HP schools could be closed for a brief period to break covid chain

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, November 9

With a steep rise in the number of government school teachers and students getting covid infection, the state government is likely to take a call on either closing the educational institutions or ordering a brief closure to break the infection chain.

The Education Department has been asked to provide complete details of teachers and students who had contracted the infection so far so that complete statistics could be placed before the government. The matter is likely to come up for discussion before the Cabinet, which will be meeting on Tuesday in the absence of Education Minister Govind Thakur, who has been admitted to hospital in view of covid infection.

Sources said there is a possibility that educational institutions might be closed for a week to 10 days to break the infection chain in view of the sudden spike in cases in the state.

A decision has been taken to start first and final year classes in the medical colleges after Divali and after a fortnight resuming classes for second and third year medical college students as well. Now it remains to be seen if this will be possible considering the sudden spurt in covid cases. It has also been planned to hold examinations of MBBS and BDS (dental) students in the near future.

Sources in the Education department revealed that as many as 123 teachers in various government schools had tested positive, giving rise to apprehension of spread of infection among students. The number of students in government schools who have tested positive so far stands at four.

“The manner in which the infection has spread among 67 students and 25 teachers and staff members of Tibetan Children Village (TCV) School at Chauntra in Mandi district set alarm bells ringing and now we want to tread very cautiously,” said Health Department officials.

Though the TCV School has boarding facilities where students returned from far off places like Nepal and Ladakh, chances of transmission among day scholars remains very high, he added.

It was on November 2 that all government schools opened for students from classes IX to XII. Even though 74 per cent parents had favoured opening of schools and colleges, the attendance has barely touched 30 per cent. What has added to the worry of the government is the rising infection among teachers and students across the state.

About 674 covid cases were reported in the state yesterday with an average of almost six deaths daily. Almost all hospitals, including Indira Gandhi Medical College (IGMC), are full to their capacity in terms of capacity of isolation wards for covid patients.

Join Whatsapp Channel of The Tribune for latest updates.