COVID-19 seems to be becoming a real threat once more with daily cases rising in Delhi and other states in India. In the national capital, the positivity rate has increased to 5.33 per cent, with cases seeing a spike from 131 cases on April 1, with a positivity rate of 0.57 per cent, to 517 cases recorded yesterday on April 17.
Cases are also being reported at schools that fully reopened only last month in March after being forced shut due to the third wave again in January. However, if a fourth wave does hit India, schools, at least in the national capital, are hoping to avoid another round of full closure again. Last week, the Delhi government announced a series of measures to control the spread of the virus among school staff and students, such as wearing masks in classrooms where a student has tested positive and boosting sanitisation efforts.
According to a report by India Today, schools themselves are working towards creating an environment to work with the uptick in COVID-19 cases, instead of shutting down completely. Students and teachers who test positive are required to quarantine immediately and cannot return to school unless they have fully recovered and can produce an RT-PCR-negative report. Testing and tracing of possible contacts, including classmates and students who might use the same transport as an infected pupil is also being adopted.
Delhi's Education Minister Manish Sisodia had also announced last week that the government was not inclined towards another complete shut down of schools either. “It is in everyone's interest that schools should remain open and we have made these guidelines so that if any teacher or student is found to be positive for COVID-19, then we should close that class or wing and work,” he told India Today.
