Grey College boys exposed to Covid-19 allowed home after AfriForum intervenes

Pupils at Grey College in Bloemfontein who had been quarantined after one of them tested positive for Covid-19, have been released into the care of their parents.

This is according to AfriForum, which had written to the ministers of health, education and co-operative governance demanding that the pupils' rights to self-isolate be respected.

“AfriForum regards this as a huge victory for the rights of the children and their parents, but also for everyone who is being exposed to state abuse of power,” it said.

The school for boys said in a letter to parents on Wednesday that the pupil, who hails from Pietermaritzburg and stayed in the hostel, woke up on Tuesday with a headache and a “bad cough”.

The school said he had not displayed any symptoms or fever since Sunday.

AfriForum said the parents of the pupils who were isolated were told that they would “be the property of the state” for the next 14 days and that the parents would not be allowed to visit them.

“In addition, where they had been housed in single rooms in the school’s hostel, three to four of them were then placed together in rooms in the guest house, which made it impossible to maintain social distance. They were therefore more at risk of being infected with the virus than before,” said AfriForum.

Carien Bloem, AfriForum's manager of education, said: “AfriForum is grateful that justice has prevailed and that the learners have now safely been returned to their parents’ care. We will immediately intervene in cases like this, because it is unacceptable for children to be misused for the furthering of political agendas.”