Schools and educational institutions should reopen in a graded manner say three Public Health Expert Associations in a letter to Prime Minister Modi.
Indian Public Health Association,
The Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine
And
The Indian Association of Epidemiologists
said that the long halt has led to an impact on the teaching-learning system and the mental states of the students and the teachers.
The experts said,
“It is time now to move towards normalcy. The reopening should begin in a graded manner and there should be a realistic approach, especially in the containment zones,”
20 members of the joint Covid-19 task force went on to say that the reopening can happen if social distancing is checked upon and alternate day attendance may be useful in non-containment zones.
The Unlock-4 guidelines very clearly state that the schools and colleges will remain closed but experts say that the closure is affecting the lower economic class students who are deprived of online aids.
“Sufficient evidence is available that infected young children are at extremely low risk of developing morbidity,” the public health experts said.
The experts have requested to lift the lockdown and to impose it in clusters as a strategy to curb the virus only after weighing its impact on the livelihood of the population.
“The focus should instead be on preventing deaths from Covid-19 and not containing the infection,” they added as aggressive testing acts as an advantage in the containment zones.
The experts said that the guidelines must be made stricter in order to fight Covid-19.
The experts said, ” Knowing the natural history of the disease and at-risk population, testing should be used with proper care. Targeted testing of high-risk individuals, healthcare workers, elderly with comorbidities, screening prior to surgical procedure is recommended.”
The associations added that assuming that ‘the vaccine may not be available in the future years’ and the rumors of the same should be avoided.
The public health experts include Dr. Sujeet Kumar Singh, Director at the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
Dr. AC Dhaliwal, Former Director, National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, and others.
