CHENNAI: Justifying the decision to reopen schools in Tamil Nadu from February 1, Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan on Monday said it was based onJ Radhakrishnan medical experts’ recommendations. The experts highlighted that continuous online education could affect children’s learning, Radhakrishnan said, adding that the World Health Organization (WHO) and scientists across the world have warned of the risks of keeping schools closed for long.
The health secretary said this at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital here, where he inspected the facilities and interacted with Covid patients and doctors. At the district level, surveillance officers have been appointed to issue an alert in case there are two or three fever cases in schools. If schools are not opened now, when the number of cases is reducing, children will be kept away for too long, Radhakrishnan added.
After visiting Covid patients, he said, “It was nice to see many Covid wards vacant, but equally worrisome to see that even now, elderly, co-morbid, and unvaccinated people, and those with the Delta variant, have challenges.” “A visit to Covid wards and ICUs is a stark reminder that people should still focus on soap (washing), mask (wearing), and social distancing — SMS — apart from avoiding closed, crowded places. And of course, all eligible people should get fully vaccinated,” Radhakrishnan said.
He also pointed out that while the test positivity rate (TPR) is high in Krishnagiri and Ranipet districts, it has started declining in Namakkal, Tiruppur, Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Erode, Salem, Theni and Tiruvallur. The State is expecting 15,000 to 20,000 new cases per day.
While the State is opening up with certain restriction, it is also conducting localised analyses on Covid cases and taking all preventive measures, Radhakrishnan said. He also appealed to the public not to spread false information about the NeoCov variant of the coronavirus, which was detected in bats in South Africa. It is not true that one in three people who get NeoCov will die, he said, adding that there has been no transmission of the variant to humans.