Delhi govt will issue common guidelines for schools to manage Covid-19 cases: Manish Sisodia

Manish Sisodia said that the education department will be working on a new set of guidelines after Covid-19 cases were reported among school children and teachers.

Amid the intense heatwave across the country, the Centre had last week urged states and Union Territories to review their health facility preparedness (Express File)

The Delhi government will come out with a common set of guidelines for schools to follow if Covid-19 cases are detected among their students or teachers, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said Wednesday.

Schools began operating at full capacity in offline mode from April 1 but alarm over Covid has been rising with multiple cases from Delhi Public School, Vasant Kunj. A school representative said that so far, there are three confirmed cases among its students and two among its teachers. The school Thursday sent out messages informing parents of those children part of the affected sections and asked them not to send their wards to school if they have “any Covid-like symptoms”.

Read | Schools in Noida, Ghaziabad briefly suspend classes due to rise in Covid cases

While there had been detailed standard operating procedures (SOP) issued by the government for schools to follow to maintain Covid protocol in earlier phases of reopening, with schools going back completely offline, no SOPs were issued over what they need to do in case Covid cases are detected among teachers and students.

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Sisodia stated that the education department will be working on this now that cases are coming to light. “We are keeping track of all cases in schools and have been giving individual directions to schools where cases have emerged. For the next two-three days, schools have holidays, so I have asked the education department to come out with a common set of guidelines for all schools under the new framework. This should be ready by tomorrow… There is no big outbreak as of now. We are seeing 1-2 cases in schools. In some cases, it is a student, in others, teachers are testing positive for Covid,” he said.

Schools are closed on Thursday for Ambedkar Jayanti and on Friday for Good Friday.

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