The Odisha government has issued a new guideline for strict enforcement of COVID norms in schools amid a surge in infections among children. Of the 762 new COVID-19 patients in the state, 102 are in the age group of 0-18. However, on Wednesday, the infection rate among children came down slightly to 13.38 percent from 14.57 percent on the previous day.
The fresh infections reported in 29 of the 30 districts took the state’s caseload to 10,13,567. The death toll from the coronavirus in the state rose to 8,070 with eight fresh deaths, a health official said. The fresh guidelines were issued by the Department of School and Mass Education on Tuesday after some children and teachers in Dhenkanal and Bargarh districts tested positive for the infection.
It said that students, teachers and other staff will have to compulsorily wear masks to enter the schools where classes are being conducted for students of classes 9, 10 and 12. A COVID Monitor, preferably the PET of the school, will have to ensure strict adherence. for social distancing norms. Anyone with mild symptoms should avoid entering schools. The notification states that thermal screening and availability of sanitisers should be ensured at the entrance.
While both offline and online classes will continue, no student should be forced to attend physical classes. The second wave of the pandemic has claimed the lives of 39 children, with 13 deaths between August 10 and 31. Out of 762 new cases, 443 were registered in quarantine centres, while 319 infections were traced during contact tracing.
Khurda district, under which Bhubaneswar comes, reported the maximum number of 314 new cases, followed by Cuttack (119). Boudh did not report any fresh infections. Dhenkanal and Khurda districts recorded two fresh deaths each, while Angul, Balasore, Keonjhar and Koraput reported one death each. So far 53 patients have died due to comorbidities.
Odisha now has 6,853 active cases. Khurda remains in the ‘Red Zone’, in which 2,617 patients are still infected with the disease. So far 9,98,591 people have recovered from the infection in the state, which includes 801 people on Tuesday. The state has so far tested over 1.85 crore samples for COVID-19, including 64,602 as on Tuesday. The daily test positivity rate was 1.17 per cent.
The administration has vaccinated more than 2.42 crore people, of which 59.98 lakh have been fully vaccinated.
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