The Council of Education Ministers (CEM) has pulled the plug on all contact sports with immediate effect, following COVID-19 cluster outbreaks in public schools.<\/p>\n
According to the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the decision was taken during a virtual meeting held on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the department said non-contact sports training is permitted to proceed provided all social distancing, hygiene and safety measures are observed and there is zero physical contact between the participants.<\/p>\n
Minister Angie Motshekga gazetted directions in consultation with related stakeholders allowing non-contact sports, sports-related activities, school-based art, and cultural activities to resume without spectators when the schools reopened this year.<\/p>\n
According to the department, this was subject to adherence to health and safety measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the last week in term one, school sports activity related COVID-19 outbreaks in Gauteng province were reported and have been gradually increasing in term two,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
According to the department, it is evident that despite following the protocols as guided by the directions on extramural activities and standard operating procedure on prevention and containment of COVID-19 that contact sport was a contributor to the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollowing the school sports activities related COVID-19 outbreaks in Gauteng and the general rise of cases in communities across the country, the Outbreak Response Team said that the risk was high when engaged within close-contact sports, especially with people who did not live together,\u201d the department said.<\/p>\n
SAnews<\/em><\/strong> reported last week that academic activities were suspended in two schools in Gauteng after 11 Coronavirus infections were detected in Krugersdorp High School and six at St John\u2019s College.<\/p>\n \u201cIn this regard, all sporting activities have been suspended with immediate effect until the cluster outbreak is subsequently over with no further cases reported including the preparatory school sport.\u201d<\/p>\n The department said it will continue to monitor the situation and announced that a government gazette will be issued with notice in the coming days. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Council of Education Ministers (CEM) has pulled the plug on all contact sports with immediate effect, following COVID-19 cluster outbreaks in public schools. According to the Department of Basic Education (DBE), the decision was taken during a virtual meeting held on Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, the department said non-contact sports training is permitted to proceed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-189375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}