AHMEDABAD: Ahmedabad has seen a surge in the number of schoolchildren being infected by Covid-19 in the last twenty-four hours.
As per the information received by the district education officer (DEO) on Thursday, 12 children studying in seven different schools of the city have tested positive for coronavirus.
The state education department officials have asked these schools to shut down the classrooms for 10 days in which the Covid-19 cases were detected. They have instructed these classrooms to switch to online education entirely.
“Schools have to inform the DEO office on a daily basis if they come across any fresh cases of Covid-19 infected students. On Thursday, seven schools have informed us that there are 12 fresh cases of Covid-19,” said sources in the DEO office.
They include three students of Maharaja Agrasen and three students from Udgam School for Children. In the case of Maharaja Agrasen, the new positive cases include siblings, one studying in Class 10 and another in Class 2. In the last few days, the duo has not attended the school, according to sources.
The cases in school-going children are on a rise in the city from the last few days. On Wednesday, three students were reported to have tested positive for Covid-19 and this has gone up four-fold on Thursday.
In the case of St Kabir School, two students, one studying in Class 11 and another in Class 6, reported Covid-19 positive, the school authority informed the DEO office on Thursday. “One student of Class 9 and two from Class 10 have tested positive. There was a meeting of the school trustees to discuss the issue of rising number of cases in schools. We will take a decision shortly on whether to continue offline mode as well or completely switch to online studies,” said Manan Choksi, executive director, Udgam School for Children.
Other schools that reported fresh cases on Thursday include Lotus School, C N Vidyalaya, H B Kapadia and DPS Bopal.
More than 100 schoolchildren in the urban centres of the state have tested Covid-19 positive in the last one month. Of these, about 35 cases are reported in Ahmedabad while Rajkot and Surat each have reported around 25 cases, said sources.
