In week schools reopen, students & teachers test positive in Andhra, but govt says don’t worry

After Andhra allowed schools to reopen on 2 November, 829 teachers and at least 575 students tested positive for Covid. The govt says these numbers are less, considering the pandemic.

Representational image for school students | Photo: ANI

Hyderabad: Andhra Pradesh officials say there is no reason to worry as hundreds of teachers and students tested Covid positive last week when schools reopened in the state. 

Andhra Pradesh reopened schools for classes 9 and 10 on 2 November. But in the week since, 829 teachers and at least 575 students have tested positive, all from government high schools. These numbers are from a total of 70,790 teachers and 95,763 children who underwent tests before 5 November.  

This is a positivity rate of 1.17 per cent among the teachers and 0.06 per cent among the students tested. The overall positivity rate in Andhra Pradesh is 9.68 per cent. 

The state administration, however, insists that the Covid numbers are not worrying, and said their focus is to ensure that more students from interior areas attend school. 

“Our turnout is close to 50 per cent, which means that it is the amount of parents who’ve agreed to opening of schools,” commissioner of School Education, V. Chinna Veerabhadrudu told ThePrint. “This is a good sign … we can go ahead and make sure more students come. This is a pandemic and the Covid numbers we’re seeing are very less if we compare with the overall strength.” 

According to statistics provided by the department, on 9 November, Class 9 had a turnout of 38.89 per cent and about 50 per cent of Class 10 students attended school. In comparison, 39.62 per cent of Class 9 students and 43.65 per cent of Class 10 students attended the first day (2 November). These figures were computed from the more than 12 lakh students who have enrolled for classes up until now in the state. 

Andhra Pradesh has reported over 8,41,464 Covid cases as of Monday, with the highest number of them in East Godavari and West Godavari districts. The death toll is at 6,802.  

‘Teachers tested before schools reopened’

The education commissioner insisted that most teachers were tested before schools reopened and hence the infection numbers cannot be called a ‘spike’ in Covid cases. The results of the tests, however, were released on 5 November. 

The number is likely to rise further though, as several district administrations are still conducting tests. The state education department ‘stopped’ taking the count of Covid cases since 5 November and handed over the task to the health department. 

“This is unnecessarily being made an issue and we are unsure why. We’re in the middle of a pandemic and have opened schools, so we have to look at it practically,” Principal Secretary Budithi Rajsekhar told ThePrint. “That being said, our department has been extremely prompt in ensuring there are all the Covid precautionary guidelines in the schools.” 

West Godavari district worst affected

At 172, West Godavari district registered the highest number of teachers testing positive, followed by Srikakulam (141) and East Godavari (139). The district also recorded the highest number of students testing positive with a count of 262, followed by Guntur (141) and Kurnool (119).

Veerabhadrudu said the government had little choice but to reopen schools for the welfare of poor students. “We need to understand that for several poor students, this is the only way of getting access to education — they do not have devices, no networks, so online classes are not possible for them,” he said. “Which is why we also decided to open schools. When all safety protocols are in place, there should not be much reason to worry.” 

The state administration has now left it to the district collectors to conduct the testing. While in a few districts, random testing of all teachers and students is being done, in some of them, only symptomatic people are being tested. This could also be a reason for the wide gap between a few districts. For instance, Krishna district has had zero positives as of 5 November and had only tested 26 teachers until then. 

Schools reopening in Andhra Pradesh

The Andhra government has decided to open schools in three phases starting with classes 9 and 10 on 2 November. 

School will restart for classes 6, 7 and 8 from 23 November and from 14 December for primary classes of 1 to 5. All the classes would run on a half-a-day basis and on alternate days.

Junior colleges (Class 11 and 12), which also started on 2 November, saw about 35.49 per cent attendance from Class 12 students Monday (9 November), according to data with the education department.