School, College Reopening: Delhi issues guidelines

Delhi Disaster Management Authorities yesterday announced guidelines including setting up of quarantine room for emergency use and staggered lunch-break as schools, colleges and coaching centres across Delhi resume in-person classes from September 1 after a nearly five-month hiatus.

Under the guidelines, students and teachers living in Covid containment zones will not to be allowed to go to schools and colleges.

Lunch breaks in schools will be staggered to avoid crowding and should be held in open areas, according to DDMA guidelines.

A maximum 50 percent of students per classroom should be called depending upon capacity, said the guidelines, adding that schools should prepare timetable as per occupancy limit of classrooms following Covid norms.

The Delhi government has announced schools and educational institutions can resume in-person classes in a phases from September 1 when all government schools will open for classes 9 to 12 and private schools can resume classes for 9 to 12 standards.

Coaching centres can also start classes for students of 9 to 12 standards while no decision has been taken on reopening junior classes yet.

The decision to allow resumption of physical classes in a graded manner has been taken in view of a marked improvement of the Covid situation in Delhi which added 32 fresh cases of the virus and zero fatality for the fourth consecutive day on Sunday.

The positivity rate in the national capital is 0.04 percent and it has remained below one percent for more than three months. Delhi has added a daily average of 32 cases over the past seven days.

Schools in Delhi have been shut since March last year when Covid-19 cases first started rising in the country. Classes resumed for a brief period in January and February this year before a devastating  second wave of Covid-19 put the healthcare infrastructure under heavy stress.

India reported 42,909 new Covid-19 cases for the past 24 hours, a government statement said yesterday, taking the total to 32.74 million. Deaths rose by 380 to 438,210.