The Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 has directed that all schools in the country remain closed for another two weeks and that all students who are still on campus at boarding schools should return home.

According to Minister of Health Khumbize Kadondo Chiponda, the directive follows a meeting which the Taskforce had on Thursday with the ministry of education.

“The decision which we have arrived at as a Presidential Committee on Covid-19 that is Health in collaboration with Ministry of Education we have come to this conclusions that with numbers and the burden of the disease still being there we have decided that all schools should remain close for another two weeks,” he said.

Kandodo, who was speaking in Lilongwe during the daily Covid-19 update, said after the two week period, the taskforce will conduct an assessment to determine the safety behind reopening of the schools.

“We will do assessment again after two weeks to see if the burden has gone down so that our kids they can go back to school, we do not want to send our kids to schools when the burden is still high, we would rather wait for the two the weeks and then we see how it goes,” said Chiponda.

She said: “And also we made a decision that those we were keeping in our boarding schools now they are okay, those who were positive now they are okay.

“So we are going to hold them any longer so are directing that all the kids who were in boarding schools now they should go back home, they have been tested, they are okay now they can go back home.”

Government has called upon all students, parents and guardians to continue observing all Covid-19 preventive measures even while at home.

All schools in the country were closed on January 17 this year following President Lazarus Chakwera’s directive amid a surge in confirmed Coronavirus positive cases.