Karnataka: Vaccination for school staff on priority to ensure safety of students

Karnataka Health & Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar in a media interaction said that all teaching and non-teaching staff of all government, aided and unaided schools will be vaccinated on priority basis to ensure the safety of students.

Bengaluru: All teaching and non-teaching staff of all government, aided and unaided schools will be vaccinated on priority basis as a safety measure, said Health & Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar. He was speaking to the media here on Thursday.

Schools will have to be reopened sooner or later. Children can not rely on online classes forever. Online classes may impact the psychological health of children. Therefore, we will have a wide consultation process before arriving at any decision. Experts opinions will be considered for making such decisions, he said.

"School staff will be accorded priority for vaccination. Parents and family members of the students have already been vaccinated. Our vaccination coverage will cross 3 crore doses in few days. Many people have developed antibodies themselves."

Permission has been given to reopen medical colleges. Higher education classes will also be started shortly. All educational institutions will be reopened in a phased manner and measures will be taken to ensure the safety of children. The matter will be discussed with the Chief Minister, said the minister.

Five percent of the total cases in the state are being subjected to genomic sequencing to look for new variants. Everything is being done scientifically. The information is shared with ICMR, said Dr Sudhakar.