Almost every day the news about school students testing positive from various parts of the country is something that cannot be hidden by respective governments. Regardless of the adversities related to online classes and over screen engagement of students, life is paramount.
Today there has been a warning aired by the World Health Organization (WHO) calling for extreme precaution against the spread of the Omicron corona variant which has already made its way into many countries including India.
Now, since last one month there has been a race at opening of classes in many schools and ideas are there that some governments are mulling to throw open classes for the primary level.
Close on the heels of the Covid second wave when relaxations were given in SOPs, there was a free for all kind of situation when one can notice that the people have almost given up the guards. One in every three people can be seen without a mask and as regards distancing, hardly there is anything noticeable.
Going by the medical world, which till date wades through a thick of ignorance about the virus or its variants, the risk of infection routes itself through the facial parts like nose, eyes and mouth. Dos and donts are given a priority and on this the risk for the children is enormous.
According to a John Hopkins study, a human is prone to touch his/ her facial parts at least 200 to 250 times every day instinctively. In that case, let’s imagine what happens to a child. They do what they are often told not to. So, their such slips from the guidelines are unstoppable, so the risk of infection multiplies. How many schools can maintain the parameters of the SOPs and keep the children in check. It is easy to guess.
Let’s see what happened in many educational institutions in Odisha and similar such reports pour in from states like Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and few other states where students over 12 even have got infected.
So it is obligatory for the people in power to hold their horses for some more time before giving a free reign to schools etc. At least till such time we have a vaccine for children between 0-12.
