Barely three weeks after they reopened for Classes 9 to 12, all schools in Haryana have been asked to shut again till 30 November, after around 172 students and an equal number of teachers across various schools in the state tested positive for COVID-19.
“Around 172 students and an equal number of teachers of various schools in the state have tested positive for COVID-19. So it has been decided to shut down the schools for the next 15 days. We will be conducting more tests,” Haryana Education Minister Kanwar Pal said, according to ANI.
The states education department has asked for sanitisation of all schools, which had reopened on 2 November, when cases of coronavirus in the state had declined.
According to an earlier report by news agency PTI, the highest number of cases have been recorded in Rewari, where 91 students across 13 schools have tested positive, followed by 34 students and two teachers from Jhajjar.
In Jind, around 30 students and 10 teachers have been infected with the virus. The condition of the children, who are between Classes 9 and 10, is stable and most of them have been placed under home isolation.
Students to Be Screened in All Schools: Health Minister
According to officials, schools in which the cases were detected have been shut for a few days following government guidelines and the health of the students is being constantly monitored.
Additionally, students and teachers who had come in contact with the infected children are being screened for the virus as well.
Anil Vij, the Health Minister of Haryana, has said that health department teams will conduct health checkups of students and staffers in all school, and action will be taken against schools not following SOPs.
In Rewari, random samples of around 1,000 students across 12 schools were taken after 19 out of 35 students screened for the virus in a government school in the district’s Kund area tested positive for the virus.
While 4,800 random samples were collected from schools in Jind over the past two weeks, around 1,200 samples of students were collected in Jhahhar before Diwali.
(With inputs from PTI and ANI)
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