 85 Pondok Labu, Cilandak, South Jakarta, has been locked down for 10 days from 18 to 28 July 2022. Cilandak sub-district head Djaharuddin explained the chronology of the case findings at the school.

On Thursday, July 14, 2022, there was a report of a class VIII B student being confirmed positive for COVID-19. The student was still in school the day before. The local health center immediately conducted contact tracing.

"As a follow-up, class VIII B was closed for 5 days and tracing was carried out on Friday, July 15, 2022 at the Cilandak Sub-district Health Center. Tracing was carried out on 41 close contacts," Djaharuddin told reporters, Thursday, July 21.

Then, on Monday, July 18, 2022, another case of COVID-19 was found in class IX F students. However, Djaharuddin said this case had no contact with the previous case.

Furthermore, on Tuesday, July 19, 2022, there was a close contact from a COVID-19 case of a class IX F student who was also confirmed positive for the corona virus. Thus, there are 3 cases of COVID-19 recorded at SMPN 85.

"Because positive cases were found as a result of close contacts with index cases, school clusters and schools were closed for 10 days for spraying of disinfectant," explained Djaharuddin.