Srinagar, Apr 11 :
All schools, including government and private, would remain closed till April 18 in Jammu and Kashmir as COVID-19 cases continued to rise unabated in the Union Territory.
The development comes days after the J&K administration imposed a night curfew in the urban areas of eight districts, including Jammu and Srinagar, to check the spread of the soaring COVID-19 cases.
However, health experts claim that the spread of the virus can be curtailed by increasing CVOID-19 vaccination, closing down parks and gardens to discourage huge gatherings, besides strictly adhering to guidelines, including wearing face masks and maintaining social distance.
“In view of the continuing spike in the reported cases of infection, all schools in the UT of #JammuAndKashmir shall continue to remain closed for imparting on-campus/in-person education to the students of all classes (i.e., up to and including Class 12), till 18/04/2021,” Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha wrote on micro-blogging site Twitter. On April 4, the administration had closed schools up to 9th class for two weeks while classwork in 10th, 11th, and 12th standards was suspended till April 11. A detailed review of the current COVID-19 situation in J&K was conducted with the Financial Commissioner, Health, Administrative Secretary
All J&K schools
School Education, Divisional Commissioner, Jammu, Kashmir, and other officers. In the meeting overall situation about the spread of COVID in the Union Territory and the continued trend of the spike in the number of daily cases of infection in some districts of J&K was reviewed,” read a government order.
The order said that based on the assessment, the State Executive Committee has ordered continued closure of all schools up to 12th class for imparting on-campus/in-person education to students till April 18. “It is clarified that this order does not prohibit the conduct of any scheduled examination, during this period, by any examination conducting body, subject to the existing COVID norms of adequate social distancing and sanitization,” it added.
The J&K administration on Thursday directed the divisional administration to impose a night curfew from 2200 hrs to 0006 hrs in the urban areas of eight districts, including five districts of Kashmir, which have witnessed a spike in COVID-19 cases.
Earlier this week, the administration suspended all ‘close contact sports’ activities as a precautionary measure because of the surge in COVID-19 infection in the Union Territory. This decision came, a day after all educational institutes, including government and private schools, up to class 12th were closed in view of the rise in COVID-19 cases in the Union Territory.
Amid a spike in COVID cases, Jammu and Kashmir government last month classified Srinagar as an orange zone while all other districts have been declared as green zones, whereas Lakhanpur was declared as a containment zone and Jawahar Tunnel area on either side as Red zones. As many as 1005 new positive cases of novel Coronavirus, including 706 from the Kashmir division and 299 from the Jammu division, were reported on Saturday when five persons died due to COVID-19 in the UT.
Meanwhile, DAK President and influenza expert Dr Nisar ul Hassan said Kashmir is reeling under the grip of a raging second wave of Covid-19 with the surge in cases and hospitalizations too. “J&K Government has announced the imposition of night curfew from April 9 in a bid to contain the spread of coronavirus. The virus does not take rest during the day and becomes active during the night. It doesn’t work like that,” Dr Hassan said.
He said there is no data to support the use of night curfew to reduce virus transmission. “Even union health ministry has written to states like Maharashtra that night curfew has not much impact on virus transmission. Instead of applying night curfew, we need to make people understand that corona is still here and they need to be cautious,” he said.
“Things like masking mandate, not allowing gatherings and improving ventilation in public places are all effective tools to stem the transmission of the virus. And key is to ramp up the vaccine drive and inoculate as many people quickly as possible,” he said.
“Also, the focus must remain on tracking, testing and isolation of cases. If we pursue these measures very aggressively, we may be able to control the situation soon. And, if we slip up on any of these measures, we will be down on a slippery slope for some months to come,” Dr Hassan added.
