Top KZN school cancels tour to Italy amid coronavirus

A top KwaZulu-Natal school has cancelled an academic tour to Italy – this after a man from the province who recently visited Italy was confirmed as SA's first positive coronavirus case.

In a communique to parents, Kearsney College, in Kloof, said that it had consulted with the parents of the boys who were supposed to go as well as a travel agent and saw it best to cancel the tour.

“A constructive and collegial meeting was held earlier this week with the parents of boys who were to tour to Italy in early April on the annual academic tour. A representative of the travel agency was present as well as Kearsney staff. At that meeting the consensus was that the tour would not go ahead,” said the school.

They assured parents that none within their community had come into contact with patient zero, that they had instituted extra hygiene and that school would continue as usual.

On Friday MEC for education Kwazi Mshengu said that there was no reason for any school in the province to close as a result of the coronavirus. He was speaking at Cowan House preparatory school where he and health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu, national minister of health Zweli Mkhize, the school's managers and other stakeholders met parents. This after it emerged that the children of the 38-year-old Hilton father of two who tested positive for the virus attend the school.

Mkhize assured parents that the department had the situation under control and that there was no need for panic in the country. On Saturday Mkhize confirmed that a second person, who was on the trip with the KwaZulu-Natal man, had tested positive in Gauteng.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated incident, Johannesburg private school St Stithians Boys’ College has asked a pupil to “self-quarantine” for the recommended seven days after it experienced a coronavirus-related incident at the school on Thursday.  

 “During an interview at the school, one of our parents received a message to alert him that his business associate in KwaZulu-Natal had tested positive for the coronavirus. Our parent has had no contact with the infected individual but had met this week in Johannesburg with colleagues who came from the same work offices of the infected individual,” said the school.