Schoolsfor Classes 10, 11, and 12 in Punjab are all set to open from July 26, withChief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Tuesday announcing furtherrelaxations, including increase in the number of people in indoor gatherings to150 and outdoors to 300, subject to an upper limit of 50% of the capacity.
Takingnote of the decline in Covid positivity to 0.3 %, with Reproduction number (Rt)at 0.75for Punjab (lower than the national average), the Chief Minister said schoolswill be allowed to open for classes X to XII, but only those teachers and staffshall be allowed to be physically present who are fully vaccinated. Physicalpresence of the students shall be purely at the consent of the parents and theoption of virtual classes shall be continued. An undertaking to this effectshall be submitted to the Deputy Commissioners concerned, he directed.
Ifthe situation remains under control, the remaining classes shall similarly beallowed to open from 2nd August 2021, the Chief Minister announced, pointingout that the Cambridge University has predicted that the cases shall furtherdecline in the coming weeks.
Withrespect to social gatherings, the ChiefMinister said artists/ musicians shall be allowed at such functions/celebrations in all areas, with adherence to due Covid protocols.
Therelaxations came days after the Chief Minister had ordered opening of bars,cinema halls, restaurants, spas, swimming pools, coaching centres, sportscomplexes, gyms, malls, museums, zoos, etc. at 50 % with vaccine compliance. Hehad also earlier allowed colleges, coaching centres and all other institutionsof higher learning to open with similar compliance.
TheChief Minister, during a virtual review meeting of the Covid situation, saidthat the month wise whole genome sequencing has shown that more than 90% is avariant of concern i.e. the original virus has been practically replaced byvariants, and the Delta variant remained predominant even in the month of June.However, there are no new cases of the Delta Plus variant, he noted.