Coronavirus: Child being tested for Covid-19 at Hamilton primary school

Name: PM Jacinda Ardern dismisses coronavirus rumours on social media
Uploaded: 2020-03-19T13:55:16+13:00
Duration: 64 s
Description: PM Jacinda Ardern dismisses coronavirus rumours swirling on social media and says “everything else you see, a grain of salt." Video / Rotorua Daily Post

By Natalie Akoorie

Local Democracy Editor·NZ Herald·

19 Mar, 2020 01:27 AM3 mins to read

PM Jacinda Ardern dismisses coronavirus rumours swirling on social media and says “everything else you see, a grain of salt." Video / Rotorua Daily Post

A pupil at a Hamilton primary school is being tested for Covid-19, but the school remains open.

Hamilton East School, where 460 children are enrolled, sent an email to parents today advising that a child from the school was being tested for the coronavirus.

It comes as the Ministry of Health announced eight more confirmed cases on Thursday, taking the total to 28, and Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters called on all Kiwis to return home from overseas.

Hamilton East School principal Pippa Wright told the Herald the test results for the child are expected tomorrow.

Her understanding was the child's parents were a "local family" who had not travelled overseas.

If parents decided to remove their children from school until the results were known, it would be up to them, Wright said, but the school remains open.

"Although the Ministry of Education expects children to attend and so do we, it's the parents' decision in the end.

"We sent the email to support our community by telling them what we know. Now that they know what we told them in the email, [it's up to them] to make a choice about what they do.

"We just wanted to tell them a child has been tested because if we were parents we'd like to know."

Wright said some parents had already asked who the child is but that information was confidential.

"Some parents have chosen to take their children home and some of them have done nothing because they trust us."

The school has 18 classrooms and 25 teaching staff.

Parents were sent a reminder to keep children at home if they were unwell or showed any symptoms of the virus, to ring ahead to any medical facility and self-isolate as a precaution.

"We will communicate again once we have information."

Yesterday Director of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield announced two confirmed cases in the Waikato.

They were a man in his 70s who returned from Europe on Sunday, and a woman in her 20s who returned from Sydney on March 8.

The locations of the two residents was not provided.

It came at the same time the Avantidrome near Cambridge closed after a person suspected of having Covid-19 went there, and a Hamilton City Council worker was being tested.

Today the total number of confirmed cases jumped from 20 to 28.