Experts suggest reopening of primary schools amid Covid scare

Public health experts in India are suggesting that the government should reopen schools. Experts said that the threat of infections among children is low and even if they are infected with the virus it will be mild.

New Delhi: Even as Bharat Biotech is about to submit its phase 2 and 3 clinical trial result to India's drug regulator for emergency authorization for Covaxin for children, India's renowned experts have suggested that it's high time the schools should reopen.

Talking to ETV Bharat in an exclusive interview, public health expert and president of the Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine (IAPSM) Dr Suneela Garg said that school reopening is on the priority agenda of the government.

"One year of school closure is equivalent to two years of loss for a child in terms of development whether we talk of child to child development or overall development of the children. What children can get from going to school, they can never get at home," said Dr Garg.

She suggested that irrespective of vaccine availability, schools should reopen.

"We are amongst eight countries within the world where schools are closed," said Dr Garg.

She reiterated that if the children are infected, it will be mild. "Children below 10 years of age or even 12 years have mild infection. However, children between 12-18 years of age are vulnerable to non-communicable diseases," said Dr Garg.

Referring to the serosurveys, Dr Garg pointed out that more than 60 per cent of the children were infected "and during this period they were not going to school. They were inside home, but they must have visited market places from where they got infected and generate antibodies."

She suggested that adults should be protected first.

Significantly, many of the State governments have started opening schools from class 9 to 13. Although, parents are reluctant.

States like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab have decided to open schools for class nine to twelve.

"Only thing is that we have to vaccinate the teachers. However, schools opening depend on three perspectives including parents perspective, government perspective and scientific perspective," said Dr Garg.

Substantiating her statement behind the reopening of schools, Dr Garg said that barring a few states, the majority of states have got very low seropositivity.

"The Number of hospitalisation and mortality has come down across India," said Dr Garg.

Echoing the same view, another health expert Dr Tamorish Kole, president of the Asian Society of Emergency Medicine said that vaccination in kids is a critical tool to help stop the pandemic and resume their daily routine.

"They (children) can return to schools observing Covid appropriate behaviour. This may be challenging in small kids but by and large, most students can return to campus," Dr Kole said.

Meanwhile, India to date has administered 57 core Covid vaccine doses.

In another development, India has achieved the milestone of 50 crore Covid-19 sample testing with the last 10 core sample testing conducted in 55 days. Significantly, the number of India's Covid-19 testing laboratories also stand at 2800.