As Covid cases drop, Gujarat to reopen schools for classes 1-9 from February 7

The education department of Gujarat, in a circular on January 7, had declared all schools to suspend physical classes for classes 1-9 from January 8 to January 31,2022, permitting only online teaching mode for these classes, in view of rise in Covid-19 cases.

On January 31, this direction was further extended to be applicable until February 5, with the state reasoning that the decision was taken “keeping in mind the existing corona situation in the state and also considering the wider health interest of the students.”

For classes 10 and 12, the state education department has continued with the teaching pattern of both physical and online classes, with the initial January 7 circular stating that “attendance is not mandatory for these offline classes and schools have to take written consent letters from parents of students willing to attend offline classes. For students not attending offline classes, the schools have to arrange online classes.”

The state, meanwhile, recorded 34 fatalities due to Covid-19 in a single day even as 236 patients are on ventilators at present.

Apart from Covid-19 deaths reported in the larger districts of Ahmedabad (7), Vadodara (5), Surat (4), Bhavnagar (5), Rajkot (3) and Jamnagar (3), other districts including Porbandar (1), Morbi (1), Bharuch (2), Banaskantha (1) and Mehsana (1) also reported deaths due to the infection.

Ahmedabad recorded 1,484 new cases on Saturday, nearly half of that reported on February 1, and only seven households were designated as micro containment zones in two areas, both in the west zone areas of Chandkheda and Navrangpura. Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation at present has 22 active micro containment zones.

Ahmedabad’s new caseload as a proportion of the state’s overall daily caseload is showing a reduction — from 33 per cent on February 4 to now at around 31 per cent.

Vadodara added another 1,012 new cases, comprising 21 percent of the state’s new caseload of Saturday.