Zubair Qureshi
Various teams of Islamabad’s District Health Office (DHO) are conducting coronavirus tests of the school teachers ahead of schools reopening w.e.f Sept 15.
After schools, public sector universities and colleges will be their target, said a senior official of the DHO while talking to Pakistan Observer here Thursday.
There are a total of 423 schools, big and small, working under the umbrella of the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) and since Class IX and Class X are resuming from coming Sept 15 while Classes VI to VIII from Sept 23, authorities are taking every possible precautionary measure to check the spread of coronavirus that has dropped considerably in the country.
We are pretty sure to complete covid-19 tests of all the schools’ teaching and non-teaching staff before reopening educational institutions.
On Thursday, the country reported 441 new cases of coronavirus and six deaths in the last 24 hours while the number of those recovered in the same period were 1,444.
According to the District Health Officer of Islamabad, Dr Zaeem Zia active cases of coronavirus in Islamabad have dropped by 2.1 % while currently a total of 333 active cases of Covid-19 are present in the country. The death rate is 1.1% while 96.77% have been recovered from the pandemic.
About reopening of schools and colleges in the current month, the District administration and the health department are taking extraordinarily careful measures like hand sanitization at all schools and sanitization of all the students/visitors and staff members, visitors etc are must.
Similarly, the students needed to wear masks whether it is an ordinary face mask or cloth-made, hand-woven mask.
Body temperature will also be gauged at the entrance point and those with even minor temperature or with complaint of cough or sneezing will be sent back.
According to the health guidelines, in the first phase, secondary classes will start first after which primary classes will begin.
The number of students in a class will be reduced, which means half of the students will attend the session one day and the other half on the other day.
Students will have to wear face masks at all times. It’s better if the masks are made at home. Besides, social distancing and washing hands should be strictly implemented.
It will be ensured that sanitizers will be installed in schools and students should be encouraged to use them repeatedly. Every student attending school will have to get tested for coronavirus in two weeks. Students with lower immunity levels should not be sent to school.
