PANAJI
Even as Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has indicated that his government will deliberate with stakeholders including all managements of schools and the teaching community before taking a final call on the State's Task Force recommendation on reopening campuses for physical classes, a member of the panel Dr Shekhar Salkar has cited statistics related to children affected by Covid to back the advice.
"An expert committee comprising of 23 specialist doctors have unanimously recommended that schools should start in Hybrid (online plus offline) mode in Goa at the earliest," Dr Salkar said, adding, however, that proper measures will have to be put in place and all logistic arrangements made.
According to Salkar, doctors including specialists who are part of the Expert Committee have expressed fear that delay in opening schools could have an adverse impact on children including bringing up psychological issues, as they have been unable to interact and mingle with peers for over 18 months now.
Salkar also said that 22,371 children in the age group of 0 to 18 were infected with Covid since the pandemic hit the State in March 2020. It works out to 1.2 per cent of the 1.76 lakh total infections in the State.
On mortality too, a total of nine children fell victim to the virus -- five in the first wave and four in the second.
Nonetheless, Salkar said the government seems to be threading cautiously and rightly so as it has to consider several other aspects including transportation and other support systems to schools before taking the final call.
Although Sawant has indicated that physical classes could commence first for students of classes X and XII before Diwali, the final decision is still a few days away and the State's Task Force is expected to meet to deliberate again on the recommendations of the Expert Committee and come up with more ideas to make the reopening safe.
