Uttarakhand: 80 govt school teachers test positive for Covid in Pauri

There are 302 government and 66 government-aided schools in Pauri district. (Representational Image)

Days after schools reopened in Uttarakhand for class 10 and class 12, over 80 teachers in 20 government schools have tested positive for the novel coronavirus infection in Pauri Garhwal district. The administration has closed these schools for five days and has directed to start contact-tracing to check if the infection has spread among the students who attended the classes taken by those teachers.

Schools in the state reopened on Monday this week after the state government decided to permit the schools to reopen for classes 10 and 12, issuing a standard operating procedure (SOP) for precautionary measures.

Chief Education Officer Madan Singh Rawat of Pauri district told The Indian Express that 80 teachers have tested positive in 20 different government schools in four blocks of Pauri, Kot, Khirsu, and Paabo.

Rawat added that the tests of these teachers were done before the reopening of schools but test reports came late on Thursday and they were found to be positive.

Rawat said that directions have been issued to close the schools for five days and sanitize the campus daily during the closure period as well.

“Directions have been issued that Covid-19 positive teachers must be isolated in Covid centres and will stay in home quarantine for another 14 days. They will be allowed to resume duty after completing quarantine period and submitting a Covid-19 negative test report,” Rawat added.

There are 302 government and 66 government-aided schools in Pauri district.

On Monday, a 17-year-old student of class 12 in a government aided-school in Ranikhet area of Almora district tested positive and the school had been closed for three days as a precautionary measure.

Pauri Garhwal has 3,245 cases presently, with 545 active cases. Uttarakhand has a total of 64,065 Covid cases till the date, with over 91.82 per cent recoveries. The death toll in the state stands at 1,047.

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