Mumbai: Amid a rapid surge in COVID-19 cases in Mumbai, including the Omicron variant, the civic body on Monday decided to shut schools of all mediums for classes 1 to 9 and 11 till January 31st, a civic official said. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that students of classes 10 and 12 are excluded from this decision which means they can attend schools in person.
Classes for students of 1 to 9 and 11 will continue in online mode, as directed earlier. Chahal, the head of Mumbai’s municipal corporation, said that amid the spike in Covid cases in Mumbai, the decision to restart physical school for students has been postponed to January 31st, 2022. India began vaccinating those between 15 to 18 years of age Monday onwards BMC hopes to vaccinate all the 4.5 lakh children between the ages of 15 to 18 by the end of January. In a span of 2 weeks, the positivity rate in Mumbai has spiked from 1% to 17%.
On Sunday, Mumbai recorded over 8,000 daily Covid-19 cases. This is the reason why there is no need to press the panic button while remaining very cautious, says Chahal. “We still have 90% hospital beds vacant and the percentage of asymptomatic patients is 91%”, he says. Mumbai saw such high numbers during the second Delta wave in March 2021 when hospital beds began to run out. Chahal says they are well prepared this time with Omicron proving milder as well as more beds and jumbo centres in place. A call on more restrictions will be taken at the next meeting, due to be held on January 10th.