BENGALURU: Some private schools in Bengaluru have requested parents to watch out for new symptoms that the new variant may present, and also refrain from sending their children to school if they have guests from other countries or have travelled from districts with high clusters.
“The new variant may present itself with a different set of symptoms, like excessive fatigue and aches in the body. Kindly do not send your child to school if there is any hint of the child being unwell with symptoms mentioned above, or have fever, cold, cough etc. If any child is found to be unwell while at school, he/she will be isolated and the parents will be required to pick up the child ASAP,” read a note sent to a parent by a private school in South Bengaluru.
Meanwhile, a school in North Bengaluru has said that children who have guests from other cities or countries where the number of cases is rising, must not be sent to school till the guest’s quarantine period is over.
With the emergence of clusters in medical colleges and some residential schools in the city, private schools with hostel facilities have decided to shift back to day boarding soon.
Meanwhile, president of Karnataka Private Schools Association (KSAMS) D Shashikumar has asked the state government to ensure that proper SOPs are given to monitor space outside the school premises, which may be the primary reason for children to get infected.
He says, “It is not school where children is catching the infection, but spaces outside like coaching classes, private tuition, bus stops, malls where monitoring is not happening. The government should first do that.”
Doctors also said that parents should ensure that children do not attend social gatherings. Schools noted that both wards and parents should refrain from outstation travel if it is unavoidable.
Rashmi Kamath, a parent of a child in a private school, said, “My daughter’s school told us not to send the child seven days after we return to Bengaluru from Dharwad. The teacher is monitoring the child to see if there are any symptoms. We have negative RT-PCR and will be sending our son to school soon.”
Paediatricians, meanwhile, recommend that the child’s Vitamin supplements and Vitamin D is monitored as prophylactic measures.
MCC students in panic over case on campus
Students from Mount Carmel College in the city are in panic as they believe a student tested positive, while no authority has confirmed the same.
Officials either did not respond to calls or passed the buck among themselves to divulge information.
At present, just the first-year students are coming to campus for offline classes. Second and third-year students will write exams offline from December 6, they said.
Should they want to skip this exam, second-year students said they were asked to take the supplementary exam next year.
Neither the principal nor the vice-principal responded to calls. BBMP health officials Dr Savitha and Dr Naveen refused to divulge information, pointing to each other to give information.
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