BENGALURU: As pandemic restrictions have been lifted, a majority of parents in Karnataka have been sending their children to schools, a survey conducted by the social media platform LocalCircles shows.
The survey, conducted across 22 districts in the state, found that 63 per cent of nearly 4,000 respondents were sending their wards for physical classes. The percentage may increase to 75 per cent once the positivity rate drops to 1 per cent.
According to the survey, 43 per cent of the surveyed parents said they had already been sending their children to offline classes, while 20 per cent said they started doing so when the positivity rate in their districts dropped below 5 per cent.
As of Friday, the positivity rate in Bengaluru and Karnataka stood at 3.20 per cent and 3.34 per cent. The survey found that 6 per cent of parents would send their children to schools after the positivity rate falls below 2 per cent, while another 6 per cent said they would do so once it dips below 1 per cent.
The most common places where children were at risk of catching the virus, particularly the Omicron variant, was during lunch or snack breaks. “The risk is lowest if children are wearing a N-95/KN-95 mask and having their snack/lunch outdoors or shorter school sessions without a lunch break till TPR rate declines to 1 per cent,” the report stated.