With Covid-19 cases showing a downward trend in the state, the Kerala government on Friday decided to re-open educational institutions from February 7, in addition to relaxing other norms.
The decision was taken during the core committee meeting headed by Kerala chief minister (CM) Pinarayi Vijayan who joined the session online from the United Arab Emirates.
“Classes in colleges and higher secondary will re-open from February 7 and Class 1 to 9 will be functional from February 14,” read the statement. The government had closed down all the educational institutions on January 21 after the test positivity rate (TPR) had crossed 40% in the state.
Similarly, all the places of worship will be open for devotees from next week onwards. During the meeting, it was also decided to relax the quarantine norms for international passengers coming to the state.
Now, only passengers with symptoms will need to home quarantine and they need not take another RT-PCR test on the eighth day of their arrival.
The TPR that had crossed 50% last week, came down to 32.1% on Friday. The state reported 38,684 cases after the testing of 1,20,496 samples, according to the health ministry bulletin. Hospitalisation also dipped to 2.9% from last week’s 4. 2% . As many as 28 Covid related deaths took the toll to 57,296. The state has an active caseload of 3.6 lakh.
“Our records show that the third wave is coming down. Infection rate has also come down to 10% now. Hopefully, things will be normal by next week,” said state health minister Veena Goerge.Criticising Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya’s statement that Kerala’s “pandemic measures were not well planned”, she termed it as “unfortunate.”
