Healthcare workers inoculate children against COVID-19 in Mumbai. Photo: PTI
- A majority of teaching and non-teaching staff in schools is vaccinated in most states, said the Union education ministry.
- Currently, schools stand fully closed in nine states and only partially open in 16.
- The Centre said the final decision on reopening rests with state and district administrations depending on the respective case counts.
New Delhi: The Union government has advised states and union territories to open schools, while following guidelines to ensure the safety of students and the staff. Many independent experts and parents’ associations have been pitching for school reopening. The schools were shut as cases started rising due to the omicron COVID-19 variant.
Speaking to mediapersons at a press conference in New Delhi on February 3, joint secretary in the Ministry of Education Sweety Changsan said the final decision on schools reopening rests with state governments and district administrations, taking into account the trajectory of COVID-19 cases in their respective jurisdictions.
Changsan said schools can be opened safely by following the standard operating procedure (SOP), the details of which have been uploaded on the Ministry of Education website. These details broadly spell out what measures the schools need to follow to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection.
The education ministry official also said since a majority of the teaching and non-teaching staff members of schools have been vaccinated against COVID-19, the risk of the infection stands reduced. She shared state-wise data in this regard. At least in five states and union territories – Maharashtra, Puducherry, Tripura, Lakshadweep, Ladakh and Andaman and Nicobar Islands – 100% of teaching and non-teaching staff members have been jabbed.
In another 18 states and union territories – Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Daman and Diu, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan, Punjab, Chandigarh, Sikkim, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh – more than 95% teaching and non-teaching staff have got their shots.
In the same press conference, joint secretary in the Union health ministry Lav Agarwal said that 65% adolescents aged 15-17 years have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and a small number has also received their second dose.
While these figures are encouraging for school reopening, the Union education ministry also said that the state governments should instruct schools to remain flexible with attendance and not force parents to send their children to schools, while also ensuring staggered timings for different classes.
Currently, schools are fully open in 11 states, partially open in 16 and closed in nine states/UTs. These nine states/UTs are Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Puducherry, Jharkhand, Bihar, Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha.
National Covid Taskforce chairman Vinod. K Paul, who was also present at the presser, said there was no programme immediately to expand the COVID-19 vaccination programme to children and adolescents below the age of 15 years. “The priority is to immunise the target groups. Also, we are constantly reviewing emerging evidence (on vaccinating children) and how to expand our programme to younger age groups,” he said.
Unvaccinated, co-morbid people more vulnerable
Indian Council of Medical Research director-general Balram Bhargava gave a presentation comparing the profiles of people admitted to hospitals due to COVID-19 between November 15 and December 15, 2021, on the one hand; and December 16, 2021 and January 17, 2022, on the other.
The rationale between making these comparisons was that while omicron was dominant during the later period, the delta variant was dominant in the earlier one. However, such a head-to-head comparison of disease caused by the two variants is fraught with risks. While it is true that the two periods were dominated by different variants, the trajectory of cases in these periods was completely different: the later period saw a fresh wave with a significant uptick in cases, but there was no wave as such during the earlier period of study.
Bhargava was asked about this anomaly, but did not give a clear answer.
The data, which was collected from the National Clinical Registry on people admitted in 37 hospitals across the country, suggested that more younger individuals were admitted in the third wave driven by the omicron variant. The mean age of those who were admitted in the omicron wave was 44 years, while in the earlier period it was 55.
As far as deaths were concerned, during the third wave, 21.8% occurred among people who were either unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Of the latter cohort, as many as 83% had co-morbidities. This, he said, reflected that not being fully jabbed and having co-morbidities proved to be a double whammy if one got SARS-COV-2 infection.
The people who were fully vaccinated and yet died, also were predominantly those who had co-morbidities. Thus, co-morbidities became an important deciding factor, he said.
Don’t delay surgeries
Agarwal showed results from a recent study done at AIIMS-Delhi which revealed that the surgical outcomes of patients were not adversely affected if they got a COVID-19 infection during the third wave in India caused by the omicron variant.
Studies done in different parts of the world, which looked at surgical outcomes of those who got COVID-19 with earlier variants had suggested that chances of adverse results were higher due to the infection.
Referring to this study that looked at the death profile of patients after surgery in October 2020 (when the original strain of the novel coronavirus was dominant), Agarwal said chances of mortality were far more pronounced after any surgery if the patient got a COVID-19 infection just before the procedure.
Therefore, the patients were advised to delay their surgeries by at least seven weeks. Similarly, this study done in the US between 2020-2021 advised delaying surgery by eight weeks.
However, the AIIMS-Delhi data collected during the omicron wave suggested that even the complicated surgeries were not affected by COVID-19 infection. Out of 53 such surgeries performed, 40% required general anaesthesia (thus indicating complicated surgeries). Four among all those who went under the knife died. But not a single death was attributed to COVID-19, Agarwal said.
He elaborated that the four deaths happened due to hospital infections, bleeding and sepsis. (It is not clear if this data has been sent for publication in a peer-reviewed journal where the above-mentioned two studies were published.) Therefore, he advised that people shouldn’t delay their surgeries, including C-sections, anymore.