 Though the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations has not yet in receipt of correspondence from the St. Lucia Teacher's Union, we wish to clear the air on the letter being circulated to its membership. Over the past week, the threat of COVID-19 has become more and more real in our region and precautionary measures have been instituted at all of our schools locally. One document which seems to be creating a bit of a stir is one which references a 30% outbreak for the closure of schools. The Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations wishes to indicate that this piece of communication was extracted from the National Influencer Plan and circulated as a guide for handling the novel coronavirus. As with every other country where the virus has impacted adversely instruction, in St. Lucia, the Department of Education, Innovation and Gender Relations takes its cue from the Ministry of Health under the leadership of the Chief Medical Officer. We can all appreciate that this situation is fluid and subject to change as information becomes more available. My Chief Education Officer can speak to the various engagements held with stakeholders to date. We are really concerned about the health and safety of all of our stakeholders. Our parents, our students, our teachers, our support staff, our leadership and our administrative staff. And so it is always our objective to ensure that that remains paramount to everything that we do. Consequently, we have engaged stakeholders across the board and we will continue to do so because we are experiencing an epidemic that will impact the entire world. And under the leadership of the Ministry of Health, we continue to provide guidelines, we continue to react to the situation, we continue to also be proactive about what measures and guidelines need to be put in place. A very big part of what we do is to encourage responsible behaviour, is to continue to encourage sound hygienic practices and to this end we have circulated on several occasions all of the guidelines and protocols shared to us by the Ministry of Health. We want to reiterate that the Ministry of Education continues to work collaboratively with the Ministry of Health to ensure that this epidemic and this pandemic does not negatively impact us. There are plans in place to ensure that the correct measures are taken in the event we need to close schools. To this end, I must emphasise that the Department of Education has engaged our principals, our district education officers, parents and teachers at all of our schools. We wish to encourage persons to continue following the guidelines as proposed by the Ministry of Health. Thank you.