DepEd to let LGUs do tally of COVID-19 cases in schools

The Department of Education (DepEd) on Tuesday said that they will let local government units be the ones to provide data on the COVID-19 infections in schools so as to avoid “conflicting figures.”

Quoting Vice President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte, DepEd spokesperson Atty. Michael Poa said they will defer the COVID-19 reports specifically to the local epidemiology and surveillance units (LESUs), as also provided under DepEd Order (DO) 39, series of 2022.

“Ayon sa ating DO Number 39, the schools are supposed to report ‘yung kanilang mga nakukuhang reports on COVID cases doon sa LESUs at ‘yung LESUs naman ‘yung magve-verify at gagawa ng kani-kanilang follow ups,” Poa  said at a press conference.

(According to our DO Number 39, the schools are supposed to report COVID cases to the LESUs and the LESUs will then verify and do their respective follow ups.)

“Sa ngayon, we will really just defer to the LGUs kasi ang layunin natin ay maiwasan natin ‘yung pagbigay ng conflicting numbers sa public,” he added.

(For now, we will really just defer to the LGUs because our goal is to avoid giving conflicting numbers to the public.)

According to DO 39, schools shall: identify and report case clusters and other unusual health events to the LESUs; coordinate closely with LESUs for case and cluster investigation and confirmatory testing and management as needed; and monitor absences to determine if higher than usually recorded and investigate if the cause of absences is attributed to a similar event.

Duterte on Thursday said the reported COVID-19 infections in schools was a natural consequence of the reopening of different sectors, like education.

This came after DepEd confirmed receiving reports of COVID-19 cases in several schools.

Both the DepEd and the Department of Health (DOH) said that such events are expected since the pandemic is still prevalent in the country.

Vaccination

Further, Poa said that the DepEd is still in the process of updating its Learner Information System (LIS) to determine how many students are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

For the teachers’ part, he said that around 92% of them are now fully vaccinated, while 96% have received at least one dose.

Before the schools reopened for in-person classes on August 22, Poa said only 19% of learners were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, based on the LIS. — RSJ, GMA News