PANAJI
Schools, across all standards in Goa have been cleared for opening from November 22, the state government’s steering committee on Covid management decided on Tuesday, even as Goa Medical College Dean Dr Shivanand Bandekar said that the third wave was more likely to be a non-consequential affair.
Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the committee chaired by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Dr Shekhar Salkar said that schools in the state were cleared to resume by November 22.
“Schools will start from November 22. The Director of Education will talk to school managements and see how it can be done. SOPs will have to be put forward (by the government),” Salkar said.
Salkar also said that the committee deliberated key issues like staggering of school timings, especially in education clusters, like the one at Kujira, near Panaji, in order to ensure that school children avoid excessively milling with each other.
“Only problem is where there is a cluster. If all schools start together and close together, there may be a crowd. We are looking at staggering of school timings. So that at a given time there will not be too many children mixing with each other. Individual schools can also stagger class timings,” Salkar said, adding that teachers will also be directed to ensure that students do not intermingle unnecessarily.
Salkar also said that no daily assemblies would be allowed, when schools decide to re-open. “Local public health centre and community health centre doctors should also visit schools for checkups,” he said.
Salkar also said that there were fewer chances of school children contracting Covid, adding that hardly any children were admitted to Covid facilities with infections in recent times.
“There are low chances of children contracting Covid, even if it does happen it will be like the flu. No fresh admission of children in hospitals has been reported. Ninety-nine per cent of the population may have been hit by the virus, we don’t know,” Salkar said.
Dr Bandekar who was also present at the meeting said that the government also has a backup plan in place in case Covid cases in the
state increase.
“For that also we have a backup plan. It is not that we will just start it. Back up plan will be like this, suppose we see the positivity rate is rising, then the expert committee will immediately meet and we can take stock of it,”
Bandekar said.
“Even if we get a hotspot, it has been decided that we will work together and try to curtail (it). Those precautions will be taken. It is not that we will just start and then look at the cases rising,” he added.
Commenting on the possibility of a third Covid wave striking the state, Bandekar said: “If you see the activities around, if the third wave was to come, it would have come by now. You must have seen a lot of festivals have taken place. A Lot of tourism is going on. What we see is cases are not rising, which is a good sign”.
“When the cases are static and low, I think we are now able to say that the third wave is going to be very very low profile, if at all it comes,” he also said.
