 As the Department of Health and Wellness continues to prepare for the threat of the coronavirus, parents and guardians are being provided with guidance on ways to reduce a child's risk of infection. Director of the Bureau of Health Education, Natasha Lloyd-Philix, encouraged parents to ensure their children practice good hygiene in order to prevent the spread of germs. We are encouraging that parents have their children wash their hands thoroughly from home so that when they are in school environments, environments of play, or in another place where the parent may not be present, that habit has already been developed. Parents, we ask you please, when your children are at home, model hand washing. You need to show your child how to hand wash by you doing it yourself. What we have noted to be an area of importance is the duration that is given for hand washing. One way of helping your child is by singing the alphabet song to your child. That actually gives the period of 20 seconds that is required to have enough time to thoroughly hand wash. Ensure your child gets the palms covered, ensure your child is able to go between the fingers, under the nails, the back of the hands to allow for thorough hand washing. Lloyd-Philix also spoke on the best approach for infection prevention in schools. If per chance you notice your child is unwell, we are now in the flu season, the cold season. We ask you to keep your child at home as a way of protecting both your child and other children at school because by being in the presence of others, the chances of spreading disease, spreading germs, spreading the infection increases. We note that sometimes parents feel that they have no place to place that child but we ask you please to consider a plan that in the event your child were to become ill. It may not necessarily be from Corona if it was present in St. Lucia, it may be the flu that that child can be safely placed there to avoid him or her being in a school environment. Principles and teachers of schools around the island, I encourage to ensure that hands sanitizers are readily available and also classroom surfaces are cleaned and disinfected on a daily basis. Reporting from the Communications Unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, I am Fennel Neptune.