COVID-19 risk up in Bajura as schools reopen

BAJURA, OCTOBER 12

The coronavirus infection risk has increased as the local levels in Bajura have resumed operation of schools in the district.

Some teachers have returned to their work places with the virus from the Tarai, among other places. Health workers in the district said coronavirus infection has increased after the local levels reopened the schools.

Teachers from other districts have reached the schools after Swamikartik Khaper Rural Municipality decided to reopen schools and conduct real classes.

A teacher had reached Kailali on a Summit Airline flight from Dhangadi on September 22. His swab sample was collected for PCR test the same day he reached Dhangadi on September 20. He had to stay in the isolation ward set up in the rural municipality.

Chief at the District Health Office Daya Krishna Panta said other teachers, who brought the infection wit them, were also requested to stay in home isolation. Five persons who had come in contact with the infected teacher have also tested positive.

All of them were teachers.

Of the five teachers, four had come from eastern Tarai and one from Kailali.

Thirty-seven swab samples was collected for PCR test on Saturday. The local levels in the district have started physical classes despite the government notification.

According to Bajura District Education Unit, some schools have resumed classes in the tole, while some schools have resumed physical classes on the school premises. Almost all teachers working in Bajura are from outside the district.

Gopal Datta Joshi, chief of the education unit, said he was not informed that the local levels had resumed physical classes. He said that some local levels had started daily activities gradually.

Chairman Chiranjibi Shahi of Swamikartik Khaper Rural Municipality said schools were closed again after six teachers in the rural municipality tested positive for the deadly virus.

A version of this article appears in print on October 13, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.