Delhi Disaster Management Authority to set up panel to explore school reopening

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Friday decided to set up a committee of experts, including officials from health and education departments, to explore the possibility of reopening schools in the national capital. The panel will finalise a standard operating procedure (SOP) for reopening educational institutions.

Chaired the 23rd meeting of DDMA to review the COVID19 situation in Delhi and preparedness for the coming months, along with Hon'ble CM @ArvindKejriwal, Hon'ble https://t.co/3xD4X4WBJ0 @msisodia, Hon'ble Ministers @SatyendarJain & @kgahlot, Chief Secretary, Dr VK Paul-NITI Aayog, pic.twitter.com/gUyQYPFGeL

— LG Delhi (@LtGovDelhi) August 6, 2021

Lieutenant Governor (L-G) Anil Baijal, who chaired the DDMA meeting to review the pandemic situation and preparedness for the coming months, announced the decision to form the committee. "The health department was advised to take all necessary steps related to preparedness for any probable surge of infections. This includes augmenting hospital infrastructure and ensuring adequate availability of oxygen and drugs, besides ensuring timely conduct of sero survey and optimum utilisation of available genome sequencing capacity. Regarding the suggestion for opening schools and educational institutions, as advised by the experts it has been decided to set up a committee to finalise the SOP, evaluate the status of preparedness of schools, and vaccination of teachers and staff," Baijal tweeted after the meeting.

Present in the meeting were Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, Health Minister Satyendar Jain, Dr Randeep Guleria (director, AIIMS), Dr Vinod Kumar Paul (member, Niti Aayog), Dr Sujeet Singh (director, National Centre for Disease Control), Dr Balram Bhargava (director general, Indian Council of Medical Research) and senior government officials.

During the meeting, Sisodia said closure of schools, for over a year, has led to a major loss of learning and suggested their reopening.  The deputy CM informed the DDMA that 90 per cent of the eight lakh parents who attended Delhi government’s Parents-Teachers meetings conducted recently, want reopening of schools.

Health department to prepare for any surge

L-G Anil Baijal said the health department has been asked to take all necessary steps to face any surge in Covid cases. This includes augmenting hospital infrastructure and ensuring adequate oxygen and drugs

Government likely to undertake fresh sero survey

NEW DELHI:The city government is likely to undertake an advanced sero survey to determine the prevalence of coronavirus variants and identify susceptible pool among the residents. According to discussions held during a DDMA meeting on Friday, it was suggested that in view of the "comfortable situation" due to a drop in new COVID cases, an advanced sero survey should be undertaken.

"The survey will take into account extended epidemiological dimensions so as to identify susceptible pool and augment the genome sequencing efforts with an aim of prioritising vaccination," officials said.

The health department has been instructed in this regard, said an official. It was decided to undertake aggressive and targeted surveillance and testing in areas, locations and specific activities to ascertain and address any trends of concern as the next wave of coronavirus is being anticipated, Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal tweeted after the meeting.