Schools to reopen?

According to sources, there are some areas where the COVID curve is beginning to go down. Seeing this along with the high vaccination rates, students can now expect to go back to schools and colleges.

Dr. Anurag Agrawal is the director of Delhi-based Institute of Genomics and Integrative biology, chair of World Health Organization’s advisory group on Sars-CoV2 virus evolution and de facto, the only Indian member present in the mentioned group.

Dr. Agarwal says that prolonged shutting down of educational institutions can adversely affect a child’s physical and mental development and that, in his opinion, was a much bigger problem than catching COVID.

Furthermore, he says that the risk of catching COVID (to a child) is not much greater than going to Leh. Therefore, if one isn’t worried too much about going to Leh, then they must not worry too much about sending their children to schools.

Backing up his opinion with proofs, he mentions that the vaccination rates are high, the immunity is bettering and the COVID-19 pandemic is going down in many places. He says that now, people can resume their daily life activities with not very difficult precautions.

Several people asked if the COVID-19 pandemic was in its endgame. Dr. Agarwal answered this by saying that the definition of “endgame” is relative. If endgame means the end of the pandemic, then no, it is not here.

But talking about going to near normal lifestyles with simple precautions, it is already here. Adding on, Dr. Agarwal says that he does not see the point of keeping the schools shut for much longer, at least in the big cities.

He also informs that the reopening of educational institutions is in his top priority list. The most important point that he has informed is that the Omicron variant should not be considered as a natural vaccine as it is still causing hospitalizations and deaths.

Updated by Urvi Ramchandani