Centre says districts with less than 5% Covid positivity rate can move towards reopening schools

The central government on Thursday announced that those districts with less than five per cent Covid positivity rate could move in the direction of reopening schools.

The Centre, however, mentioned that it was up to the respective state governments to take a final call in this regard.

Noting that the pandemic situation has improved and there has been a consistent decline in new Covid-19 cases, Niti Ayog Member (Health) VK Paul said: “We have more confidence now to go in the direction of reopening schools.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education (MoE) officials said schools have completely resumed operations in 11 states, while partially in 16 states. However, nine states are yet to give green signal to schools in their respective jurisdictions for the resumption of classes.

They said, following the “extensive” vaccination coverage, the ministry had, in December, revised the guidelines issued to states for reopening of schools.

The MoE officials added that all states have vaccinated at least 95 per cent of the teaching and non-teaching staff, while few states have achieved 100 percent vaccination coverage for them.

“The pandemic situation has improved. Though there are states and districts of concern, there is an overall contraction in the spread of infection, which is heartening. There are 268 districts where the positivity rate is below five per cent. And clearly, these districts can move in the direction of non-Covid care and also in the direction of other economic activities as well as school reopening,” Paul said while addressing a press conference.

He added: “However, the broad issue is that we would still like to ensure that schools and students adhere to protocols and standard operating procedures, because we are still in the midst of the pandemic.

Mentioning that the nation was concerned that there has been a significant learning loss, Paul said schools should be open at the “earliest opportunity, but also at the appropriate time”.

“It (school closure) had other imperatives in the absence of vaccine. Now, we have more confidence to go in the direction of reopening schools, but according to the SOPs,” Paul added.

According to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday, India’s total tally of cases rose to 4,18,03,318 with 1,72,433 people testing positive in a day, while the active cases decreased to 15,33,921. A reduction of 87,682 cases has been recorded in the active Covid caseload in a span of 24 hours.

(With PTI inputs)