Chandigarh Administration allows colleges to begin offline classes from August

THE UT Administration on Tuesday gave its nod to all institutions of higher learning in the city, including Panjab University, to begin offline classes for the academic session starting from August this year. However, the permission was granted on the condition that the teaching and non-teaching staff and students must have received at least one dose of the vaccine minimum two weeks ago and adherence to Covid appropriate behaviour is ensured on the campus.

UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore emphasised that the decision will be reviewed again in the coming days, considering the situation concerning Covid-19 spread.

Notably, educational institutions, including colleges, have been holding online classes for the last nine months. The various student bodies and teacher associations had been demanding to hold regular classes. Although the classes were being conducted online, teachers were bound to attend colleges and universities, to deliver the online lectures from the premises of the educational institutes.

Commercial events with 200 people or 50% capacity

The administration announced that commercial events, like photo exhibitions, painting exhibitions and shows, etc, will now be allowed to be held with prior permission from the SDM, with maximum 200 persons or 50 per cent capacity of available space. Th officials added that strict adherence to Covid protocol will also have to be ensured. Badnore took the decision in the war room meeting, which was attended by the senior administrative officers, including Adviser Dharam Pal and DGP Sanjay Baniwal.

Ensure strict Covid protocol at Sukhna Lake

Administrator Badnore directed DGP Sanjay Baniwal to take strict action against the violators of the Covid protocol, particularly for not wearing mask at Sukhna Lake and other public places.

17 cases of black fungus treated at PGI

Director PGIMER Jagat Ram said, “There are 24 Covid-19 cases at PGIMER. Almost all the OPDs have opened up in the hospital. We are doing about 120 surgeries daily. There are more than 410 patients in emergency. At least 17 cases of Mucormycosis have been operated and are receiving anti-fungal treatment. Further seven non-Covid cases of mucormycosis are waiting for surgery. He also informed that sero-survey for paediatric cases of 6-18 years age group indicates there are 67.4 per cent of children in sector areas, 74.3 per cent in rural and 73.2 per cent in colonies have antibodies.”

8,800 persons are being vaccinated daily

Dr Amandeep Kang, Director Health Services, GMSH-16, stated that 10,314 Covid-19 samples have been tested for the city during last week and the positivity rate was 0.22 per cent with overall recovery rate of 98.6 per cent in the city. She mentioned that 7,09,180 doses of vaccines have been given in Chandigarh so far. At least 77.25 per cent of the eligible population has been given the first dose and 20.4 per cent have been given the second dose. She also said that about 8,800 persons are being vaccinated daily. Currently, about 38,000 doses of vaccine are available at government hospitals and 46,700 doses are yet to be received from central government this month.